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1st Sunday of Advent A 2025, The Guildford Catholic Parish

As we embark on a new liturgical year, we begin a new era of mission, as Bishop Richard inaugurates the current parishes of the ‘Guilford Deanery’, as a single parish. So, welcome to Sunday Mass in the Community of St Joan of Arc, in the ‘Guildford Catholic Parish’. This is culmination of a process that began in 2018, when our bishop toured the eleven deaneries as part of a listening exercise, to understand the needs of the diocese now and as we approach the year 2030; although, at the start of this process no-one anticipated the COVID pandemic which made the need to consolidate the mission of our parishes more acute. As Bishop Richard said, if we see this process just as a restructuring exercise, we have missed the point! The objective is to make each community fit for mission – the announcement of the gospel.

Here in Farnham, we are likely to have a closer relationship with Holy Family (Heath End) and Holy Angels (Ash). This past year, after each Deanery Meeting, Fr. Robin, Deacon John and I have met as the clergy of our local HUB to consider what areas of co-operation might easily be fostered; and the chairs of our three finance committees have begun pondering terms of reference to ensure the financial health of our communities as part of the wider ‘Guildford Catholic Parish’. In our HUB, then, we aim to see this relationship with Ash and Heath End as something akin to ‘three-in-one’ and ‘one-in-three’, so that where common ground exists, we may come together for ‘prayer, formation and mission’, while at the same time, losing nothing of the uniqueness and diversity that makes our local communities what they are.

Above all, these conversations are about preparing for Christ’s Advent, our readiness for His Second Coming (or when the Lord calls us from this life, inviting us home to the Father’s House). As the Collect this Sunday prays, may [every parishioner of this community, HUB and parish] ‘resolve to run forth to meet Christ Jesus, with righteous deeds at his arrival, so that we, together, are made worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom’.
Fr. Simon.