This weekend of 11th & 12th May, we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. This Sunday we are called to reflect on the importance of the ministerial priesthood and on prayer for vocations to the priesthood. This is an urgent call for the future of our diocese. There will no longer be a special collection today - with the smaller number of seminarians - the funds collected over the past years are now sufficient for the near future. In his message for the World day of Prayer for Vocations Pope Francis says that there can be no greater joy than to risk one’s life for the Lord! He encourages us, especially the young, not to be deaf to the Lord’s call. 

"If he calls you to follow his path, do not pull your oars into the boat, but trust him. Do not yield to fear, which paralyses us before the great heights to which the Lord points us."

Next weekend, 18th & 19th May, we will for the first time hold a new collection which will be called the Ministry Sunday Collection. This new annual collection will replace the Share Collection and will be devoted to support the building up of new forms of lay ministry in our parishes. The work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus in our changing religious culture will require more lay men and women working in various ways alongside our priests at the heart of parish communities. The Ministry Sunday Collection is about ensuring that we will have the people we need - men and women who will be to the fore in making our parishes vibrant faith communities into the future. While many of those involved will be volunteers, we will have to equip and train leaders and provide facilities for formation. We want to work towards a situation where all parishes in this Archdiocese benefit from their gifts and expertise. The new collection is one-step in that process.