At the beginning of Lent last year I wrote to encourage you in your parishes and communities to make 'A New Covenant with the Poor.' I am delighted to be able to report that many parishes have taken up this challenge and this has done wonders for our sense of solidarity and communion with the poor of the world. Thank you all for responding so generously.

I make no apology for returning to this theme again this year because it has to be a central factor in our preparations for Lent and for the celebration of the Great Jubilee of the Millennium.

That Millennium celebration cannot - and must not - be simply a question of building domes and buildings and having parties. It has to be a renewal of ourselves as members of the human family through conversion, repentance and reconciliation. One of the ways to give those qualities meaning is by our readiness to share whatever riches we have with those who have nothing.

The Holy Father puts the same challenge to us in his Lenten Message when he exhorts us "to evidence our personal conversion through a concrete sign of love towards those in need, recognising in the poor the face of Christ and repeating, as if almost face to face ‘I was poor, I was marginalised...and you welcomed me.’"¹

We need to build on the Covenant we have made with the poor.

We continue to need to find ways to express our compassion and solidarity with the poor of the Third World.

Nearly forty years ago small groups of Catholic women in organisations and parishes asked the same questions. Their answer was to invite us to fast on the second Friday of Lent and give the money saved to a collection for the poor taken at Mass the following Sunday. It was a simple, beautiful and powerful idea, bringing together, in one act of generous sharing, the great Lenten themes of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

This was how our tradition of Family Fast Days began and out of that came CAFOD, our own Catholic overseas development agency. CAFOD belongs to us, it is ours and we are justly proud of it. It is part of our Catholic life and one of the ways in which we as a Church show our commitment to Jesus' command that we should "be compassionate as our Father is compassionate."²

It is hard to keep the poor of the world always in the forefront of our minds, but CAFOD helps us to develop our sense of compassion for those in need and sustains our solidarity with them.

We are offered two Family Fast Days each year - one in September at harvest time, and one in Lent (March 6th this year).

Friday March 6th is therefore a day of prayer for the poor; it is a day of fasting in solidarity with them and with their needs, and it is a time for generous giving. We don't just offer crumbs from our tables, but an invitation to the poor to share with us at our tables and to be our honoured guests.

Some say that fasting is something from a bygone age but I don't believe that. When it is linked to a change of heart, linked to the pursuit of Justice, linked to the sharing of wealth with the poor, it makes real sense and is central to our Lenten observance.

The Family Fast Day is not simply another "second collection" - you are burdened with enough of those already. It is a genuine way of interweaving our lives with the lives of poor people in a partnership of prayer, solidarity and wealth-sharing.

Your support of it has been wonderfully generous in the past³ and that has enabled many people in many poor communities to have the chance to transform their lives.

It is one of the ways of implementing our New Covenant with the Poor and I commend it once again to your generosity this Lent.

But there are others who have a call on our prayers at this time and I am thinking particularly of those who are preparing to be baptised or received into full communion with the Church at Easter - our catechumens and candidates. This is a special time of preparation for them and I look forward very much to welcoming in the name of the Church as many as possible who can come to the Rite of Election in the Cathedral on Saturday February 28th.

Lastly, please don't forget the Mass of The Oils on the Tuesday of Holy Week⁴, it is a wonderful chance for the whole Diocese to celebrate with our priests and to give thanks for the generous commitment they make of their lives to the work of ministry in the Church. They so deserve our love and our support.

May God bless you all throughout this Lenten season.

To be read or made available on the weekend of Feb 21st/22nd 1998.

¹ Briefing - January 1998
² Luke 6:36
³ 1996 Collection raised £68,000
⁴ 12 noon in the Cathedral