Greetings everyone. This is the first Foundation Newsletter of 2021. The passage of time is remorseless. It keeps moving giving us no time to pause, take a breather, focus, gather up our energy and get ready to face a new situation. Time pushes us on. Here we are already in the middle of January.
Thank you for all your responses to the newsletter of December. I appreciate your kind words. Thank all of you who shared family concerns and personal worries and asked for support in prayer. I remind you that I keep everyone of the Foundation Family in prayer every day. To those who lost loved ones for whatever reason last year and who let me know I thank you and I remind you again I say a mass for deceased loved ones when I can.
This is the start of a new year. My normal practice of visiting parishes has been suspended until Churches are again open to the parishioners. This was how I increased the number of donors in the Foundation network. We are striving to build a self-sustaining Church. If the present situation is anything to go by the financial situation of the Church going forward will be very precarious. That is why we need the baseline, the platform, the security of a Foundation to be able to continue a large part of the Church’s work.
The cost of everything is increasing. You all know that too well. I am not asking anyone to increase their contribution even by a little (though you may if you wish) but I am asking you to help in in another way. We are all getting on in years and we need to hand on the torch of Church support to the younger generation. Sons, daughters, nieces and nephews are all in a position to continue what you are doing, keeping the initiative of building the self-sustaining Church going forward. We will not be here forever so please do something to ensure that this project rolls on. Talk to them, and send me their name and number to do a follow up call.
Another simple way to support the future of the Foundation is to mention it in you Will. Leave 1% or whatever to the Bishops’ Foundation.
At the end of this newsletter I am including the banks details of the Foundation for those who have not contributed for a long time and may have lost these details.
Last year 2020 was out tenth anniversary. A special; word of thanks and appreciation to those who have been so faithful. They are part of the initial beginning group so long ago and are still contributing. God bless them. Their names are written for sure in the Book of Life.
Something else. Sunday 24 January, the third Sunday of the year in the missal is the Sunday of the Word of God. If we were at mass there would be a solemn procession with the Bible or the Lectionary and a sermon on the importance of the Word, the Sacred Scripture. All I can suggest is that you have you own solemn enthronement of the Bible at home, or use the missal, and every day in the evening, or on Sunday you read the passages for that day. The Covid is forcing us to be proactive and keep the faith alive in the home until life gets back to normal. You have to think of how you are going to hand on the faith to the children. Get them involved. They can be creative. Don’t forget the recitation of the rosary. Use the different forms of the rosary to keep it interesting (there is the tradition rosary, there is the Dolorous Rosary of Our Lady and there is the Chaplet of Divine mercy etc).
The Southern Cross now comes out as a monthly magazine. It is really worthwhile, very readable and very interesting, to my mind, much better than the old Southern Cross newspaper. It is worth subscribing to. Simply Google ‘thesoutherncross’ .
For anyone who would like to contribute. Here are the Bank details for the Foundation.
Name of our account SACBC Foundation
Bank NEDBANK
Branch Code 160445
Account number 1604879564
Type of account. Current.
Your reference (full name or cell is helpful to keep track) …………………………………………………………………
God bless you one and all. Fr. Barney
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