Dear clergy and people of False Bay and beyond
Thank you for communicating God’s love to those who you are called to serve. On Trinity Sunday, Jesus takes us by the hand and says, “Come with me and be led by the Spirit into the presence of the God I know as Father.” We are to share in the life of the God who is love.
YOUTH SUNDAY
Amidst all the sorrow and pain that our young people experience due to abuse, crime, violence, gangsterism, unemployment, rape, bullying in our communities, I want to say to you: Christ is alive and he wants you to be alive! You are not worthless or worth less. Thank God that those who commit horrible crimes are not the majority. I pray that our young people will discover what our Lord is calling them to do – whether it be nursing, ministry, carpentry, communication, engineering, teaching, art or any other kind of work. Never accept defeat. Jesus is walking in your midst. Perceive his gaze on you. Don’t take a route without real meaning, without clear goals. High school youths in 1976 contributed to the ushering in of SA’s robust democratic system.
FATHERS DAY
Every day 3 women die at the hands of their intimate partner. I ask that you break the silence, that you be the role model to your children. Reach out and affirm the dignity of your family and friends. Fathers, help us to build a loving, nonviolent community. I believe in the great capacity that you have to bring about healing and renewal. God the Trinity does not reject imperfection but embraces it, and in so doing, perfects it and makes it holy.
TRINITY SUNDAY
With great affection, I say to the entire People of God, live together in harmony. Each one of us is a book in which is written the things that Jesus has done. The good news of the Trinity is that we come to know and relate to God in a parental way. We include both motherhood and fatherhood as we speak of God’s parental love. The self-outpouring of God our creator, is expressed in God the Son, or God the Word. Through Jesus and his good news, we experience a third reality: the loving, harmonious Spirit that flows in and between and out from God the Parent and God the Son. Through the presence of God the Spirit we have deep, joyful, contagious communion.
In God the Trinity, we live and move and have out being. Through the Trinity, we experience God “from the inside.” Through the Trinity we transcend us-them thinking. We move beyond mine and yours, one and other, same and different. This shift in our understanding, leads us to seeing the Healing teaching of the Trinity.
Let us join the movement of the Trinity. From beginning to end, the Spirit leads us into vibrant diversity and joyful unity in beautiful harmony.
Thanks for participating in God’s mission in the world and our beloved Diocese of False Bay.
Love, Prayers and Blessings,
BISHOP MARGARET B. VERTUE