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On Saturday 4th December there was a panel discussion at Hilfield Friary about COP 26. The panelists reflected on the outcomes and challenges ahead coming from the conference. Speakers:  Br. Clark Berge, SSF, who attended as an Observer with Franciscans International, Andy Lester Head of Conservation for A Rocha UK, Rev’d Jonathan Herbert of the Hilfield Community and Rev’d Hilary Bond sharing their experience with the prayer witness organized by Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action, and Budi Tjahjono, Asia-Pacific Advocacy Officer from Franciscans International who attended on behalf of Franciscans International—an NGO with ECOSOC status doing human rights advocacy at the UN on behalf of the Franciscan Family.

It was joyful day in Leeds yesterday (Saturday 27th November), as Brother Vincent Paul made his First Profession in Vows at Saint Hilda’s Church, Cross Green.

Noviced in 2018, Vincent Paul has been in Leeds since last year and is very active with local charities, including food banks.

Many brothers joined him for the happy occasion, despite the travel challenges posed by Storm Arwen.

The attached photo shows Brother Benedict, our Minister Provincial, replacing Vincent’s old novice rope with his new rope of Profession.

Please hold Vincent Paul in your prayers as he continues with his important Christian witness and ministry.

Our CSF Sisters have gathered at Swanwick Christian Conference Centre for their Annual Meeting. It is their first in-person gathering since before the pandemic, enabling a wonderful opportunity to catch up after so long. They are at Swanwick until Sunday, please keep them in your prayers.

Scriptural Reasoning for COP26 – an insight from Br Joseph Emmanuel SSF

Although many people – including some of our own Sisters and Brothers – have headed off to Glasgow to register their commitment to Environmental Justice some of us have been able to do ‘our bit’ by praying for COP26 (and for the future of the world), by partaking in organised events (online and ‘in person’) and by learning a bit more about the issues we face as a planet. It seems to me that there is an ‘unprecedented’ interest in our world, in our environment and in the basic insight – taught by many Spiritual teachers and among them St Francis – that we are intimately connected with each other. Along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge we may say ““he prayeth best, who loveth best, All things both great and small; for the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all….”

I took part in an online scriptural reasoning session organised by New College (the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh) along with Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of no faith. We studied passages from the Hebrew Scriptures (Deuteronomy 20.19&20), from the Christian Scriptures (Matthew 6.25-33) and from the second Surah of the Qu’ran al Baqarah aya 164. If one looks at the passage from the Hebrew Scriptures one might, at first, be puzzled (for it refers to the way in which one should besiege a City) but Rabbi Mark Solomon (who introduced the text) referred us to commentaries from Maimonides and from the Sefer Ha-Chinnukh (a 13^th Century Spanish text). In the Sefer Ha-Chinnukh we receive a stark warning and I finish with it:

“….The purpose of this mitzvah is to teach us to love that which is good and beneficial and to cling to it, so that good becomes a part of us and we will avoid all that is evil and destructive. This is the way of the righteous and those who improve society, who love peace and rejoice in the good…: that nothing, not even a grain of mustard, should be lost to the world… Not so are the wicked, who are like demons, who rejoice in destruction of the world, and they are destroying themselves…” (Sefer Ha-Chinnukh.529)