We are already well into our Lenten journey towards the joy of Easter. We continue to pray for all the catechumens and candidates, as well as those who accompany them, who are preparing to receive the sacraments of initiation at Easter. I was very encouraged and inspired to welcome such a large number of them at my first celebration of the Rite of Election here in Liverpool. 

The Fourth Week of Lent, beginning on 15 March, opens with a wonderful number of feasts which interrupt Lent. In the Gospel of the Sunday, Jesus heals the blind man and restores his sight. We pray that during Lent, the Lord Jesus may help us to see others with the gaze of Jesus and show them compassion and love. The Fourth Sunday of Lent is also, of course, Mothering Sunday. We give thanks for the gift of our mothers and their special maternal care in families. We also recognise their unique gifts in professional life and especially in education. Most of us can remember our women teachers, sometimes religious sisters, who helped us to learn and discover the mystery of the world. We pray for our mothers, living and dead. Please make this a special day in your families.

A few days later we celebrate St Patrick on 17 March. It was Bishop James McGuinness of Nottingham who sent me to seminary at All Hallows College in Dublin. I had never been to Ireland, and so there began a good journey to prepare for priesthood, make life-long friends and begin to understand better the complex relationship between England and Ireland. Over this last summer, I visited Strokestown National Famine Museum in Co. Roscommon. After finding records hidden away in the house of the landowner during the famine, Major Denis Mahon, the museum was able to recreate the tragedy of the famine for families, and the poverty and desperation that led to emigration. The museum marks ‘An Gorta Mór’: the Great Hunger. From Strokestown, many of the tenants with their stricken families struggled to walk east to Dublin and then sailed to Liverpool. Some settled into poverty on Scotland Road in Liverpool, most travelled on the coffin ships to a new settlement on Grosse Isle, Quebec. The visit to the museum was important for me to make a link to the history of this archdiocese and remember and pray for so many families who have made the journey east and settled here.

A few days later, we celebrate St Joseph, the patron of the Church and the patron of the dying. I remember that Pope Francis told us that he had a statue of a sleeping St Joseph by his bed and that at the end of the day he said, “Thank you St Joseph, please look after the Church, I have done what I can today.” It is a good prayer for a bishop. I treasure the statue of St Joseph which I bought in Lourdes.

Then we celebrate the wonderful Feast of the Annunciation. Mary is our Mother and the Mother of Christ. The visit of the angel Gabriel to Our Blessed Lady, so beautifully depicted in art, invites us to listen to the voice of God whispering in our hearts and to say, with Our Lady, ‘Yes, Your will be done.’ We meditate on the Incarnation, and the mystery of the Word made flesh. 

May St Patrick, St Joseph, and Our Blessed Lady pray for you and lead you towards Easter.

Archbishop John Sherrington
Archbishop of Liverpool