Fr. Simon’s Homily from the Mass of Thanksgiving for his 6 years of Parish Ministry on the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St John Lateran.

Since I returned on 23^rd August 2018, I have celebrated about 100 funerals, 240 First Holy Communions, 250 baptisms, 20 marriages, and confected the Eucharist 2000 times, to say nothing of countless Confessions and anointings.

Under the notion of ‘six degrees of separation’ I have been with many of you for significant moments in your family’s spiritual journey, this being a great privilege of the life of a Parish Priest to accompany you and lead you to Paradise.

It is the priest’s primary duty to make real Ezekiel’s vision by administering the ‘well spring of the Church’s sacramental life’, especially Baptism, the Eucharist and Reconciliation, revitalising every soul they meet. ‘The Lord be with you’, sings the Priest, to which we reply, ‘and with Your Spirit’, recognizing that it is the Holy Spirit, who through priestly hands, gives life to ‘dry bones’.

The ‘Spirit’ dwells in the Baptised; God makes his home in us, so one day we can ‘dwell in the Lord’s own house for ever and ever’. Such a recognition of God’s presence and the promise of eternal life spurs us onwards to heaven and awakens a horror of sin that separates us from the communion of saints.

Today, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, is the 6^th anniversary of my induction as Parish Priest in which I made a ‘profession of faith’ and ‘oath of fidelity’, to teach and uphold the Catholic and Apostolic faith. To borrow and adapt a phrase from John Lewis, ‘I have never knowingly been heretical’.

This feast reminds us that the ‘Church founded by Christ subsists in the Catholic Church’. The Basilica of St John in the Lateran is the Cathedral Church of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope and successor of Peter. From here, the Bishop of Rome ‘teaches, sanctifies and governs’ his diocese, making the Lateran Basilica the Mother Church of Rome and the World: ‘Most Holy Lateran, of all the Churches in the city and the world, the mother and the Head’.

At my Induction, there was another promise I made before the bishop, which was done privately in the sacristy because it was, in his view, less exciting – this was about protecting the temporal resources of the parish. Over the past 6 years, however, I have come to think it should also have been made publicly.

‘Don’t make any significant changes in your first year’ I was advised by other priests. Well, in the first six months, I was forced to get a grip of our parish’s finances, which led rapidly to an urgent restructuring of our parish – and just as we were getting a handle on this, COVID struck and changed everything.

As we have said already, Holy Baptism made us a living ‘Temple of the Holy Spirit’, and so, each member of the parish are the ‘living stones’ of the Church. Even if we had to meet in a tent in the carpark, the Sacred Mysteries of our Salvation could be celebrated and the gospel of life proclaimed.

Since the publication of the pastoral plan, Deacon Simon and I have been preaching sustainability and self-sufficiency. We are all relieved that the bishop has appointed a replacement priest for Bexhill. Fr Stephen will come with his own strengthens and weaknesses and look and rely on you for support.

Each of us, priest and people together, must play our part in the work of salvation – giving of our resources, time, talents, and money to support the mission of the Church. The salvation of souls is only possible if Christians accept their commission to go from here and announce the gospel of the Lord.

Go, then, my brothers and sisters, claim your baptismal dignity to build up the kingdom of God. Proclaim to society ‘Christ crucified and risen’; tell them of your joy in encountering Jesus in the parish – remind others that ‘outside of the Church, you can find everything except salvation’: ‘I rejoiced when I heard them say, let us go to God’s house’.