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FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
Overview
CALLED TO HOLINESS
A COMMUNITY OF WELCOME
A COMMUNITY OF MISSION
TOGETHER IN TRUST
AND PARTNERSHIP
TOGETHER IN PRAYER
LIVING THE SACRAMENTS
RELIGIOUS LIFE
FINANCES
NEW STRUCTURES
APPENDICES
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CALLED TO HOLINESS

Much in this pastoral plan concerns new ways of doing things, new structures for our future, and simply sharing good practice with one another. But there is no point to any of this unless it serves our fundamental vocation from God: the call to holiness, the call to perfect love of God and one another. Our prayer for this diocese and our parishes is that the Holy Spirit will renew us in love, and set us on fire so that others can catch fire from us.

Our personal lives, our families and homes, our schools and parish communities, are `holy ground' where we encounter the transforming presence of the Living God. We are called to be like the burning bush Moses was drawn to in the desert: we should be people on fire with God's love within us, so that others will be attracted towards us and meet God himself.

But holiness is never a private affair. It is deeply personal, but never private. We are called to love God with all our being, and to love one another as Jesus has loved us. Growing together in loving community is essential to being truly holy. We are called to be beacons of holiness - in our personal lives and in our communion with each other.

We are all called to turn our lives away from sin and towards the Risen Lord. Only God, 'the fountain of all holiness', can make us holy, and it is always by the power of his love - the Holy Spirit - that he renews and transforms us from within.

As Jesus changed the water into wine at Cana for the wedding guests to drink, so he seeks to transform our lives by his Holy Spirit so that the spiritual thirst of others may be quenched. Our personal growth in holiness is a gift for others, and that of others a gift of God to us.

We are not asked to do all this on our own. Above all, Christ is with us. Without Christ we can do nothing. We are totally dependent on his free gift of grace, the Gift of the Holy Spirit, the love which God pours into our hearts

But also, our Diocese of East Anglia today and in the years ahead is not alone. We are united in full communion with the Catholic Church throughout the world, led and inspired by the ministry of the Holy Father and his brother bishops. Most of the challenges we face we share with the other dioceses in the United Kingdom, and with much of the western world. We can support and help each other. Our diocese is now united in special friendship with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Cambodian Diocese of Battambang. Throughout our own pastoral plan, we include quotations from the General Pastoral Plan of the Holy Land, which flowed from their Synod in 2000. Our problems and challenges are not unique, and we can learn much from our twin dioceses in the Holy Land and Cambodia. And we are in their prayers. We are also deeply united through our baptism with all the other Christians of East Anglia, and there are many ways in which we can grow together in faith and witness.

Nor are we simply united with the Church of today. We are supported and inspired by all those who have gone before us in East Anglia, by centuries of faithful Christians who have lived the Gospel message and sometimes given their life for their Christian and Catholic faith. We think especially of St Felix who came from Gaul in 630 to work for the conversion of the East Angles: we are all called, like him, to preach the Good News to the people of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. We are united with all the saints from East Anglia, with St Etheldreda and St Edmund, Saints Botolph, Fursey, Walstan and Withburga, and with the Blessed Martyrs of East Anglia who gave their lives for the Catholic Church. We can be sure that St Henry Morse, St Robert Southwell and St Henry Walpole, all born in Norfolk, will keep us in their prayers. And above all, of course, our diocesan family is commended to the prayers of Our Lady of Walsingham, the Christ-Bearer and God-Bearer: we pray that our personal, parish and diocesan lives will be so overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and so full of the mysterious presence of Christ that we, like Mary, may bring Christ himself to all the people of East Anglia. That is our mission, that is our calling, that is our sacred service to our world. Article Manager module by by George! Software.


©2009 Diocese of East Anglia