Our Dear Sisters & Brothers in Christ, my Friends, Our Dear Parishioners and warmly welcomed visitors,
What a grace-filled season we have shared together. First, I want to pause and give thanks with You for the beautiful Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, Queen of the Rosary, which we celebrated on 7th October. What a truly holy and memorable day it was, praying together all twenty mysteries of the Holy Rosary, from morning until evening, in our churches and in our hearts. Thank you to everyone who led, who prayed, who sang and who opened their hearts to Our Lady, whether here in church or in the quiet of your own home. I wish to come back with our memories to the Sacrament of Confirmation celebrated beautify, when Bishop Philip came among us ten days ago. Our Bishop told me how deeply touched he was by our welcome, our preparation and the warmth of our parish family, so much so that he has already promised to return very soon! And that promise has now taken beautiful shape: he will indeed come back, specifically to install me as your Parish Priest and Dean. Our hearts are full of gratitude for our thirty-five young people confirmed in the Holy Spirit. May the gifts they received continue to grow within them. Our prayer is that they may always know that our faith and our deepest friendship with the Lord, is nourished at the Holy Eucharist, the true and real presence of Jesus Christ, the source and summit of our lives. May they always find Him here, waiting for them in the Blessed Sacrament. A special word of thanks to the parents, grandparents and godparents of our candidates. You made promises at Baptism and you have faithfully walked these young people toward this day. Your witness, your prayers and your love have been their first and most enduring lesson in faith. Thank you for helping them understand that the Holy Eucharist is not just something we do, it is the Bread of Life, necessary for our salvation. And thank you also to each Sponsor, for your guidance, your example and your promise to walk beside them as they grow closer to Christ. Your dedication is a gift to them. Enormous thanks, too, to everyone who helped prepare this celebration, to Deacon Mark, Tom our Youth Worker, all our faithful Catechists, Father Inna and Father Benedict. Your love and service have borne beautiful fruit. God bless you all.
There is something gentle yet profound I want to share with You. This coming Thursday 15th October, is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It is a day for the babies who were here for a moment, the babies we never got to bring home, the babies who were placed in our arms only to be taken too soon, the babies whose lives were brief, but whose impact was endless. This day, we remember all of them, the positive tests, the ultrasounds, the tiny heartbeats, the empty nurseries, the anniversaries no one else knows about, the grief that never fully leaves. Some losses happened before the world even knew, some happened after names were chosen and dreams were built, some left parents with no pictures, no footprints and no memories to hold onto except the ones they carry in their hearts. But every single baby mattered. Every single life matters and every single parent carrying this grief matters too. Many of these journeys of grief are walked in silence, within families, within our own community, perhaps even by someone sitting beside you in the pew. We do not always know the sorrows that others carry, the empty chair, the quiet anniversary, the dream that seemed to fade too soon. Yet these precious lives, however brief their time among us have left an eternal mark on our world and in our souls. They are loved beyond measure. They are known by name to God. I share this with you from a deeply personal place. Before I was born, my own Mum carried a precious child whom she lost through miscarriage. She told me this only when I was already an adult and a priest, this quiet, sacred sorrow she had carried in her heart for so many years. If that little one had been welcomed into our family first, I would not be here today. And so, in a very real way, every breath I take, every Mass I celebrate, every child I baptise is also for that little brother or sister I have never met, but whom I will one day hold in the embrace of Christ. I see in every grieving parent the gentle, loving face of my own Mum, her tears, her hope, her quiet faith that one day she would hold her child in the arms of Jesus. Therefore, I will offer the Holy Mass on Thursday evening at 6:00pm at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, specifically in loving memory of all children lost through miscarriage, stillbirth, or early infancy and for all the parents and families who carry them in their hearts. Everyone is warmly welcome. Come, bring your tears, your memories, your hopes and let us place them all together into the merciful heart of Jesus.
This coming Thursday also brings us the first meeting of our Core Group, the beautiful heart of our parish family. You are the ones who love this parish so deeply that you give your time, your wisdom and your prayers to help discern the path God is calling us to walk together. You are the dreamers, the builders, the visionaries, not in the sense of grand plans, but in the beautiful sense of caring deeply about what our parish is, what it looks like and how it can be a true home for all who seek Christ here. This meeting will take place on Thursday 15th October and because we try serve you and not the other way around, I warmly invite all of you, whether part of the group or not: if there is something on your heart, something you feel needs to be discussed, something you dream for our parish, or a concern you carry please, send it to me. Your voice matters. Your thoughts are precious. They will be brought to that meeting and held in prayerful consideration. You are not just members of a parish, you are the living stones of this beautiful Church. Let us build it together. So, that return visit from Bishop Philip marks the beginning of something new. It is with great joy that I invite you to a solemn moment in the life of our parish, the moment when I formally take up the responsibility of serving You. On Wednesday 28th October, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles at 6:00pm at St Joseph and St Mary’s Church in St Peter Port. Bishop Philip will preside at the Mass during which I will be formally installed as your Parish Priest and as Catholic Dean of Guernsey. What does this mean? Installation is not a ceremony of honour for me. It is a covenant between us. Before God, before the Bishop and before you, I will make an oath and a solemn profession of faith. I will promise to serve you, to lead you in prayer, to break the Bread of Life with you and to be a faithful shepherd after the Heart of Christ. As Dean, I will serve our priests and our parishes across the islands, not to rule, but to help keep us united in love and mission. Saints Simon and Jude whose feast we keep that day were ordinary men. They were not famous. They were not powerful. But they were faithful to the end. They remind us that God does not call the perfect, He calls us and walks with us despite our weaknesses. That is why I chose their feast, because I need their prayers and I need yours too. So I look ahead to 28th October at 6:00pm. Bishop Philip will be there. Clergy and guests will join us. But truly, it is you I most need to see there. You are the family I am called to serve. It is before you that I will make my promises. It is for you that I will stand before God. I simply cannot imagine this moment without you. Please, come and be my witnesses, be my support, be my Family. Pray for me on that day and every day that I may always say with Saint Peter: “Lord, you know that I love you and I love them, too.”
With this sacred trust comes a profound awareness of my own weakness. Recently, many of you may have seen the wonderful article in the Guernsey Post. I want to say a sincere thank you to Simon De La Rue, the journalist, the reporter for the beautiful way he told the story. After this published article I have been truly overwhelmed by your kindness, your messages, your phone calls, your warm words. My heart has been deeply touched. But I want to be honest with you: where grace abounds, temptation is never far behind. It is like walking along a beautiful cliff edge, the view is glorious, but the drop is never far away. When we stand in the light, there is always the shadow of pride. I found myself having to pause, to pray and to remind myself daily: You are a servant first. Nothing more, nothing less. There is a moment in the Gospel that haunts me and it keeps me humble. Immediately after Simon Peter made the greatest confession in all of Scripture, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, he tried to change, to stop God’s salvation plan and Jesus turned to him and said something astonishing: “Get behind me, Satan!” Why? Because in that very moment of greatness, Peter was in danger of forgetting who was leading and who was being led. He had spoken the truth yet pride was already knocking at the door of his heart. That is my greatest fear and my greatest prayer. The hat I will wear, the title I will receive, the authority entrusted to me, these are not crowns of honour. They are tools of service. They are a sacred trust not a personal achievement. And if ever I begin to think they make me somehow greater than you, if ever I expect you to serve me rather than me serving you, then please, I beg you from the bottom of my heart: gently, lovingly, but boldly … tell me. Remind me. Call me back to the foot of the Cross. As Saint Paul said: “We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
So because I am called first and foremost to serve, my heart leads me to those who need Christ’s presence the most. Our sick, our elderly, our housebound, those who are lonely or isolated, you are the true treasure of the Church. The Church has always taught this truth. Pope Saint John Paul II reminded us that the suffering are not on the edges of our community, they are at its very heart. Saint Paul writes that Christ Himself fills up His own suffering in our bodies, not that His sacrifice was incomplete, but that He invites us to share in it. Our sick brothers and sisters offer their pain, their loneliness, their patience and in doing so, they become channels of grace for all of us. Their prayers sustain our parish. Their quiet witness teaches us what faith really looks like. They are like precious jewels, sometimes unseen, yet radiating the light of Christ more brightly than we may ever know. So I want to come to you. Before anything else, I want to be with you. I am setting aside every Friday especially for this, two precious windows of time: 10:00am-12:30pm and 3:30pm-6:00pm. If you or someone you know would like a visit, to receive Holy Communion, Confession, a blessing, or simply a moment of prayer and friendship, please let me know. I will work closely with our Legion of Mary and our Befrienders Group to organize these visits, so we can be sure everyone is cared of. Just let me know, where and when and I‘ll be there for you, these five words I’d swear to you, I’ll be there for You.
With our love, our prayers and our gratitude. Fr Marcin
