{"id":2827,"date":"2017-04-22T15:33:53","date_gmt":"2017-04-22T04:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stbridgetsgreythorn.org.au\/?p=2827"},"modified":"2017-04-22T15:33:53","modified_gmt":"2017-04-22T04:33:53","slug":"message-from-fr-brendan-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/message-from-fr-brendan-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Message from Fr Brendan Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fr<\/a>
Fr Brendan Lane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

IT is good to be with you and thank you for the warm welcome I have received this week.\u00a0 I look forward to my time here being fruitful and beneficial to us all.<\/p>\n

I am slowly learning about the place and finding my way around.\u00a0 Many years ago I was assistant priest to Fr Bill Pietzsch in Cheltenham.\u00a0 As the founding priest of Greythorn parish, he would often speak favourably of his time and work here.<\/p>\n

He was a shy man with many great insights and he understood the mind of children especially.\u00a0 I was privileged to give the homily at his funeral.<\/p>\n

As a child, I remember coming to North Balwyn to a wildlife park where we had rides on elephants and camels.\u00a0 There also had an aviary with many kinds of beautiful birds. I grew up on the other side of the Yarra River at Ivanhoe, and spent a lot of time along its banks and in it too.<\/p>\n

This is the first time I have been in this area as a priest, so I am looking forward to my stay here.\u00a0 I have spent many years in the large multicultural parishes on the outskirts of Melbourne.\u00a0 I have been in Sunshine, Hampton Park and Mill Park.<\/p>\n

To come to a small parish is a new experience for me.\u00a0 For the last over 7 years I have been involved in the training of priests at Corpus Christi College Carlton.\u00a0 Here I was able to witness the growth of numbers that has taken place.<\/p>\n

In my time there we had 45 ordained priests for Victoria and Tasmania and South Australia. There are now over 50 seminarians and I am impressed with the calibre of them. This growth has happened when we least expected it.<\/p>\n

The problem for the Church will not be a shortage of priests, but a shortage of people.\u00a0 Our prayers for vocations have are being answered.<\/p>\n

In the early 1980s I spent some years in Zambia in East Africa as a chaplain and teacher in a large boarding school.\u00a0 It was a great time in my life and Zambia is now like a second home to me.\u00a0 In fact I am just back from spending five weeks there.<\/p>\n

The Church is vibrant and strong in faith.\u00a0 I have been in both the rural and city areas, and people are natural believers.\u00a0 There are challenges but there is great progress. I come back with great hope.\u00a0 In some parts of the world, the Church is dying, but in others, it is rising.<\/p>\n

Both go on together.\u00a0 This year too, the crops are excellent as there has been good rainfall.\u00a0 There will be plenty of food for the drought stricken parts of Africa.\u00a0 It will be a matter of getting food to where it is needed.<\/p>\n

One consequence of my years in Zambia is partial deafness caused by taking tablets to avoid malaria.\u00a0 Sometimes you may think that I am ignoring you, when in fact I have not heard you.\u00a0 So please be patient with me.<\/p>\n

My appointment here is temporary, but I am not sure for how long that is.\u00a0 So we get on with life as normal.\u00a0 We do not put things on hold.\u00a0 The parish goes on with what it does best, praying and worshipping and caring for each other and those in need.<\/p>\n

Jesus was temporary wherever he went.\u00a0 We do not know the future, but we do know the present and we live in the present moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IT is good to be with you and thank you for the warm welcome I have received this week.\u00a0 I look forward to my time here being fruitful and beneficial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notices"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2827"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2829,"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827\/revisions\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmgit.com\/testbuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}