Download B&W issue - Portsmouth People

BISHOP’S BULLETININ CORDE IESULaudetur Iesus Christus![Latin: 'Praised be Jesus Christ']months, I was also the Vicar General of the Diocese ofShrewsbury under Bishop Mark Davies. Earlier this summer,we had the great blessing of the visit of the relic-heart of StJohn Vianney, and many people came to pray for priests andfor vocations.As a northerner, Portsmouth to me suggests the navy andsea-faring! I have very little knowledge of the Diocese ofPortsmouth and I look forward greatly to getting to knoweveryone in the years ahead. The priests and people of ourDiocese of Portsmouth belong to a wonderful tradition offaith. Indeed, after Lancashire and Yorkshire, Hampshire hasproduced many martyrs to the Faith. The Diocese is extensivein area. Add in the Channel Islands, and it is clear that I willneed to get used to a lot of travelling!‘We are saved only by a Person,Jesus Christ’Rt Rev Philip Anthony Egan, Eighth Bishop of PortsmouthIwant to thank you all for the warm welcome youhave given me as your new bishop. Thank you for allthe Masses, sacrifices and prayers that you haveoffered for my intentions, as I begin my apostolicministry as the Eighth Bishop of Portsmouth. Thankyou to all who have worked to make this period oftransition go smoothly and to those who helped toorganise the Mass of Ordination on 24 September. I mustalso express profound gratitude to Bishop Crispian for hispersonal kindness. Please pray for him, as he enters hiswell-deserved retirement, after twenty-three years ofgenerous service, as our teacher, priest and pastor. He hasleft us all a great legacy. I hope we will continue to buildon it for many years to come.‘The priests and people of ourDiocese of Portsmouth belong to awonderful tradition of faith’Before becoming your bishop, I was pastor of the busy parishof Our Lady and St Christopher’s, Romiley, in the Diocese ofShrewsbury. Romiley is near Stockport on the edge of thePeak District. We had just begun a major renovation projectof our property and the refurbishment of the church wascompleted just in time for my departure. For the last eighteenI am conscious of many hopes and expectations for thefuture. But one thing central to everything we will be doingover the next year is the Year of Faith that begins on 11October. Pope Benedict wants us to know our faith betterand to have a deeper faith, through prayer and throughstudying the Creed and the Catechism. He also wants us toengage in the work of ‘new evangelisation’. I always describenew evangelisation as ‘reaching in’ and ‘reaching out’. Weneed to reach out with the Gospel of Christ, especially tothose fellow-Christians who seem to ahave drifted away orlapsed from practice. We need to (re-)kindle their love andenthusiasm for the Lord. New evangelisation is also about‘reaching in’, that is, deepening our own faith anddiscipleship and so recovering a new ardour and love forChrist in our own lives.That brings me to my episcopal motto. I have chosen thewords In Corde Iesu, In the Heart of Jesus. I want to remindeveryone, that it is Him alone we serve. Jesus is our Lord andMaster, and it is from his Heart, that over the months tocome, we must confidently draw the love, strength andcreativity we need, to face the challenges ahead. We cannotbe saved by programmes and structures. We are saved only bya Person, Jesus Christ, and by a personal-passionaterelationship with him, within his Body the Church. That is myprayer for each one of us. In this ‘project’, may we be greatlyassisted by the powerful intercession of the ImmaculateVirgin Mary, and of St Edmund of Abingdon.In Corde Iesu,+PhilipBishop of Portsmouth2PEOPLE