This is the third Sunday of having Masses in church after the lockdown. We have not been over booked which indicates that many of you are being understandably cautious. I think some people who have started to come back to Mass have been in a quandary over it, and have had to make a decision. Some of you will have made a decision not to come back yet. Please feel comfortable with this, and come back in your own time.
I am grateful to the people who are working so hard to put all the arrangements in place so that we can have Mass. At the moment we are having two Masses a week, and this feels right for the moment; in time we will get back to a normal Mass timetable. There will be things to consider before this comes into effect.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned starting a Book Club at some unknown point in the future and looking at two novels by Marilynne Robinson called Gilead and Home. I think the value of something like this is that it can make you think about what is going on in our society at present. We all know our society is deeply divided; there are growing hatreds between people, and people are not always thinking about the consequences of this.
Some of us think we are sleep walking again into some sort of disaster. Today`s gospel is about forgiveness, God forgives us and wants us to forgive each other. Reading Gilead could help us think about this very deeply. If you think you might join the Book Club start reading Gilead soon.