Deanery Activities
The 2023 Annual Deanery Day with Canon Gerard Bradley
Canon Bradley has recently been appointed by the archbishop to be the Episcopal Vicar for the South West Area of the Southwark Diocese which includes the Sutton Deanery. He first gave us a little of his own history. After ordination He was an assistant priest at Rainham and at the Cathedral and more recently Parish Priest at Old Coulsdon. In between he was for a couple of years the chaplain at St Thomas’ Hospital and then spent 17 year at Wonersh Seminary on the spiritual formation programme and teaching music and liturgy.
He spoke to the more than 50 people at the day about his role and what the archbishop expects of him, both of which he said he is still working out. The archbishop wishes the Diocese to become a missionary Diocese, setting out to go beyond itself, believing, with Pope Francis, that a self- referring, inward looking Church is no use to the world. He wishes all Catholics in Southwark Diocese to become disciples; disciple meaning someone willing to learn and pass on that learning.
Fr Gerard spoke of the fragmentation of our Society and the need to go beyond division and dualism so as to have constructive discussions instead of confrontations and that the Church has a mission to bring this to our society. He saw this fragmentation particularly in the generation gap between the young people and the older members of the Church but he also pointed out that he had observed that there appears to be an even bigger generation gap in the young between the 15-year-olds and the 25-year-olds, which may be connected to social media. We must faceup to this fragmentation and work to counteract it.
He believes that top-down instructions do not work but only produce resistance, indifference and apathetic responses. As members of the Church, we are called to bear fruit and we should call on the Spirt to renew us and fit us to be missionaries.
After a short break, in the second part of his talk he spoke of the importance of the Mass, saying that we need to become a eucharistic people and live our lives between two Masses nourished by the eucharist at each. Every word and symbol in the Mass revealed Christ to us and we should realise when we listen to scripture it is Jesus speaking not in the past but speaking to us now, calling us to be a new creation being transformed and inhabited by the Spirit. He jokingly warned us that we should be careful because if we heard or read scripture three times a week we were in danger of being changed.
He concluded by saying there is always more to do than we can cope with, but from all there is to be done we should at least do something to bring about the Kingdom of God.
Following Canon Bradley’s talk we heard about the success of the deanery initiative to bring a Syrian family here five years ago. Jackie McLoughlin also spoke about the archbishop’s new initiative, the formation of Caritas Southwark. This central group will be under the leadership of Canon Darlington, the Episcopal Vicar for the South East Area, who spoke to the 2022 deanery meeting about the Commission for the Promotion of Racial and Cultural inclusion. It will hope to bring the work of national Catholic Social Action Network (CSAN) into Southwark parishes. It is intended at the beginning to concentrate effort in four areas: -
Then Kathy Ball, deanery lead on Evangelisation, spoke to us about a further initiative of the archbishop, “Some Definite Service”, an agency to equip and support parishes of the Archdiocese of Southwark in their mission of Evangelisation, Catechesis and Formation of which we will hear a lot more in our parishes in the future.
Canon Bradley has recently been appointed by the archbishop to be the Episcopal Vicar for the South West Area of the Southwark Diocese which includes the Sutton Deanery. He first gave us a little of his own history. After ordination He was an assistant priest at Rainham and at the Cathedral and more recently Parish Priest at Old Coulsdon. In between he was for a couple of years the chaplain at St Thomas’ Hospital and then spent 17 year at Wonersh Seminary on the spiritual formation programme and teaching music and liturgy.
He spoke to the more than 50 people at the day about his role and what the archbishop expects of him, both of which he said he is still working out. The archbishop wishes the Diocese to become a missionary Diocese, setting out to go beyond itself, believing, with Pope Francis, that a self- referring, inward looking Church is no use to the world. He wishes all Catholics in Southwark Diocese to become disciples; disciple meaning someone willing to learn and pass on that learning.
Fr Gerard spoke of the fragmentation of our Society and the need to go beyond division and dualism so as to have constructive discussions instead of confrontations and that the Church has a mission to bring this to our society. He saw this fragmentation particularly in the generation gap between the young people and the older members of the Church but he also pointed out that he had observed that there appears to be an even bigger generation gap in the young between the 15-year-olds and the 25-year-olds, which may be connected to social media. We must faceup to this fragmentation and work to counteract it.
He believes that top-down instructions do not work but only produce resistance, indifference and apathetic responses. As members of the Church, we are called to bear fruit and we should call on the Spirt to renew us and fit us to be missionaries.
After a short break, in the second part of his talk he spoke of the importance of the Mass, saying that we need to become a eucharistic people and live our lives between two Masses nourished by the eucharist at each. Every word and symbol in the Mass revealed Christ to us and we should realise when we listen to scripture it is Jesus speaking not in the past but speaking to us now, calling us to be a new creation being transformed and inhabited by the Spirit. He jokingly warned us that we should be careful because if we heard or read scripture three times a week we were in danger of being changed.
He concluded by saying there is always more to do than we can cope with, but from all there is to be done we should at least do something to bring about the Kingdom of God.
Following Canon Bradley’s talk we heard about the success of the deanery initiative to bring a Syrian family here five years ago. Jackie McLoughlin also spoke about the archbishop’s new initiative, the formation of Caritas Southwark. This central group will be under the leadership of Canon Darlington, the Episcopal Vicar for the South East Area, who spoke to the 2022 deanery meeting about the Commission for the Promotion of Racial and Cultural inclusion. It will hope to bring the work of national Catholic Social Action Network (CSAN) into Southwark parishes. It is intended at the beginning to concentrate effort in four areas: -
- Youth work
- Work for the elderly and possibly lonely
- Food poverty & food banks
- Refugees & Asylum seekers
Then Kathy Ball, deanery lead on Evangelisation, spoke to us about a further initiative of the archbishop, “Some Definite Service”, an agency to equip and support parishes of the Archdiocese of Southwark in their mission of Evangelisation, Catechesis and Formation of which we will hear a lot more in our parishes in the future.
God knows me and calls me by my name.…
God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another.
From the Poem, “Some Definite Service”, by Saint John Henry Newman
God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another.
From the Poem, “Some Definite Service”, by Saint John Henry Newman