Twice a year, representatives of the English Parishes in our Diocese come together to work on projects that we are all struggling with. We are all facing considerable challenges today. It is important that we discuss these together and that we support each other in meeting those challenges instead of trying to go our own way.

Our major project is to work on the implementation of the orientations given by our Bishop in his little document Discovering Jesus Christ: The Path to Freedom. This time we had a fresh voice leading us in our work, Father Bill Burke, as we took another look at our diocesan document Discovering Jesus Christ the Path to Freedom, this time from a different angle, using Pope Paul VI's document On Evangelization in the Modern World to reflect with.

At first sight, a somewhat surprising link, but on second thought a clear indication that what we are wrestling with in our Diocese is not unique to us. There are huge challenges that we face, when it comes to living from and bearing witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our time.

For the moment we have to be satisfied with small, even tiny steps towards getting a handle on the situation. That is what our meetings at the Zone level – but also at the local level – are clear evidence of. One thing we cannot do is run away from it, close our eyes to it and wish that it would all go away. It won't.

With the Feast of Pentecost approaching, we may want – and we certainly need – to ask the Holy Spirit to give us the faith, the strength and the perseverance we need to hang in there. Or to put it another way, we pray that the Spirit may help us find some hands and feet to put on – what is not an easy bumper sticker slogan, but rather the hard-fought profession of faith "I know that my Redeemer lives".

The minutes from our Spring-2008 workshop are now ready. We hope they may prove useful in our continuing struggle to discern and heed Christ's call to live and testify to the Good News in today's world, and to offer this Good News "in a language that is understood". Sometimes there is a more than 30-year old document of the church that speaks very much to today's situation; appreciably the work of the Spirit who beckons as we also call out: Come Holy Spirit Come.