Wintry Advent

Palm Square and mounted
police

It's the weekend again ... and in 3 weeks 2024 will be over. Another year gone. Everyone I spoke to says time is flying so fast. The new moon is just up and it's the last new moon before a new year begins. Jupiter and Venus are shining extra bright these nights ... astronomers say it's aligning so its brightness is more accentuated. At least that's what I thing they said.

It's quite chilly now ... every night is 4 - 6 degrees. Maybe it'll rain later. Better still ... maybe it'll snow. We haven't had a snow storm since 2021. It'll be fun to have another one.

Our school bombed

Our school and chapel in Aleppo was bombed by missiles several days ago. Luckily no one was hurt. It's frightening how fast the violence had spread in just a few days. We were hoping Christmas would be a quiet time with our Christians celebrating in relative peace. Instead it's war all over again. We can only pray and hope things will get better.

Yesterday all the chaplains of the migrant communities had a retreat led by the auxiliary bishop. He spoke about the Jubilee Year and what it means and what we can do for our migrant communities next year to celebrate it. Ideally it should work. In reality many of our migrants are spread from the north to the south of the country. The only day off is the Sabbath which means no public transport so they can't come for Mass or any other celebration. And those who can come must pay a lot for special transport to get them to where there is Mass. Others are simply too poor to afford special transport. Or they live so far it takes 3 hours to come and 3 hours to go back. Logistically it's not possible.