Letter from Bishop Stephen Write
Sunday 22 February 2026
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First Sunday of Lent. 22nd February 2026
Lent, A Season of Preparation for Mission
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
I wish you all every blessing as we begin the season of Lent. In today’s Gospel Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to prepare for his public ministry and to defeat His temptations. In scripture the wilderness is the place where God is close to His people. Often this closeness comes at a time of trial, discernment and preparation for mission. We recall Moses leading the people through the wilderness to the promised land and Elijah fleeing into the wilderness in fear for his life.
Jesus is discerning. He is preparing for his public mission. He prepares in prayer and by fasting.
Both practices heighten the closeness of the love of His Father and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus experiences the trials of temptation. He defeats those temptations by rejecting what is selfserving. Through His trials Jesus discerns we live by the Word of God not material things. We are not to put God to the test, rather we are called to follow His will. We worship and serve God alone.
We do not worship and serve the false riches, vanity and power the world may offer us.
The Holy Spirit leads our Diocese into the wilderness of Lent. May we all through prayer, fasting and almsgiving allow God to be close to us in our discernments and trials. May we fight the temptations of self service and false gods in their many forms. May we, like Jesus, prepare ourselves for public mission.
In my last Pastoral Letter at the start of Advent, I wrote about our need to discern and act on our future mission as a diocesan family. I reflected with you the hopes and challenges our Diocese faces. One challenge I highlighted was the fewer priests we will have over the next ten years and what we can realistically expect from them. I continue to welcome non diocesan priests to minister here, and we are most grateful to them, but they will not replace all the diocesan priests who will soon retire. A second challenge was the number of churches we have maintained over the years even though Mass attendance has declined. Buildings must serve mission not the other way around.
I wrote change is needed as present practice was not sustainable.
In Advent I explained there would be materials prepared to help that discernment leading to action. After consultation, those materials are now ready and are available on the diocesan website. Parish offices can print off materials if that assists you. The materials include a Parish Toolkit to guide every parish’s discernment of our mission and how we can work more closely together in a sustainable way. There are materials on prayer, discernment and often asked questions to assist us all. The materials include a statement of the Diocesan vision for mission. I have consulted widely about this for the last 18 months and the vision reflects what I have listened to. I trust it is a vision we can all share even if we may prioritise different parts of it. There are also materials that give a summary of parish and diocesan realities in terms of mass attendance, number of clergy, property and other resources.
From the initial parish discernments from now until April, we will move to a second phase of discernments in the summer across parishes in each locality/partnership and then across the wider deaneries. These will then inform the discernments across the whole Diocese. We intend to complete this discernment process by the Autumn of 2026, so that informed decisions about the future can be shared.
I invite us all to discern intentionally about our mission as Jesus did in the wilderness. The Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving will guide us. We must discern in prayer, knowing the Spirit is alive in our communities. Like Jesus we must discern with an openness to fast from what is simply self-serving. We must all be aware of that temptation. We must discern by being generous in giving to one another in love. We must discern the common good for mission.
This is a spirit filled journey of listening and discerning. It must be mission led and hope filled. The Lord never leaves us. We must be honest about the reality we face now and will face in the next decade. The discernment must be an expression of shared responsibility. We are all coresponsible for the mission of the Diocese, people and clergy alike. I sincerely hope this discernment will lead to us all to reflect on how we can serve across our local parishes and so build up the Kingdom of God. We can all offer some practical service.
This discernment is not an inspection of parishes nor is it a predetermined plan of closures or reductions. There is no predetermined plan. It is not about assigning blame nor must it fall into nostalgia about the past. We learn from the past, both the good and the bad, but we do not live in the past. I understand that can cause grief and upset. We must seek to discern how the church may flourish now and in the future. If we do not act, then challenging realities will dictate actions which will leave people and communities hurt. Far better we discern together.
I wish to end where I began, with the Holy Spirit leading Jesus and our Diocese into the wilderness of Lent. The Holy Spirit is evidently at work in our parishes, schools and communities. There is so much holiness in our worship of the Lord and in the service of others. We have so much to learn from one another and share with one another. The joys and hope outweigh the challenges. Our mission is to walk with the Lord and enable others to encounter Him in our communities centered on the Eucharist. We are called to live justly, caring for our common home and especially for the poor in it. We are called to grow as one diocesan family which will necessarily mean working more closely together in new ways. Finally, we are called to be formed by Christ for mission. To be a baptised Christian is to have a mission. We are called to help every person flourish in the love of the love of the Lord and flourish in their service of others.
We are being led by the Holy Spirit, let us discern what that means for our future mission together. Please be involved in the parish discernments in the next few weeks.
With assurances of prayers,
+ Stephen
First reading -Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7
The Creation, and the sin of our first parents
The Lord God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.
The Lord God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden.
Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ The woman answered the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.”’ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.’ The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.
Responsorial Psalm Psalm 50(51):3-6,12-14,17
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
My offences truly I know them;
my sin is always before me
Against you, you alone, have I sinned;
what is evil in your sight I have done.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Give me again the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervour sustain me,
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Second reading - Romans 5:12-19
However great the number of sins committed, grace was even greater
Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned. Sin existed in the world long before the Law was given. There was no law and so no one could be accused of the sin of ‘law-breaking’, yet death reigned over all from Adam to Moses, even though their sin, unlike that of Adam, was not a matter of breaking a law.
Adam prefigured the One to come, but the gift itself considerably outweighed the fall. If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift. The results of the gift also outweigh the results of one man’s sin: for after one single fall came judgement with a verdict of condemnation, now after many falls comes grace with its verdict of acquittal. If it is certain that death reigned over everyone as the consequence of one man’s fall, it is even more certain that one man, Jesus Christ, will cause everyone to reign in life who receives the free gift that he does not deserve, of being made righteous. Again, as one man’s fall brought condemnation on everyone, so the good act of one man brings everyone life and makes them justified. As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
Gospel - Matthew 4:1-11
The temptation in the wilderness
Jesus was led by the Spirit out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, after which he was very hungry, and the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves.’ But he replied, ‘Scripture says:
Man does not live on bread alone
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
The devil then took him to the holy city and made him stand on the parapet of the Temple. ‘If you are the Son of God’ he said ‘throw yourself down; for scripture says:
He will put you in his angels’ charge,
and they will support you on their hands
in case you hurt your foot against a stone.’
Jesus said to him, ‘Scripture also says:
You must not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Next, taking him to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. ‘I will give you all these’ he said, ‘if you fall at my feet and worship me.’ Then Jesus replied, ‘Be off, Satan! For scripture says:
You must worship the Lord your God,
and serve him alone.’
Then the devil left him, and angels appeared and looked after him.
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