Vicars Message - St. Paul's Church, Kandy

News letter – January 2025 ………………

From the Vicar’s desk…..

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

May I take this opportunity with our clergy brethren and families to wish you all a Happy New Year.

We are now in 2025. Every year's beginning is a time for reflection on the past year and its evaluation. And it is also a time to look forward to and to plan. It is a new start and we begin the year with much expectation.

We are now in 2025. Every year's beginning is a time for reflection on the past year and its evaluation. And it is also a time to look forward to and to plan. It is a new start and we begin the year with much expectation.

We begin this year with the first Sunday reminding us of the Epiphany. The visit of the Kings taking the good news from Bethlehem signifies how we must live our faith in witness and proclamation. In the Anglican Church, the proclamation is most creatively detailed in the five marks of mission (Tell, Teach, Tend, Transform and Treasure). So we are much versed in what we must do. However, we in each context must think on how we must do this proclamation of God’s goodness.

At St Paul’s we have many ministries in which we share this proclamation with, and we also have general ministries where we attend to other aspects of the same. The need for a well-rounded proclamation is the need of the hour for this historical church surrounded with powerful neighbors on each side and being in Kandy with its own uniqueness.

We uphold our world in our prayers that wars may end and people in fear, hunger, poverty, loneliness and discrimination will have these alleviated. We continue to reflect on our own country and pray that this new year will indeed be a better one for all, where there is good governance, harmony and development of the country. We also look with hope towards our Diocese, celebrating the 75th anniversary less than a month’s time. We pray that progressiveness and newness will arise in the manner we think and act and have done so for years, as we undertake different challenges in the 21st century in the Diocese of Kurunagala.

Revd. Rasika Abeysinghe - Vicar

Message for the Environment Day
Bishops of the Church of Ceylon

(05th June, 2021 | 06.00 )
This year’s theme for World Environment Day is Reimagine, Recreate and Restore and given the crisis that the world faces with respect to climate change, 2021 also marks the launch of the United Nations Decade on ecosystem restoration (2021-2030). The Church of Ceylon calls upon all Sri Lankans to join with the peoples of the world to focus the attention of governments, leaders of all faith communities, business communities and civil society, on the urgent need to heal and restore the earth’s ecosystems.

Sacrificing the care of the environment in the pursuit of human development is depleting and stretching the earth’s natural resources to the maximum. As a result, dramatic changes in climate, pollution, poverty, deprivation and sickness are on the rise; nature cannot endure the abuse and over-exploitation. As Christians, we believe that God gave us shared dominion of the earth with the task of not only using it for sustenance but also to nurture it and manage it responsibly for the benefit of all, including future generations. It is important to note that the creation story in the Bible teaches us that even God rested after six days of work; the principles of the sabbath and the jubilee remind us that the earth and the soil need rest, restoration and rejuvenation. Many religious traditions and the wisdom of first peoples contain similar insights.

We salute youth leaders in various parts of the world who are leading the campaign through education, advocacy and even litigation in courts, to ensure that the world recognizes its responsibility of stewardship and management of the planet.

Major environmental problems in the world, deforestation, the lack of clean water and air, the loss of biodiversity, droughts and floods, increased sicknesses are the result of human beings abusing nature. In most of these situations, it is the poor and the vulnerable that suffer the most. This is unjust and unacceptable to us as Christians as Jesus Christ always was particularly concerned about the poor, the marginalized and the excluded.

In our own country, we have witnessed in recent years a failure in these responsibilities of stewardship. The pollution of the soil, waterways, and the sea, unsustainable soil and mineral mining and denudation of the natural tropical forest cover are a few examples. Policies for development must take cognizance of their impact on the environment. We need to review our economic and development policies and models, our modes of living and consumption and personal lifestyles so as to ensure that we shift to 'greener' methods of economic activity and living. Let us live in harmony with Mother Nature rather than destroying her; let us think not only about ourselves but also those yet to be born. We can start by cutting down on consumption and ‘wants’ and reducing, reusing and recycling waste and conserving water and energy. We can start with ourselves, our homes, churches, and work places.

The Rt Revd Keerthisiri Fernando, Bishop of Kurunagala & The Presiding Bishop of the Church of Ceylon

The Rt Revd Dushantha Rodrigo, Bishop of Colombo

Click to read full Message with Sinhala and Tamil translations