Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB this week issued a pastoral letter encouraging the Perth Catholic community in light of the COVID-19 lockdown and bushfires. Source: The Record.

The Perth metropolitan, Peel and South-West regions went into a five-day lockdown on Sunday following a single outbreak of COVID-19 at a local hotel. The lockdown is due to expire today.

A new set of directives were issued across the Perth Archdiocese on Sunday, with churches forced to temporarily close, which meant many Sunday evening Masses were cancelled and subsequent events halted.

On Monday, fire authorities commenced battling a massive bushfire threatening lives and homes in the Perth Hills area. The number of properties now lost in the bushfire raging in Perth’s north-east has risen to 81.

In his first Pastoral Letter for 2021, Archbishop Costelloe said the challenge, and opportunity, of the present lockdown is that it “offers us a chance to put into practice a basic truth of our identity”.

“We will be who and what God created us to be when, in the face of suffering, of confusion, and of fear, we look beyond ourselves to the needs of others and do what we can to respond to those needs,” Archbishop Costelloe said.

“As we grapple with the ongoing repercussions of the bushfires, and particularly of the present lockdown, and as we continue to make personal sacrifices for the welfare of our wider community and society, it will at times feel like the 'dying' of which Jesus speaks.

“But he has promised us that our sacrifices will produce good fruit – and the Lord is always faithful to his promises.”