Over the past year, we have sought to give many people a hand up to help them in their need. Our logo shows three hands embracing a cup of water - the hand of Christ blessing the cup, the hand of love offering the cup and the hand of those suffering receiving the cup. We strive to be the hand of love offering relief.

St Teresa of Avila reminds us that “Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world”.

Thank you all for striving to be that hand of love - our members, associate members, our volunteers, our staff and our officeholders. Each act of kindness is an expression of love which, when given without any hope of return gives the recipient an experience of God.

That experience is touched upon by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) who wrote:

“God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.

Flare up like flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.”