Have you noticed we seem to be losing a lot of priests lately? I hope it’s nothing that I’ve said, putting them off. Shortly, Fr Emmanuel will be leaving us to take up a new post in Huddersfield. Fr Emmanuel was born in strife torn Nigeria during the civil war, many years later things haven’t improved at all, with Islamic terrorists killing thousands of people, and over two million families being displaced because of the fighting.

Like Fr Paul, Fr Emmanuel has a secret side to his priestly duties. After he has celebrated Mass for us and walks up the aisle, smiling to all his fans, you would never realise that beneath his robes there lies an athlete’s body, just raring to go. He doesn’t believe in going to the gym to tone up, so he took up running when he kept failing his driving test. In his defence, as a retired driving instructor, next to London, Leeds has one of the highest failure rates at 68% due to the amount of traffic on the roads today, so passing at all is quite an achievement for him. Like Fr Paul, Fr Emmanuel has also appeared on television, when he entered the London Marathon dressed in his light blue Lycra running shorts, white trainers and a white tea shirt with “Jesus Loves Us” emblazoned on the front he presented a striking figure of an athlete and the cameras were eager to record this moment for us all. About 135,000 runners entered for this event, but I won’t embarrass Fr by telling you all his placing, but I can tell you that despite his efforts, he didn’t win first place. His next challenge was entering the Leeds half marathon, in which 9,000 runners competed, Fr said that he found this one most enjoyable, as he was running on home ground. Being a half marathon was not as tiring as a full one and as he crossed the finishing line he found the energy to bless all the spectators as he passed. Fr Emmanuel is truly a remarkable man and a wonderful athlete, but he will find that running in Huddersfield is very difficult as it is full of hills.

On behalf of all three churches may I wish him every success in his new parish and hope he doesn’t miss us too much and remembers us in his prayers.