I hope you don't feel it's presumptuous of me writing to you like this, but I have a problem that is causing me some concern. I'm aware that our life expectancy is supposed to be no more than three score years and ten and like many before me I have now lived past that age. As I have grown older and parts of me have started to fail, I am left wondering if the human body really is a miracle of engineering, or have you made some mistakes in the process? Take the hair for example, grey might well be distinguished even if a little thin at the back, but now it has turned white, together with my beard; I am beginning to resemble "Father Time" without the scythe. Well I think you have scored an own goal there! Now what about our eyes and ears? Just when we have the time to relax, read and listen to music, you make our eyesight fade and our ears go deaf. Then there is the memory; the hard drive of the human brain and like my computer, I am finding that when overloaded it begins to crash and I have difficulty in trying to remember all the numbers and passwords that is needed in this world of high technology.

When we mere mortals design a car for example, we don't leave the same model in production for thousands of years; our skilled engineers are continually modifying and upgrading the various models to make them more comfortable and efficient. However, I fully appreciate that you have now made it possible for us to have an upgrade as well, through the skills of our surgeons; we can now have hip and knee replacements and pacemakers fitted if necessary. But surely doesn't this suggest to you that maybe there is a basic design fault in your creation of the human body?

I am looking forward to discussing all these points with you in person, when we finally meet though not too soon I hope! I will speak to you again at Mass on Sunday.

"The only difference between a Saint and a Sinner,
Is that every Saint has a past and every Sinner a future".