Dear friends, for my Christmas greeting this year I would like to express it using the words in a contemporary Polish carol A Carol for those Absent, which also appeared in English on a Cliff Richard album.

To date, it is the only Polish carol to have been sung on an album by a foreign performer.

If you're still and close your eyes

You can see beyond the shadows

If the light within your guise

Try to believe and hope this Christmas

As one soul disappears

The laughter fades into the distance

Please help us bury our tears

And forget that fate is burning

I will not give into the fear

That you're gone and lost for ever

Give me strength to know that you're near

And to feel your love surround me

Give me the faith to know

That I can reach beyond the shadows

As the seeds begin to grow

I will believe in love this Christmas

Come to us, give us hope through our sorrow

Fill our lives and our dreams

With believe in tomorrow

Let us live and forget all our emptiness

Let us laugh like children

Who believe in life this Christmas.

A hopeful, blessed and loving Christmas to all of you, to all of us.

• The Most Reverend Wesley Spiewak, Catholic Bishop of the Hamilton Diocese