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Good Morning. As the new cohort of undergraduates join their fellow students at campuses across the UK, a series of reports on this programme yesterday highlighted some of the multi-layered dilemmas many of them are facing after an already challenging year. We heard of significant outbreaks of the Coronavirus among students in Scotland at several universities including Dundee and Glasgow. And at my old University of Sheffield we also heard from students, somewhat philosophically, that there were no parties, little drinking and a freshers’ week unlike any other. So, in equal measure, we heard both the resilience and vulnerability of these young people. It is still September and let’s hope that the sacrifices many are already making will be worth it, if they are able to join loved ones back home in December. I’d also like to pay tribute to the often hidden chaplaincy teams, currently working with student welfare departments looking out for these young people. The Chaplaincy Centre website at Sheffield describes their offering as “a listening ear and pastoral support to all people, whilst the Glasgow chaplaincy agrees that “during this difficult and challenging period, it is important we all take time to look after our mental health.” They go on: don’t saturate your mind with bad news and make as much time to prepare to protect yourself as possible. It's been said that “universities are far from monastic communities”. But I’d suggest that in a variety of ways that’s exactly what they still are. Many halls of residence contain large numbers of young people living, learning and sharing life in close proximity. Something of course which this pandemic easily latches onto if the correct measures are not in place and adhered to. From the writings of the Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People any understanding of Christian monasticism or community is rooted in the notion of looking out for one another; being mindful of another’s travails; and, very often, in times of plague and terrible illness such as the one he reports on vividly around the time of the great Synod of Whitby in 664AD. Bede’s account reminds me of St Paul’s appeal in his letter to Philippi – “Look out for one another’s interests and not just your own” which reflects the nub of Jesus’ teaching. At this crucial time for these freshers I believe it’s incumbent upon the wider community to do whatever it can to look out for them at this time. That as Dundee-based Youth Chaplain Andrew Bennett suggests - in the midst of anxiety, pain, tears and uncertainty we care for these young people by being with them in spirit and supporting them wherever we are.