NOTES AND QUOTES
I turn finally to the question of whether forgiveness is anything other than a repetition of Christ’s commandment to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. In a sense that is true, but forgiveness relates that fundamental instruction to circumstances in which it is particularly hard to carry it out. It is not natural to forgive those who injure or even kill those we love. Christ tells us, and places the authority of his life and death behind the instruction, that here our natural instinct must be transcended by something higher, something more spiritual.
Everybody, Christian and non-Christian, has surely an inkling that this possibility lies within all of us. Everyone, Christian or non-Christian, is capable of responding to the Christian message of forgiveness…
(Lord Longford)
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by
hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by
faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by
love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
(Reinhold Niebuhr)
A woman was visiting some people who lived on a farm, and she noticed a pig limping in the backyard with a wooden leg. She asked the farmer, “What happened to the pig?” The farmer said, “Oh, Betsy is a wonderful pig. One night the house caught fire and she oinked so loud she woke us and we got the fire truck in time to save the house.” The woman said, “That’s really something!” The farmer continued, “That’s not all, one day my youngest fell in the pond and Betsy oinked so loud that she got our attention and we were able to pull my daughter out of the pond in time.” The woman said, “That’s really amazing! But I still don’t understand why the pig has a wooden leg.” The farmer said, “Well, when you have a pig that special, you don’t want to eat him all at
once!” Gratitude didn’t run very deep for the three-legged hero. Just how deep does your gratitude run for God?
(Mark Otero)
ALMOST THERE
As Lent progresses, the final preparation period dawns for those of our diocese who are to be received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. We keep them in our thoughts and prayers and hope that their encounter with Jesus the Christ will enlighten their minds and hearts and encourage them as they begin their new life of faith:
Lord, we pray for those who are journeying to
you and are preparing to be received into the Church at Easter. Strengthen their faith and increase their
joy. Open their hearts to the fullness of your love. Deepen their understanding of your
word. Set their hearts on fire afire for your kingdom of justice and truth. We ask this through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life for all.
Amen.
FROM THE MOUTH OF PATRICK (March 17th)
There’s a lot of mythology and glitz surrounding St Patrick. People from all over the world use him as an excuse to celebrate after the dark days of winter. Others embellish his story and claim all sorts of things for him. But did you know that we actually have some original words from his very lips?
Our 5th century saint lived in what is now England or Wales and of his life at that time he says:
“I did not, indeed, know the true God.”
As a teenager he was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland and Patrick believed this was a punishment for his lack of belief. He was forced to look after pigs for six years and of this time he writes:
“I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.”
Patrick managed to stow away on a boat and escape back to England where he became a priest. But he always wanted to return to Ireland. He writes:
“I seemed to hear the voice of those who were beside the forest of Foclut which is near the western sea, and they were crying as if with one voice: ‘We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us’.”
Working in Ireland, spreading the Christian faith, Patrick naturally felt homesick for his friends and family. He says:
“How I would have loved to go to my country and my parents, and also to Gaul in order to visit the brethren and to see the face of the saints of my Lord! God knows how much I much desired it! But I am bound by the Spirit.”
Things weren’t always plain sailing. His fellow clergy accused him of wanting to make himself famous. This is how he reacted:
“I ought unceasingly to give thanks to God who often pardoned my folly and my carelessness, and on more than one occasion spared his great wrath on me, who was chosen to be his helper and who was slow to do as was shown me and as the Spirit suggested.”
Of course, there’s much more about Patrick from his own lips, but to find out about it you’ll need to read his book, called the “Confessio”.
DREAM HUSBAND? (March 19th)
Mary could be certain that her child was from God, but Joseph only had to believe it because of what he was told in a dream. And when things started to go from bad to worse, Joseph must have had his doubts that God really was in control. After all, he was only human.
But Joseph was a man of faith, a just, hardworking and honest man. He was Jesus’ role model as he grew up. And it is that silent presence that Pope Benedict draws our attention to on the feast of St Joseph:
“The silence of Saint Joseph is given a special emphasis. His silence is steeped in contemplation of the mystery of God in an attitude of total availability to divine desires. It is a silence thanks to which Joseph, in unison with Mary, watches over the Word of God, known through the Sacred Scriptures, continuously comparing it with the events of the life of Jesus; a silence woven of constant prayer, a prayer of blessing of the Lord, of the adoration of his holy will and of unreserved entrustment to his providence. It is no exaggeration to think that it was precisely from his “father” Joseph that Jesus learned -- on the human level -- that steadfast interiority which is a presupposition of authentic justice.... Let us allow ourselves to be “filled” with Saint Joseph’s silence, in a world that is often too noisy, that encourages neither recollection nor listening to God’s voice.”