St Patrick – A ReflectionIt is an amazing fact that God loves each and every one of us, no matter where or when we live or who we are and knows each of us intimately. A human will know only a very few others well and, even at best, there will be much to another person which will remain a mystery, no matter how close we are to them. There are about 67 million people currently alive in the UK and how many can we say we know at all, never mind knowing well? Yet God knows each and every one of the hundred-odd billion people who have ever lived far more intimately than we could ever know ourselves! That is beyond amazing! When one considers God’s greatness, even just on this point, it is so stupendous that one’s very breath is taken away.As well as knowing us so intimately, God has a plan for each one of us which takes fully into account our strengths and weaknesses, our concerns and our hopes – and this is always linked in, not just to our own ultimate good, but that of others, too. Of course, we may refuse his plan – quite often through not recognizing it when we are confronted with it, but he will never abandon us when we fail to act as he would have us do, always giving us new opportunities to serve him and thus progress our own well-being. When we reflect carefully on our lives, we may often easily discern where God has been active in them to accomplish his plan – even is we have often missed the path.In looking at the life of St Patrick, whose feast day this is, we can easily discern God’s plan for him, his grace fully alive in him – although, at the time, Patrick, like most of the rest of us, often felt like he was blundering around in the dark.Patrick was born in the late 4<sup>th</sup> Century, probably in what is now Cumbria, close enough to the coast for Irish raiders to kidnap him when he was sixteen. He lived in a Roman Empire which was increasingly under external attack and was brought up in a firmly Christian family – his father was a deacon of the Church. On being kidnapped and taken to Ireland, which was beyond the Empire, the young Patrick was sold into slavery and endured six miserable years as a herdsman. Confronted with the seeming devastation of his young life, he tuned with fervour to his faith, his relationship with God alone sustaining him through these years.Now, we are fortunate in that Patrick, later on, wrote a sort of diary, which we can still read today. He had a dream in which the ship on which he was to escape was ready to sail, so heeding the dream, he fled from his master and managed to gain passage to Britain on a ship! We are accustomed to reading, in the Bible, of such dreams but how often do we reject them as myths and legends, made up after the event, by others, to explain a series of actions? Yet here is the mature Patrick recounting a dream which impelled him to escape! Actually, God does, quite often, communicate with us through dreams and we should not be astonished by Patrick’s experience. Perhaps God has communicated with you through a dream? Much modern research into such things would seem to confirm their reality and frequency! Likewise, it is far from uncommon that angels, who are God’s messengers, speak to people. Sometimes, this may even be audible and not ‘in your head’ and will be confirmed by events. Given how God cares for each of us, his sending angels and even saints to us should be unsurprising! Whilst, of course, we should be careful about accepting all such voices as being from God, neither should we be automatically dismissive of them. If we listened more carefully, it is possible that our lives might have taken a very different course from the ones they have followed!We should all be familiar with the story of how Patrick became a missionary bishop, returning to Ireland to become the greatest (though not the only) missionary to that land. Undoubtedly, there were others who would have shown themselves equal to the task – but it was Patrick whom God entrusted it to. God, who knew Patrick so utterly, saw in him gifts, which, with his grace, allowed Patrick to become a channel of that grace to so many generations of Irish men and women, and to others as well. Through his labours in Ireland, he was enabled by the Lord to bring so many – countless – people to the knowledge and love of God, to bring them to Christ and, washed in the waters of baptism and fed with Christ’s own Body and Blood, enabled them to enter into the eternal Kingdom of God. Not a bad legacy!In our day and age, so many people scoff at the idea of the supernatural. Absorbed with our own cleverness and certain in our prideful rejection of the very idea of the divine, we make ourselves the measure of the universe. As even a mild pandemic has demonstrated, though, we are but as gnats in reality, prey to all the forces of nature and certainly far from being masters of the Universe. As St Patrick, along with countless others saints and ordinary Christians, have shown, if we do but allow ourselves to be used by God, following his plan for our lives, rather than determinedly believing we know what is best, perhaps our lives would be richer and our witness more effective. Let us, like Patrick, seek always to listen for and to the voice of God, expecting him to be active in our lives. We may not, as St Patrick did, convert nations – but if we can bring, through our witness, even one person to the love of God then we will have done a mighty work for the glory of God. Fr David
Lent Course: Evil and Suffering and the God of LoveWhy, if God is good and loving do evil and appalling suffering exist? Good question?Well there are good responses available to it and we shall be examining them briefly in this online course.Available on our Youtube channel: Benefice of Meir Heath and Normacot - YouTube1) What are Evil and Suffering?2) Letting God off the Hook?3) God Didn’t Do It! - Augustine4) God Did Do It . . . But! - Irenaeus5) Suffering, Evil - and Jesus
Please note that even under the current lockdown churches are permitted to be open for public worship.Holy Evangelists' Mass times:Sundays: 11.15amThursdays: 10.00am
Out With the Old and In With the New? For most of us, I suppose, the end of 2020 will be greeted with a feeling of immense relief! For most of us, it will surely rank as having been the worst year of our lives, although I recall, with some amusement, the excitement with which the year was ushered in. Naturally, in the light of what has been happening, there will be some trepidation at the prospect of yet more trauma in the New Year, but at least the news this morning with regards to the Oxford vaccine will raise the hopes of many that the end of the virus is in sight, although there are, of course, many unanswered questions remaining. So, here’s to a Happy New Year! Although the concept of a ‘New Year’ is, in many respects, an artificial construct, with the dates of the start of the year varying greatly according to location and history (March 25<sup>th</sup> was, for many centuries, seen as the appropriate date for the New Year by Christians, heralding as it does the beginning of our salvation on the Feast of the Annunciation), there is nevertheless an understandable excitement at the prospect of a fresh start, a new beginning. With the optimism which seems to come naturally to the human race, we relish the opportunity, as it appears to be, for us to make changes, undo errors and improve our lives in fresh year, which will be different from the one just past – which we had greeted so eagerly only twelve months before and which, perhaps inevitably, disappointed us! Hope springs eternal, so it would seem! Yet in all our excitement at the start of a year it is too easy to forget that we, as Christians, have a rather different perspective on the matter. We must remember that, although we live in this society, we are also apart from it, as the New Testament writers, particularly St Paul, constantly remind us. For us, the times and seasons belong to God, who created it all and the New Year, like all other years, is the scene, not of rejoicing for no particular reason than that it is a ‘new’ year (that went well for 2020, didn’t it!), but because we live in a time where there are more opportunities to work towards our ultimate salvation. In our ‘modern’ society there is a belief, where God is even considered, that somehow our salvation and place in Heaven with God is guaranteed and we don’t really have to do anything towards it. Nothing could be further from the truth! God, it is true, has won our salvation through the saving work of Jesus Christ, who freely offered himself as the one sacrifice which is capable of taking away the sins of the world. Yet God forces no-one to accept this – we remain entirely free to go our own way, even if it means rejecting the love of God. We are required, if we wish to be saved, to cooperate with the Lord – by obeying his commands, repenting of our sins, and living the sacramental life, which provides us with the ordinary means of grace necessary for us to attain this salvation. It is a cooperative work – we can achieve nothing without God, but he requires our free assent in order to help us. Properly understood, the world is a spiritual battlefield, and the Church is both its training establishment and its field hospital! The things which the world holds to be so vitally important very often are, at best, merely parts of the whole and, at worst, are actually hinderances and tools of the Enemy, who tries his best to prevent us from attaining Heaven. And prevented we can be – God will not, cannot, do other than respect our free will. Having given us this tremendous gift at our creation, even he cannot over-ride it! We must be free to reject God, even is that means eternal loss! So, rather than focus on the usual New Year’s Resolutions (losing weight, going to the gym, and so forth), we need to spend more of our time concentrating on the things which really matter, and matter for all eternity. Obeying the Commandments, confessing our sins, being regular in attending Mass, learning more about the Christian Faith, doing the work of charity which the Lord puts in our way – these are the things which really matter, and these are the things Jesus will ask us about having done when we finally meet him. He will not be concerned about whether or not we have eaten fewer chocolates or pumped iron more often, except insofar as they have contributed to, or hindered, our progress towards him! Above all, let us strive to make 2021 a year in which we make progress in prayer. The person who progresses in their prayer life is the person who will find it much easier to do all these things which the Lord has given us to do, for to progress in prayer is to walk more closely with God. As our prayer lives improve, so we find it easier to focus on the things which really matter to God and the easier it will be to walk more closely with him. Let us, in all things, entrust ourselves to the care and support of the saints, especially Our Lady, for it is they who have walked the path before us, are familiar with its pitfalls and are able, through their prayers and encouragement, to provide us with the help we need to reach that goal which they have already attained! So, too, trust in the help and encouragement of your Guardian Angel. St Pius – Padre Pio of beloved memory and very much a saint for our times (he died in 1968) - was firm in his conviction that the Angels are always most willing to offer their help, if only we would ask for it and listen to their wise words! As we enter this New Year of 2021, may God grant you his strength and his blessing, no matter what the year has in store for us, so that you may continue to progress towards him and his Kingdom. Father David
