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Showing posts from July, 2013
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Forgotten how to cry?

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In the 1950’s a new illness was diagnosed called Compassion Fatigue the condition may symptom was characterized by a gradual lessening of compassion. It is a serious problem and people show symptoms of depression. We can have the same with ourselves when it comes to giving in charity. Sometimes to keep people quiet we may just throw money at people without even thinking about it. Sometimes we do it to appease our conscience or it makes us feel good. Now I am not saying that we should not give, it is important to keep vital work going both here and abroad, and is in fact part of our Christian duty to give to charity what we can afford but there are other lessons that we can learn from the Gospel we have just heard.   The Holy Father recently said that there are seems to be a Global indifferentism He says that we are a world that has “ Forgotten how to cry” Like the first people who walked pasted the man who had been beaten up they had been caught up with themselves that they

The cost and need of Discipleship today

The one phrase that sticks out in this Gospel today is” The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” On first sight you may get the feeling that Jesus is talking to us about some sort of ministry like being a Nun or Monk or a priest. On closer inspection it is a deeper call for all of us to be one of mission. We are all called to discipleship. And here we see in the Gospel how we are to do it. So let us look at how we are to do this. The first instruction that we are go out on two’s. The Lord Jesus describes in Matthew’s gospel that where two or three are gathered there I am in the midst of them. Two therefore is sufficient for community and to bear witness to the truth. Jesus warns that it will not be easy “you will be like lambs to wolf.” There will be a cost to this discipleship. There will be times when you are not listened too and you will go out of the town and wipe of th

SS Peter and Paul

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The other day I was watching a programme “The Call Centre” IT is about one of the largest call centres in Wales. In the recent episode that I watched they were trying to get the voice of call centres in Wales that year and this person would be on the back of  buses  promoting Call centres. What the employees had to do was to read or sing the hymn “Guide me O thou great Redeemer” to the boss.  This caused many of those applying great difficulty because they did not understand that it was a hymn. Some just did not know it at all. IT seemed that too many of these, and the majority of them were young people, that the concept of faith or Jesus or Church means nothing at all. We live in a society where the word faith or Christian for many has little or no meaning. In a recent poll less than 30% of young people went or go to Church. There is no concept of the love of God in their lives and so they search other means of self worth. This often has disastrous effects. We have to ask

Ok! So its not too difficult to pray is it???

The central theme of today’s readings is that of prayer. For me prayer is one of the most important things that I do during the day. It is as important as brushing my teeth and having that first cup of tea to kick start my day. In the psalm we hear that it is a hymn of praise and of prayer. The psalmist soul is thirsting for the Lord. Just like the morning gasp for a cup of tea or coffee so the psalmist describes his soul thirsting for the Lord. We know that we cannot survive without water and so we cannot survive without the lord. He comes to the Lord realising the need for God and to be in relationship with him.  We come to the Lord gasping for him knowing that “his love is better than life.” But the prayer comes not just through the lips but also through gesture, the hands are raised up to the Lord. In the Gospel we see that Jesus is “praying alone in the presence of his disciples.” Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray. Through this prayer he puts the question to them