Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Official Report
719KB pdf
Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. It gives me particular pleasure to welcome today’s time for reflection leader, Father Thomas Devine, from Our Lady and St Joseph’s, Glenboig, in my constituency.
Father Thomas Devine (Our Lady and St Joseph’s, Glenboig)
I recently made a journey by bus—the first in 20 years—and was amazed to see familiar roads from that lofty position. It gave me a whole new perspective and made me feel secure—even superior.
My inner journey let me see similarities with the Catholic Christian church to which I belong. In the year 313, the Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion—hence the name “Roman Catholicism”. Overnight, the Church moved from the bottom to the top, from being oppressed to having power, from catacomb to basilica. It has remained on top for almost 1,700 years.
Some people perceive Christianity to be under threat today, in all sorts of different ways. That may or may not be true. I choose to see what is happening as being the work of the Spirit, which is leading us to see things in a different way.
Before Jesus began his mission, he too was led by the Spirit—out into the wilderness, to prepare himself for what lay ahead by facing up to himself and his demons. He experienced a triple temptation at the hand of Satan—the kind of temptations that all human beings face—of power, prestige and possessions. He was challenged to face the need to be effective, the need to be right and the need to be powerful and in control. In order to be authentic to himself and to resist Satan, he had to exorcise those demons, declare his total allegiance to God and renounce power in all forms.
I believe that today the Spirit is once again leading us, as Christians, into a spiritual wilderness for purification and for transformation. He is calling us back to our roots—to humble love and service and to simplicity. He is calling us to reclaim our position from the bottom and to find our true power in powerlessness.
I thank you for the invitation to share some thoughts with you this afternoon.