Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Official Report 771KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon and happy new year. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Father Joe Mills, who is the parish priest of St Mary’s Church in Duntocher.

Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon.

Some years ago, Cardinal Winning invited me to address my brother priests at a day of recollection and study. We were preparing to launch his pastoral plan for the archdiocese of Glasgow. On my way to the meeting, I paid an early visit to my cousin and her husband for a wee cup of tea. My cousin, who is a general practitioner and mum, was on an early shift and had left dad to get the baby dressed. As I arrived, the little girl, who was aged about three, was in tears. She demanded that her dad find her favourite socks—the ones with the Snow White design. Poor dad ransacked the drawer; there were socks with every other fairy-tale character imaginable. Finally, he found one sock with the Snow White logo but could not find its neighbour. The child was now in a tantrum. The next thing we noticed was that she had clasped her two feet together and was attempting to squeeze them into the one Snow White sock.

This experience gave me food for thought on my way to the seminar with the clergy. I wondered whether I had often found myself behaving like that child. How often had I created problems for myself? How often had I been stubbornly determined to pursue a course of action that I knew deep down would never work? I could apply this to my own personal life and to how I exercise my public ministry as a priest.

When I stood before the clergy later that day, I decided to share the incident of “Snow White and the One Sock” with the cardinal and my colleagues. I suggested to the priests that we may have to revise our approach to pastoral planning by asking ourselves whether we are attempting to force policies on the people, and not being open to other options and other ideas. Being open would, I suggested, demand the kind of patience that comes with maturity. I added that Jesus himself did not force his disciples to follow his way; he invited them to share his belief that what he was preaching was the will of God.

Today I am sure that you—the members of our Scottish Parliament—will manage to dissuade both adults and children from squeezing two feet into the one Snow White sock.

Thank you, Father Joe. After the parable of the Snow White socks, we will move on to topical questions.