Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Father Tom Welsh, Xaverian missionary and director of the Conforti Institute, Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue Centre, Coatbridge, which is in my constituency.
Father Tom Welsh (Xaverian Missionary and Director, Conforti Institute, Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue Centre, Coatbridge)
A teacher notices a little girl scribbling frantically. The teacher asks the girl, “What are you doing?” The girl replies, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” The teacher retorts, “Don’t be daft. Nobody knows what God looks like.” The girl responds, “Well, they will do when I’m finished.”
We often need or meet people who show us the face of God, who let us know what God is like. One such figure is Martin Luther King, who was born on this day in 1929. Through his short life, which tragically ended on 4 April 1968, he has become celebrated as an icon of black emancipation and universal solidarity and justice.
King’s greatness was rooted in his faith. Overcoming years of “unrelenting doubts”, he concluded that the Bible has
“many profound truths which one cannot escape.”
At 20 years of age, he entered seminary and was ordained a Baptist minister.
The impetus for King’s struggle for black emancipation and his hunger for universal justice and equality were rooted in the epic biblical narrative of the exodus. In the exodus event, Almighty God stands beside the poor and the homeless, the marginalised and the vulnerable, in all places and in all times. God is saving his people in this world, in human history.
The struggle continues. As King reminds us,
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The banking crisis and the recession alert us to the limits of the market and the state to bring about the Christian vision of God’s reign of justice, peace and integrity of creation that is universal and inclusive.
King was an inveterate coalition builder. For him, science and religion were complementary:
“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives knowledge; religion gives wisdom. Science deals with facts; religion deals with values. The two are not rivals.”
Benedict XVI, during his United Kingdom visit in 2010, asserted that faith and reason need each other to avoid the dangers of ideology on the one hand and fundamentalism on the other.
King was convinced that
“We must ... live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
King dedicated his life to mobilise all people of good will to work together for fundamental changes to the political and economic inequalities and injustices that abound. On this day, he enjoins all people of good will to live his dream:
“Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty we are free at last.”