Plenary, 19 Sep 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Official Report 411KB pdf

---

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Father Andrew Clark, the Roman Catholic chaplain of HM Prison Perth and HM Prison Glenochil.

Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, thank you for affording me the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon—it is indeed a great honour. I must confess, however, to being somewhat challenged after having read the guidance notes informing me that my address should reflect the practice of the faith community to which I belong. I hope you will not misunderstand when I say that, as a prison chaplain, I normally get to speak to disreputable and troublesome characters from all sorts of shady backgrounds—so I am happy to be here today.

I have learned many things over the years while ministering in prisons, but perhaps the most important is God's ability to take desperate situations, to somehow turn them around, and out of them to bring good. That should not surprise us, though; after all, that is exactly what he did when he turned the tragedy of Jesus's crucifixion on Good Friday into the joy of his resurrection on Easter day: when he took death and gave back new life; when he changed despair into hope; when out of darkness he brought light.

God's activity in the lives of prisoners may not always be spectacular or dramatic. Invariably, it does not mean a road-to-Damascus conversion. Rather, it is better described as being analogous to seeds of God's charity, planted by men and women of good will, that grow slowly under the influence of the Holy Spirit, gradually changing the lives of those who open their hearts to God into the image and likeness of Christ our Lord.

But let us not delude ourselves. While it is my privilege to serve these men, it is also often difficult to see some prisoners as angels with dirty faces, and life inside Scotland's prisons can be hard and dangerous. Nevertheless, God does take hold of individuals and reshape their lives. A serving 24-year-old prisoner gave me this poem a few months ago. Having put his trust in God and experienced his love, he was able to pen the following words:

"Oh my God, your love is so true,
I rejoice in my sentence for it brought me to you.
Always beside me and never apart,
Forgiving my madness and hardness of heart.
With your life changing peace you granted to me
A hunger for your grace that alone sets me free.
And though surrounded by these walls and wire,
To remain in your love is all I desire."

There is a lesson in that for us all. No matter what our personal or private circumstances; no matter what difficult situations lie before us; no matter how troubled we may sometimes feel ourselves to be in the face of local, national or even global problems, if we have faith and approach God our Father with hope and love, he will work again in us—through the power of the Holy Spirit—the miracle of Jesus's death and resurrection, both here in this Parliament and its business of government, and in the minutiae of our day-to-day living.