Plenary, 19 Dec 2001
Meeting date: Wednesday, December 19, 2001
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
To lead our time for reflection, I welcome Father Tom Mullen, the priest of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Dunfermline.
Father Tom Mullen (Priest of Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Dunfermline):
One of the characters from our scripture readings of and from whom we will hear a lot as we prepare to celebrate Christmas is the prophet Isaiah. He reminds us that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, came into the world because
"Night still covered the earth and darkness its people".
The coming of Christ into our lives is to shed light, not just on who we are, but on what we have the capacity to become. He comes to take us out of darkness, to cut at the roots of our deepest insecurities and to empower us with security, integrity and a sense of vision.
The news of the fulfilment of that prophecy comes to us in a rather clumsy and bewildering way—it is brought to shepherds. Shepherds in Bethlehem—at that time, at least—were not considered to be the most trustworthy of people. They were undesirables and were marginalised, and yet it is they who go down in history as being the bearers of the news of this astounding event for all generations.
Christmas also means that we are dealing with a God who is biased, not just towards the marginalised, but towards the vulnerable and the defenceless, in the person of an infant, someone who is totally dependant on loving and caring human beings.
Here we have a God who has thought of everything possible in order to identify with us. He identifies with the helpless, the innocent and the vulnerable; those who live at the mercy of others and who cannot fend for themselves. All those things apply to God's children, whether they are infants or elderly because they are all God's "little ones".
That was an indication on God's part that, from now on, the new covenant would no longer begin from on high—it would start from bottom up.
Let our prayer be that this Christmas will be different to any other Christmas in our lives. Let us see it as an invitation from God, calling us to enter into his plan of things so that people will not live in darkness, but will see the great light foretold by Isaiah.
Sir David, I thank you for the kind invitation to share time for reflection with you and the Scottish Parliament. I wish you and this gathered assembly peace for the Christmas season and also for the coming new year. May our prayer and hope be that this Parliament, all Parliaments and all leaders of countries and Governments may always consider what is good for mankind and endeavour to act on behalf of those who cannot fend for themselves or achieve those things for themselves.