Plenary, 22 Nov 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 22, 2000

Official Report 360KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Our time for reflection leader today is Mrs Maryanne Ure, the national secretary of the Scottish Catholic Justice and Peace Commission.

Tomorrow in the United States of America, millions of families and friends will gather together to celebrate thanksgiving. The first pilgrims gave thanks to God for their survival after their first and quite devastating year in the new world, that survival being due, in no small measure, to the generosity of local native American tribes. Four hundred years later, rich and poor, black and white, people of all faiths and none—indeed all Americans—will give thanks in some way for what they have been given during the past year. Those who have very little and those who have nothing will come together in soup kitchens to celebrate each other and enjoy a meal of turkey and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is, without doubt, the most widely celebrated feast in the USA. So perhaps this afternoon, all of us might reflect on what we have to be thankful for as we near the end of this millennium year.

First, let us give thanks for this glorious country, for its green and fertile land, its magnificent hills, its clean air and seas. May we intensify our efforts to preserve Scotland's natural resources, and to care for her animal and plant life and her rivers and streams, so that we may hand them on in all their glory to our children and grandchildren.

Let us give thanks for the diversity of our nation, for the variety and richness of races and cultures that strengthen and enrich our country. Let us promise ourselves that we will work ever more closely together to end prejudice, arrogance and pride, and increase a spirit of sympathy, understanding, tolerance and good will for all our people.

Let us give thanks for the harvest, for the food that fills and sustains us, but let us never be satisfied until all our brothers and sisters in Scotland and throughout the world are filled with good things and free from hunger and thirst.

Let us give thanks for our freedom from fear of oppression, violence, war, hatred and exclusion. Let us not forget those who do live in fear, and who are caught up in the violence of poverty, of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and of hopelessness. Let us welcome and support asylum seekers, who are often terrified of being returned to an uncertain and perhaps terrible future in the countries from which they have escaped.

Gathered today in this hallowed place—law makers and decision takers, who have been elected to power and authority—we give thanks for all that our Creator has bestowed on us in love. Let us resolve to put all our energies into transforming our society and our world into one that recognises the dignity and respect that are due to all of us as children of an all-loving God.

May we who live gently and securely not adhere to a God of the status quo, a God of the comfortable. May we instead strive with compassion and understanding to reflect in our lives a challenging God to bring about a truly just and peaceful world for all our sisters and brothers, not just for us privileged few.