Plenary,
Meeting date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Father Paul Francis Spencer of St Mungo's church in Glasgow.
Father Paul Francis Spencer (Saint Mungo's Church, Glasgow):
Recently, I went with a group of students for a weekend retreat at a monastery. We went there for silence and prayer, but the young people got more silence than they had bargained for, because the first thing that they were asked to do on arrival was to hand over their MP3 players, iPods and mobile phones. Can you imagine the shock and the withdrawal symptoms that that caused? If you cannot, picture yourself having to give up your mobile phone or BlackBerry. While many of us say that we would be delighted to be without such things, we too might find that difficult.
We complain about the pace of life and the pressures that we are forced to live under, but the truth is that some of us actually like it that way. However, when the noise and the activity and the rush and the pressure stop, what is left? In the silence, what do I hear?
Once a week, the Parliament very wisely sets aside some of its valuable time as time for reflection. That is both a symbol and a challenge for you. Symbolically, it is your way of saying that you want to be a reflective body, open to the wisdom of the great religious and human traditions of the people you represent. The challenge is to live the rest of your life in the spirit of these few minutes: to make a space in your life every day for silence, listening and reflection.
I leave the last word to a philosopher, politician and extremely busy person who lived almost a thousand years ago. Saint Anselm was born in Italy and became a monk in Normandy. Later, as Archbishop of Canterbury, he rejected the crusades and opposed kings who tried to limit his religious freedom. He wrote: "Come on now, little human being, step back from your activities for a while; escape from the noise of your thoughts. Lay aside your heavy responsibilities and postpone taking up the burden of your work. Give yourself over to God for a little while, and rest for a moment in God. Enter into the inner room of your mind; shut out everything except God and whatever helps you to seek him once the door is closed. Speak now, my heart, and say to God, ‘I seek your face; it is your face, Lord, that I seek.'"