Plenary, 31 Oct 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Official Report 465KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. Our time for reflection leader today is Father Michael John Galbraith, from St Kentigern's, in Edinburgh.

Tonight we celebrate the eve of All Saints day, more commonly known as Hallowe'en. Perhaps some members of the Scottish Parliament will be stopping at the costume shops on their way home to pick up their outfits for the occasion. I shall leave to members' imagination which costumes they might choose for their fellow members.

Dressing up for special occasions is surely something common to all cultures. Priests dress up too, not usually for Hallowe'en, I might add, but in recognition of a role we play as acting in persona Christi—in the person of Christ. We put on vestments during mass to make a clear distinction between our own personalities and the personality of the one we represent.

Much of the dressing up that we do as human beings, in fact, serves the purpose of performing a role in society and is perfectly good in itself. At other times, such as at Hallowe'en, it is simply for the harmless fun of the occasion.

However, there is another type of dressing up, which is less than harmless. In the book of Genesis we are presented with an image of Adam and Eve dressing up with fig-leaves after they have sinned and turned away from God. It is an image that is meant to help us understand the shame of sin and the desire to hide from the truth of God and the truth of our own human nature.

Such dressing up is not a sign of frivolity and fun but an image of broken humanity trying to mask its true nature as created in the image and likeness of God with an eternal destiny. The temptation can always be there in our own lives, too, to hide from the truth of our human nature, with the intellectual or political masks that we wear in public. Indeed, even legislation can be used to disguise our true dignity or distort our natural moral framework.

So, whichever costume you intend to wear on Hallowe'en—or even if there are aspects of your own personal lives that you try to hide from the outside world—may your important work in the Scottish Parliament always serve to build up and strengthen our common human dignity and never to disguise or disfigure it.

As the apostle St Paul says:

"Fill your minds with those things that are good and deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and honourable. And the God who gives us peace will be with you."

Amen.