Message of Abbot Paul - Friday 24th June

Message from Fr Paul for Friday, 24th June 2022

 First of all, may I remind you that tomorrow, Saturday, 25th June, we will be holding our Parish Summer Fête for the first time in three years. Everyone is welcome and the entrance is free. It’s marvellously organised by the ladies of the parish and you and your family can be assured of a great time. There will be something for everyone. We begin at 2pm and usually end around 4pm. In fact, you could go straight to the Vigil Mass for Sunday at 4pm in the abbey church.

Today, the Friday after Corpus Christi, we keep the feast of the Sacred Heart, a feast that highlights the love and mercy of God made manifest through the Heart of Jesus, a heart that overflows with the perfect goodness, generosity, love and mercy of God. Let’s focus on the Gospel story, where we read, learn and meditate on the love of the Saviour, who died for our sins and rose from the dead so that the Holy Spirit might overflow into our hearts and recreate them to be perfect mirrors of the perfect love of God.

 Our Gospel reading for today is taken from Luke, (Lk 15: 3-7), where Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees the delightful Parable of the Lost Sheep. “What man among you with a hundred sheep, losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the missing one till he found it? And when he found it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders and then, when he got home, call together his friends and neighbours? ‘Rejoice with me,’ he would say ‘I have found my sheep that was lost.’ In the same way, I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine virtuous men who have no need of repentance.” Whose heart doesn’t glow within them when they hear this parable? As in all parables, the story itself is somewhat exaggerated. It’s hardly likely that a shepherd would leave ninety-nine sheep alone and go in search on the one that has gone astray and is lost. I don’t know if shepherds in the Holy Land had sheepdogs at the time of Jesus. No mention is ever made of them. He might possibly carry it back to the fold, relieved if not exactly rejoicing, but it’s unlikely that he’d call together his friends and neighbours to tell them all about it and share his joy. However, this is what God does, which is why Jesus mixes with sinners, eats and drinks with them, befriends them; so that he can bring them to repentance and new life. He reminds his hearers that the good and the virtuous have no need of repentance, but sinners do and that is why he has come among them. Now, what Jesus proposes is not easy, but he promises us the help we need to follow his example. In fact, we have been given the Holy Spirit, in whom we are reconciled and united with Christ and our heavenly Father.