Message of Abbot Paul - Monday - 4th March 2024
Abbot Paul • March 3, 2024
Today’s message will be short indeed. Yesterday was a very busy day, and I arrived back at Belmont exhausted if emotionally and spiritually uplifted after an exhilarating weekend. It’s difficult to make head or tail of the weather at the moment. We seem to get all four seasons in one day and sometimes the mix is repeated several times in the course of one day. I wonder what our plants make of this and our feathered friends, too.
Today’s Gospel from Luke, (Lk 4: 24-30), sees Jesus speaking in the synagogue at Nazareth. He says, “I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.” Needless to say, this infuriates his fellow townsmen. However, he has more to say and gives two examples from the Old Testament. “There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.” What Jesus says is perfectly true. During that long drought and famine, the only miracle Elijah worked was for a foreign, and therefore pagan, widow. In the same way, the only healing of a leper in the days of his successor, the prophet Elisha, was of a Syrian and a pagan, Naaman. Jesus compares himself with the two great prophets, not that they were rejected by Israel, but their teaching was usually ignored.
Luke goes on to tell us, “When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.” This first rejection of Jesus by his own townsmen is prophetic in that it begins a series of events that escalate and ultimately end with his arrest, trial, passion and crucifixion. On many occasions, Jesus manages to slip through the crowds and escape. Eventually he will let himself be taken, as for this he came into the world, to give his life for the forgiveness of sinners and their salvation. For that sacrifice we give thanks to God today with all our heart.
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Good Shepherd, Good Priest “I will seek the lost and bring back the strayed; I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.” Those words, spoken by the Lord God through the prophet Ezekiel, describe the heart of God, the Good Shepherd — but they also describe the life and ministry of a good monk and priest. They could well be written of Fr Stephen’s years of service as a pastor in Abergavenny, Swansea, Hereford, and Weobley. In each of those places, he shared in the Shepherd’s work: seeking out the lost, binding up the wounded, strengthening the weary, and leading God’s people with quiet faithfulness. And like Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who came close to his people, Fr Stephen did not serve from a distance. He knew his people; he was among them. He shared their sorrows and their joys, their hopes and their disappointments. He bore their burdens with prayer and patience he brought the joy of the Gospel and the grace of the Sacraments. His mission amongst us is complete. He has served God’s good purpose. So today we ask Christ the Good Shepherd to take Stephen on his sacred shoulders and carry him home to the house of the Father. Bind up his wounds, give him eternal rest and lead him at last to the green pastures and still waters of eternal life.