Message of Abbot Paul - Saturday 13th May 2023
Abbot Paul • May 12, 2023
Woolhope Church
Putley Church
Yesterday I had the great pleasure to go out into the Herefordshire countryside with a good friend. We visited the churches at Woolhope, where we also had lunch nearby, and Putley, a small church well worth visiting. I will post a few photographs of these two churches. It was a beautiful day with temperatures rising to 20C. On my return to Belmont, I was delighted to meet up with one of my former students from the 70s who came to visit with his wife. All in all, a wonderful day, and now I have the joy of writing this short message. Today, in many parts of the world, Catholics celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, so we ask her intercession for the peace of the world and especially for the end to the war in Ukraine.
We continue reading John’s Gospel, (15: 18-21), where Jesus warns his disciples that the world will hate and persecute them as it has hated and persecuted him.
“If the world hates you,
remember that it hated me before you.
If you belonged to the world,
the world would love you as its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
because my choice withdrew you from the world,
therefore, the world hates you.
Remember the words I said to you:
A servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too;
if they kept my word, they will keep yours as well.
But it will be on my account that they will do all this,
because they do not know the one who sent me.”
From the very beginning until the present day, the Church and her faithful members have been the object of hatred and persecution for any number of reasons, but mostly because, like Jesus and the Apostles, we place obedience to God before obedience to men. In other words, we do not belong to the world, but have given ourselves wholly to God through faith and baptism and our daily living according to the commandments of God and the teaching of the Gospel. We should not seek to be loved by the world, but by God, whom we love as he loves us in Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. We must never forget that, “A servant is not greater than his master.” Persecution for the sake of Christ is lovingly embraced by all true Christians. Let us not fret and worry over the hatred the world might have for us, rather, let us rejoice that our names are written in heaven.
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