Message of Abbot Paul - Saturday 16th September 2023

Earlier this week, we remembered the terrible events that took place on this day twentytwo years’ ago. They are as vivid in my mind at this moment as they were when they unfolded before our eyes and we saw them live on television. As well as causing incalculable pain and suffering, death and destruction to countless families, they also instilled horror and disbelief in our hearts. It was hard to believe that these things were really happening, but they were, for all the world to see, and they changed the course of the new millennium and world history from that day onwards. As Christians, we never lose hope and we continue to pray daily that peace and justice will prevail on this speck in the universe that we continue to share as our common home. We pray that what happened on 9/11 may never be repeated, but know as well that millions of our sisters and brothers throughout the world continue to suffer from man’s inhumanity to man, as well as from natural disasters. We keep them, too, in our prayers today and every day.

 

​Today’s Gospel reading from Luke, (Lk 6: 43-49), is truly apt when we think of these tragic occurrences. The words of Jesus to his disciples sound prophetic as we hear them again. “There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man’s words flow out of what fills his heart.” Jesus’ teaching needs no explanation. We all need to pray for our own conversion and purification as well as for others, a radical change of heart. Lord, touch our hearts, cleanse them, make them new, that only goodness may flow from them, that the world might become a different place, an infinitely better place, and all your children be safe from harm.

 

​Jesus, however, asks us not only to listen to his words, but to act on them. So many people admire Jesus, but how many truly follow him, putting his teaching into practice? He says, “Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and acts on them – I will show you what he is like. He is like the man who when he built his house dug, and dug deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man who built his house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!” The rock on which we must build our lives is Christ. It’s easy to build on sand, but rather more difficult on rock, just as it is easier to build our lives on our own whims and desires, but our minds are as unstable as sand, whereas Christ and the Gospel are like rock. Lord, grant us wisdom to live according to your teaching and example. Help us to become more disciplined and responsible as men and women who bear the name of Christian, your name. Amen.