Faith

Thursday 3rd December, 2020

Another reflective day. I was able to get to Mass in the local Church and it was offered for the priest's Sister about to undergo a major heart operation. I added my prayers for a friend receiving a new heart valve as Mass was being said. I have heard since from her that it went well.

After Mass I went with a friend to sit in her car and look out over the North Sea and eat hot sausages and drink hot coffee and talk. We spoke of the Cardinal of Rwanda. Neither of us could recall his name but recently there was a news item concerning his elevation to the Cardinal's hat. It seems that he is preaching much as to forgiveness and the vital nature of the family and the love that exists therein. He himself suffered. His parents and five of his siblings were killed in the Rwandan War. We marvelled that a man who had obviously experienced such a trauma and such personal grief could go through it and end up preaching love and forgiveness and living it our authentically. " Forgive them for they know not what they do". Those words of Jesus echo constantly. Do we realise what we do? Do we realise the effects of our actions and indeed the actions of our nation?

I read also of 'Scotland's Holocaust Heroine', Jane Haining. She was a remarkable woman, Matton of a school in Budapest who refused to leave her pupils as Germany erupted in to Hungary. She protected and lived with Jewish pupils and others. Finally betrayed by the son of her school's cook she was transported to Auschwitz and never returned. When she could have escaped and returned to Scotland she refused noting "How much more do they need me in dark days?" She is the only Scot named as Righteous among the Nations by the Jewish Nation.

There are remarkable people and we too can be remarkable, following their example and ever trying to be loving, caring and kind.

I moved on to the library and heard some fascinating comments and talk, distanced of course, with the three others there. The powers that be have now decreed one cannot chose one's own books from the shelves. Fear, I suppose, of the virus on the books! One lady said her doctor daughter said the whole thing was exaggerated and causing unnecessary deaths from other illnesses and much anxiety and stress. The librarian was equally surprised by it as everyone who comes in has to gel their hands before touching a book. I am just irritated at the ridiculousness of the blanket bureaucratic decrees when no one, as yet, has had to be traced from the library and also locally the Covid cases are less than minimal. Anyway I got five new books all about murder, mayhem and happy endings! I long for the ending!

As I write this so a news flash tells me the U.K. is the first country in Europe to hit 60,000 deaths by Covid. With the vaccine soon give us the happy ending?

Back to thoughts on faith. Faith in virtue, in principles, in moral righteousness and in living a life for love. Yes, there is that type of faith as there is the faith in God but they are synonymous in my mind. If you love you are of God. I do pray for courage and I do pray for faith...in fact I pray to be a full human being because I have faith in us. And all around one sees people who have lived that faith. It is possible.