Collect for second Sunday Before Advent
1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Matthew 25: 14-30
Q. Can you play the trumpet?
A. No
Q. Have you ever tried to play the trumpet?
A. No
Q. So how do you know you can’t play the trumpet?
Most of us know the passage well, and we have probably heard many sermons that remind us that we must use the gifts God has given to us. Whatever gifts and whatever level we are blessed with, there is a role for them in God’s plan.
The standard sermon continues by telling us that it’s not good enough just to use them – we must develop them – just as the trustworthy slaves invested the talents they were given. No point on having gifts if they aren’t used.
This saying is true and worthy of full acceptance, to paraphrase 1 Timothy.
But the Gospel message doesn’t end there.
It might not be the trumpet. Or the Clarinet. A Trombone, Double Bass, a singing voice. It may not be music at all. If not, there are many other skills you may have been given that you are not yet aware of: artistic talent, hospitality, compassion, intercession, forgiveness, unconditional love. There will be some. And I challenge you to think, pray and try to find out what they are.
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And just as the donkey is a figure at the beginning of the Gospel story, so a donkey is present at its end.
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We have to ask ourselves if, like Thomas, we are prepared to follow Jesus at whatever cost
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The story of the woman at the well has been described as one of the most significant to our understanding of the Gospel message.
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This day is all that is good and fair.
It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations to waste a moment on yesterdays.
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If suffering did not exist, we could never know joy. If there was no ‘evil’, we wouldn’t be able to recognise ‘good’.
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Faith means little when God’s plan is the same as our plan. Faith is everything when it isn’t. When we don’t understand, when the things of the world tempt – and often overcome – us. When disaster happens.
Praying Together February 5th 2023
Goddess or Saint? The stories are interwoven, in many cases feeding off each other. But whatever the reality, Brigid’s care for the poor is the common theme – living a life of love and service, for all creation.