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| Mid-Lent Laetare Sunday - Spring walks |
Lent Sun 4a, Homily by F. Raymond
St Paul
gives us a very consoling teaching when he tells us that all things work
together unto good for those who love the Lord. Whatever happens to us in life
works for our good in the end, no matter how tragic it may seem to us at the
time. But the acceptance of that truth demands a great deal of courage as well
as a great deal of faith from us.
In
today's Gospel story about the man born blind Jesus gives us the very same
teaching. When his disciples asked him whether it was his own sins or the sins
of his parents that caused the man to be born blind He answered that it was
neither his own sins nor the sins of his parents that caused him to be born
blind, it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. This
seems to be a very hard teaching to accept. And so it is indeed. But if we
can't accept it then what explanation have we left for it. Are we just to
accept things as though they were from a blind, senseless Fate? Or, worse, are
we to accept them as the work of the devil himself?
Hard as it seems, there is no other explanation possible
to those who believe in God's all pervading Providence; a Providence that is
omnipotent, all powerful, and at the same time loving and caring and working for
our good; A Providence that "Reaches from end to end mightily and
orders all things wisely and sweetly" as the Scriptures so beautifully put
it.
In
the event-, Jesus-does in-fact he I this man. But, of course, he doesn't heal every
blind man, and of course the heart of the lesson of this Gospel is not for
those who may be healed by him but for the thousands, for the millions, who
won't be healed by him. In the plans of God's loving Providence there may be no
healing for any particular one of our bodily ailments, but in those same plans
there is, every time, a loving plan and purpose for the healing and the
strengthening of our souls; for the building of us up into the perfect Body of
Christ.
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Mothering Sunday, sometimes known as Mother's Day, is held on the fourth Sunday of Lent. It is exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday and usually falls in the second half of March or the beginning of April.
Traditionally, people visited the church where they were baptized. Mothering Sunday is now a celebration of motherhood. People visit and take gifts to their mothers and grandmothers.
http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/uk/mothering-sunday
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