SUNDAY

Jeremiah’s cry today is ours:

“You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced. You have overpowered me; you were the stranger.” (Jeremiah 20:7-9)

I think the language of seduction is right. It is all so irrational. Reason screams: the world is created by the laws of physics. Yet one’s heart is seduced, one’s heart but not yet the head.

MONDAY

“But he slipped through the crowd and walked away.” (Luke 4:16-30)

I always wonder how He slipped through the crowd. Did he vanish or did the enragement of the crowd blind them? Does He slip through our sight, too?

TUESDAY

The start of a new school year. Things are resolved. We know where we are going now. There is a debate on three-parent families – mitochondrial research. Is this part of the increasing alienation of the age? That attempt at cures can always be justified. Even if we now have three-parent babies.

St Paul tells today that the Spirit reaches the depths of everything. (First letter of St Paul to the Galatians). But does it? Only of course if we let it.

WEDNESDAY

I do a piece for the Today programme on the Ukraine and I take part in Prime Minister’s Questions. We have been too complacent in Scotland.

I am struck by this passage, however, today:

When daylight came he left the house and made his way to a lonely place. (Luke 4:38-44)

Mark the words: to a lonely place, to be alone, not to be with other people, to be silent. We all have this great need.

THURSDAY

“The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God.” (Galatians 3:18-23)

The truth is that we take ourselves and the world far too seriously. We are enveloped by it. We fail to see our own foolishness and minuteness in the light of eternity, whether or not it is inhabited by God.

FRIDAY

“The salvation of the Lord comes from the just.” (Ps 36)

I can’t help feeling however that we always foolishly think salvation comes from our efforts, as individuals or in groups, or by country. We very rarely think of something beyond ourselves.

SATURDAY

We were at an oblates meeting and our oblate master was giving us good advice to treat things as “gifts” not possessions – everything is a gift: children, home, health, job, abilities. If something is a gift and not a possession you don’t need to grasp it tightly and fearfully in a clenched fist.

He told us also that God is not part of your history, your regrets. He does not say “I was”. He is not part of your fears for the future. He does not say “I will be”. He is for the present. He says “I am”. He says: “I Am Who I Am”.

Sometimes you feel this vastness in the present in the quiet of the night.

On Friday night I stood alone in the abbey church looking at the sanctuary lamp. At times like these, one can feel a special belief.

On Saturday evening I realised it was not just the softness of the candlelight: I was looking through the sanctuary light to the crucifix beyond and to the shadows reflecting into the nave. Thus a deeper less material beauty became apparent.

Our oblate master also reminded us that St Benedict was a layman promoting the role of lay brothers. This I feel sure is a future for our monasteries as vocations decline. But a monastery cannot exist just as prayer groups or schools: it must have more people within the monastery. This means nowadays I am sure more lay people.