{"id":27084,"date":"2021-02-17T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T06:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/?p=27084"},"modified":"2021-02-16T11:29:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-16T10:29:19","slug":"wednesday-reflection-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wednesday-reflection-31\/","title":{"rendered":"WEDNESDAY REFLECTION"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>Mid-week Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">17<sup>th<\/sup> February 2021<\/p>\n<p>Oh dear,\u00a0 the tough times start again today!\u00a0 Some people may scoff at the little penances we take upon ourselves during Lent.\u00a0 Do they matter?\u00a0 Do they affect our future lives?\u00a0 When I was about ten years old my Twin sister, <strong><em>told<\/em><\/strong> me that we would go off sugar in our tea for Lent.\u00a0 At first it was awful but by the time Easter came around, and we were permitted sugar again, we didn\u2019t like it and neither of us has had sugar in our tea ever since. The following year, she <strong><em>told<\/em><\/strong> me that we would go off milk in our tea and\u2026you\u2019ve guessed it\u2026.neither of us has had milk in our tea ever since.\u00a0 So, our mortifications can affect our lives.\u00a0 In fact, hers went even further as, in due time,\u00a0 her husband and children followed suit.\u00a0 It might have been better if she had told me to go off sinning for Lent!\u00a0 But that\u2019s the point of our self-imposed mortifications.\u00a0 They dispose us to something better, something finer, something greater.\u00a0 They teach us the value of self-discipline and unite us with the sufferings of Christ on the Cross.\u00a0 They prepare us for Easter and a desire to be open to the truths of our faith.\u00a0 The imposition of ashes, either by the cross on our foreheads or by sprinkling them on our heads, is accompanied by the words, \u201cRemember you are dust and into dust you shall return.\u201d\u00a0 Do you know the other occasion when a priest says those words?\u00a0 It\u2019s when the earth is imposed upon our coffins!\u00a0 Mortification comes with the ashes.\u00a0 Mortality with the earth.\u00a0 As the late Bishop McGill once said to the students of the Pontifical Scots College in Rome\u2026..\u201dI wish you all a happy Lent!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Monsignor Monaghan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mid-week Reflection 17th February 2021 Oh dear,\u00a0 the tough times start again today!\u00a0 Some people may scoff at the little penances we take upon ourselves during Lent.\u00a0 Do they matter?\u00a0 Do they<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wednesday-reflection-31\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2931,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27084"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27086,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27084\/revisions\/27086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}