{"id":28377,"date":"2022-01-26T15:19:12","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T14:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/?p=28377"},"modified":"2022-01-26T15:19:12","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T14:19:12","slug":"wednesday-reflection-61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wednesday-reflection-61\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>Mid-week Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">26<sup>th<\/sup> January 2022<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t suppose many of you will have been to the Ordination of a Priest.\u00a0 One of the most touching and emotional moments is when the Ordinand lies prostrate before the altar during the singing of the Litany of the Saints.\u00a0 For a brief moment you are on your own.\u00a0 Family and friends disappear.\u00a0 Your fellow priests and even the Ordaining Bishop disappear.\u00a0 But as you hear the familiar liturgy, you cannot fail to feel the presence of the Saints:\u00a0 Dominic, Benedict, Thomas Aquinas, Peter and Paul.\u00a0 Mary Magdalen, Perpetua and Felicity.\u00a0 St Catherine of Siena, St Teresa of Avila.\u00a0 The list goes on and will include a few names of your most cherished personal Saints.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if it is still the case, but we were told that at their religious profession, Benedictines, as they lay prostrate, were covered by a funeral pall like the one draped over a coffin!\u00a0 Gruesome?\u00a0 Not at all. It was a symbol that you died to yourself and lived only for Christ. The Conversion of St. Paul, whose feast we celebrated yesterday, was a conversion from\u00a0 temple sacrifice to sacrifice for another.\u00a0 That is, \u00a0a sacrifice not of animals, but of one\u2019s whole self:\u00a0 body, soul and spirit. There is a link between conversion and mission.\u00a0\u00a0In the closing words of his Gospel, St Mark (in Monsignor Knox\u2019s translation) writes, \u201cGo out all over the world and preach the Gospel to the whole of creation.\u201d That mandate is not given to priests by virtue of their Ordination but to all of us by virtue of our Baptism. \u00a0How can you evangelise?\u00a0 Not necessarily by getting into the pulpit. There are many other ways.\u00a0 Being willing to share your Faith.\u00a0 Seizing an opportunity to reach out to those without Faith.\u00a0 Praying for a struggling or searching soul.\u00a0 Let me end with one example.\u00a0 Instead of saying to someone that they should get back to going to Mass now that the pandemic seems to be easing, say rather, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come to Mass with me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Monsignor Monaghan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mid-week Reflection 26th January 2022\u00a0 I don\u2019t suppose many of you will have been to the Ordination of a Priest.\u00a0 One of the most touching and emotional moments is when the Ordinand<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wednesday-reflection-61\/\">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-28377","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\/28377","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=28377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28378,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28377\/revisions\/28378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}