{"id":28444,"date":"2022-02-16T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T06:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/?p=28444"},"modified":"2022-02-15T19:46:09","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T18:46:09","slug":"wednesday-reflection-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wednesday-reflection-64\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>16<sup>th<\/sup> February 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The only major feast day this week is already past. It was on Monday when we honoured Saints Cyril and Methodius\u00a0 who were Greek brothers from Thessalonica. They lived in the seventh century and translated liturgical texts into the Slavonic language and in the process invented an alphabet.\u00a0 Both were great evangelizers; Methodius outliving his brother and becoming a bishop.<\/p>\n<p>They could be counted among the few labourers mentioned in that day\u2019s Gospel who were sent out in pairs of two and who had plenty of \u2018wolves\u2019 with whom to deal.\u00a0 In a world that was largely hostile, they were fearless in proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand.\u00a0 They did not hesitate to give witness to blind men who didn\u2019t want to see.\u00a0 To deaf men who didn\u2019t want to hear.\u00a0 We operate in a world of secularists and atheists who do not believe and do not want to believe.\u00a0 Who do not want to be convinced. I wonder if there is a tendency for people to say that the Pope, or the bishops, or the priests are not doing enough to teach the truth the Church teaches?\u00a0 But all of us have a responsibility to, \u201cgo out and proclaim the Good News.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s not always reason or argumentation or even miracles that convert the hardest of hearts.\u00a0 It may be a chance word we say or the example of our lives.<\/p>\n<p>Giovanni Papini was an famous Italian\u00a0 atheist. One day he gave a coin to a freezing beggar by the roadside and told him there was more if he would curse and blaspheme.\u00a0 The beggar stood up walked away, saying \u02baPoor man! Poor man.\u00a0 God have mercy on you.\u02ba \u00a0The great Papini called \u02b9Poor man\u02b9 \u2026. by a beggar. Those words changed his life. The truth was there whether he refused to see it or hear it or believe in it. It was the words of the beggar that caused him to convert to the Catholic Faith. Makes you wonder what our words could achieve.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Monsignor Monaghan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>16th February 2022 The only major feast day this week is already past. It was on Monday when we honoured Saints Cyril and Methodius\u00a0 who were Greek brothers from Thessalonica. They lived<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wednesday-reflection-64\/\">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-28444","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\/28444","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=28444"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28446,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28444\/revisions\/28446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}