Ctk-cross-small.gif (822 bytes)

Father Alex McAllister SDS

RC Church of Christ the King

11 Castle Street

Thornbury

South Gloucestershire

BS35 1HA

tel: 01454 412223

 

In the Diocese of Clifton

Served by The Salvatorians

Map   E-mail

 

SCAM EMAIL

 

free hit counter script

Visitors since 6th October 1999

Visit: www.homilies.net 

 

 

Visit

Salvatorian Office 
for International Aid

 

Find out about
Whole Community Catechesis

 

 


Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Newsletter     Homily     Intercessions

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Newsletter     Homily     Intercessions

Contact   Links   CTK School   Treasury of Prayer   Parish Organisations   CTK Pictures  Children's Guide to CTK   Apostleship of the Sea   Porch House Project
Sermon Archive   Question of the Week Archive   Intercession Archive
  Congo Schools Support Project

Lewis Linehan's Mission Blog

Sunday Mass Times: Christ the King, Thornbury 08.30, 11.00 & 18.30    Berkeley Castle 10.00 (prompt)


 

Ignorance and Want

Just before Christmas, some of you probably saw Thornbury Amateur Dramatic Society’s production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, excellently directed by parishioner Pam Davidson. In the play, the Ghost of Christmas Present confronts the miser Ebenezer Scrooge with the (global) effects of his meanness and lack of love in the shape of two emaciated and impoverished children, ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’. Sensibly, Pam chose not to cast real children for this scene. Perhaps Thornbury ones are all too well fed! Instead, she used two gaunt, life-sized manikins to even more dramatic effect. Their mute, lifeless, haggard faces, and empty, bewildered, hopeless expressions accused the audience of complicity in Scrooge’s meanness and self-centred life. I for one found the scene very moving.

Ignorance, the lack of even basic understanding, and want, the thwarting of the most basic needs and desires by poverty and deprivation, are not confined to Victorian times. They are with us still in many parts of the world, even our own. Lacking the rudiments of education and the satisfaction of fundamental wants, people grow up to be misshapen and broken human beings, unable to fulfil their God-given potential. This is why an enlightened society, at its best, and the church, always try to address these essentials. But are education, food and good housing all there is to it? Does knowledge alone and the satisfaction of our legitimate human desires, material or emotional, completely remove ignorance and want?

Thursday of this week is the feast of St Thomas Aquinas (ca 1225-1274) probably the greatest Christian philosopher-theologian the world has known. He realised that there is more to ignorance and want than meets the eye, since knowing and desiring are closely connected.

Our human knowing, says Thomas, naturally seeks the truth, and our desires naturally seek goodness, but real Truth and Goodness are found only in God. Knowledge and desire are thus like two parts of our natural ‘God-nav’ that keeps us on target heading for God.

But we can’t do this on our own since we are still damaged creatures. Faith, for Thomas, perfects human knowledge, and love (charity) perfects our human wants. In the end, only Faith and Love, special gifts of God, working together completely remove ignorance and want.

I think Brother Thomas would have found A Christmas Carol interesting. Scrooge comes to learn where he has gone wrong, recovers his faith and hope in the future, and acts with love. His ignorance and want disappear, and then he can help others remove theirs.

God our Father, you made Thomas Aquinas known for his holiness and learning. Help us to grow in wisdom by his teaching, and in holiness by imitating his faith.

Peter Hampson