A WEEK IN THE LIFE ....

I don’t know how it has been for you, but it’s been an unusual, but interesting kind of week for me. After the 9.30 mass last Sunday I rushed off to Beauvais to catch a flight to Prestwick, in Scotland, where I was due for a meeting in Glasgow on the following day. Those who have any interest in football, or soccer as some call it, will know that Glasgow is very passionate about its teams – Celtic and Rangers – who have been historically divided on sectarian lines – Celtic being Catholic and Rangers Protestant. Some efforts have been made in recent years to break down these barriers and the sometimes violent sectarian bigotry that did nobody proud. So, while I was amused, I was also a little disappointed to be told that since the election of our present Pope, the restaurant of the Rangers ground has removed the item “Eggs Benedict” from its menu!! (I hope it’s only a story, but I suspect there may be more than a grain of truth in it.)

I went from that to “I might as well be talking to the walls as talking to the people who live in this house!!” No, that’s not an exasperated exclamation for Fr. Denis, who is visiting with us at the moment – see over! Rather, it’s an affectionate quote from a homily given by one of our priests at the funeral mass for his mother, which happened to coincide with my visit to Glasgow. The context was the usual plea by his mother for people to leave their clothes that needed to be cleaned in the laundry basket on a Monday morning – traditional laundry day. Many of us, I suspect, can readily identify with the deaf ears on which such requests frequently fall! And I’m sure that most of us have similar ‘family phrases’ that started out with serious intent, but eventually end up as being a kind of family joke. You know the kind – “where did we get him/her from – certainly not my side of the family?” or one in my family was “has anybody seen my glasses?”

My return to Paris saw me attending a little celebration to mark the 80 th birthday of one of our most eminent parishioners. I know, all our parishioners are eminent – but, to coin a phrase, some are more eminent than others. Now, I know the birthday girl wouldn’t want me to in any way embarrass her by letting out any details that might help to identify her – so mum’s the word! After that the week slowed down a little – a trip to the airport to pick up Fr. Denis, a victim/survivor of Terminal 5 – a meeting of the Parish Council – and so on. You might be tempted to say – “now, doesn’t he have the life!”

But you’d be wrong! As Jesus reminds us in today’s gospel, it is He who has the Life! The Life that we all need. The Life that provides a special context in which we live out the various trivia of our days and weeks. A Life that’s offered to us to be our guide, our Way through life. A Life that offers us the Truth – the truth that the only life worth living is when we allow Him to live in us, and we live in Him. We ask Him to be our Way, our Truth and our Life.