{"id":4908,"date":"2020-05-23T14:50:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T14:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/?p=4908"},"modified":"2020-05-23T14:50:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T14:50:39","slug":"thoughts-for-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/23\/thoughts-for-saturday\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts for Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"You may have noticed the last verse of yesterday’s first reading (Acts 18:18) where we are told that St Paul ‘had his hair cut off, because of a vow he had made.’ Many of us are glad at the moment that we haven’t made such a vow as we can’t easily fulfil it! (my wife is preparing to help me out but it hasn’t happened yet).<\/span><\/p>\n

In today’s first reading (18:23-28) St Paul, with his new haircut or perhaps now completely bald continues his travels and we encounter at Ephesus the figure of Apollos; this picture of them both (it looks as if it’s El Greco) doesn’t suggest a very severe haircut (Paul is on the left). Apollos was an important figure in the development of the early churches in this region; later Paul has to act to prevent followers of him and of Paul himself setting themselves up as rivals; a good time for us to pray for Christian unity, central to the Novena to the Holy Spirit which we traditionally keep in the run-up to Pentecost.<\/span><\/p>\n

God bless and take care<\/span>
\nFr Ashley<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

___________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"I indicated on Thursday that ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4’s Today programme by the Rector of the Anglican church near Piccadilly (St James’) was very good – you should be able to listen to it here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/p08dszsd<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly yesterday’s by the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, about next week’s Jewish feast of ‘Shavuot’ (=Pentecost), in which he reflected about the book of Ruth, was also good: https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/p08dwz18<\/a>.<\/span> His new book ‘Morality’ is excellent and worth reading – I have written a review which will be in the July issue of The Pastoral Review.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have felt during lockdown that we’re very fortunate in this country to have the BBC – and for there to be a religious ‘slot’ every day in the Today programme. This Sunday is World Communications Day so it’s a good time to be thankful for the BBC and to pray for journalists. In a time of crisis – and when there are is a lot of falsehood around – we need good journalists to pursue truth and hold our rulers to account<\/span><\/p>\n

God bless and take care<\/span>
\nFr Ashley<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

___________________________________________________<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed the last verse of yesterday’s first reading (Acts 18:18) where we are told that St Paul ‘had his hair cut off, because of a vow he had made.’ Many of us are glad at the moment that we haven’t made such a vow as we can’t easily fulfil it! (my wife is preparing to help me out but it hasn’t happened yet). In today’s first reading (18:23-28) St Paul, with his new haircut or perhaps now completely bald continues his travels and we encounter at Ephesus the figure of Apollos; this picture of them both (it looks as if it’s El Greco) doesn’t suggest a very severe haircut (Paul is on the left). Apollos was an important figure in the development of the early churches in this region; later Paul has to act to prevent followers of him and of Paul himself setting themselves up as rivals; a good time for us to pray for Christian unity, central to the Novena to the Holy Spirit which we traditionally keep in the run-up to Pentecost. God bless and take care Fr Ashley   ___________________________________________________ I indicated on Thursday that ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4’s Today programme by the Rector of the Anglican church near Piccadilly (St James’) was very good – you should be able to listen to it here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/p08dszsd. Similarly yesterday’s by the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, about next week’s Jewish feast of ‘Shavuot’ (=Pentecost), in which he reflected about the book of Ruth, was also good: https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/p08dwz18. His new book ‘Morality’ is excellent and worth reading – I have written a review which will be in the July issue of The Pastoral Review. I have felt during lockdown that we’re very fortunate in this country to have the BBC – and for there to be a religious ‘slot’ every day in the Today programme. This Sunday is World Communications Day so it’s a good time to be thankful for the BBC and to pray for journalists. In a time of crisis – and when there are is a lot of falsehood around – we need good journalists to pursue truth and hold our rulers to account God bless and take care Fr Ashley ___________________________________________________  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4912,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4908\/revisions\/4912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintedmunds.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}