TUESDAY : 19 MAY 2020 

Today we celebrate the life of  : 

DUNSTAN

Archbishop of Canterbury, 988

Dunstan was called to lead the Church at a time when Christian standards had fallen very low.  The Viking invaders had brought great confusion and destruction to the land so that even the clergy were sinking back into the semi-barbarism of the people.  Dunstan set himself to revive the old monasteries as centres of Christian learning and to recover the priests to a sense of their high calling.  He did not hesitate to suspend the king himself from Holy Communion for a gross violation of the Seventh Commandment. It was through such men as Dunstan that the light of Crist was carried safely through the dark period of the Church’s history. He was clearly an exceptional man for this time, with wide interests and many skills.  Among his accomplishments, not normally associated with archbishops, he was a musician, an organ builder and a bell founder.  His association with the care of the blind seems to be a recent innovation. 

(Saints and Seasons) 

Collect :

Almighty God,

The light of the faithful and the shepherd of souls

You set Dunstan to be a bishop in the Church

to feed your sheep by his word and

guide them by his example:

give us grace to keep the faith he taught

and to follow in his footsteps;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Amen 

Reflections and Reading for the Day :   

ACTS 16: 16 – 34                          PSALM 138                        JOHN 16: 4b – 11 

On Paul’s regular trips to the place of prayer, the same place where Paul had met Lydia, the Lydia from yesterday’s reading. Paul encounters a person on the street, a slave-girl. A possession herself, owned not only by other humans but held captive by a spirit that appears to give her special powers.

This girl is a lucrative small-business enterprise for the men who own her. Like so many young girls, she is used by others.  “These men,” she cries out, “are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation.”

Paul was on a mission, and he didn’t really see the girl or her healing as part of that mission, and it certainly was not at the heart of it. So often we are on a mission, our own mission.  God has a mission for us, to fulfil His calling for our lives. 

Some men were profiting from the girl and exploiting her talents. Those who were making money at the expense of the slave girl accused Paul and Silas of breaking local traditions and they were arrested. No one cared about the slave girl, except for Paul and Silas. 

Many similar forms of slavery exist throughout the world today. People trading in sex and pornography often use enslaved children, male and female, for their purposes. In some cases, children are kidnapped. In others, children are bought from impoverished parents—often under false pretences.  Anyone who thinks that slavery ended years ago is sadly mistaken.

An earthquake shakes the prison to its foundations, throws open the cell doors and loosens everybody’s chains!

One would think that the initial reaction from Paul and Silas would be to get out.  Paul and Silas come to show us, through their actions and compassion, that an open door for them is not necessarily freedom. The Philippian jailer was responsible for Paul, Silas, and the rest of the prisoners. So when the Philippian jailer wakes up and sees that the prison doors were open, he knew at that his life and work were at stake.

Paul knew the law. Paul understood that if the open door for him meant the closed door for another fellow worker, that of the Philippian jailer, the door was really closed to both of them. A compassionate and caring insight from Paul.

Am I able to live a life ensuring that I keep the doors open to all people, in the way that I live?

Perhaps out of duty and self-respect, and seeing only one way out, the jailer draws his sword and is about to kill himself.  Paul cries out, as we long to hear our own voices cry out, “Don’t harm yourself, for we are here!”  Alone, death seemed inevitable. Together, caring for each other, new life is possible. 

The faith of Paul and Silas was one of courage, love and passion for others.

In John’s Gospel as Jesus leaves, the disciples are occupied not with what he has told them but with themselves. Jesus says, “I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?'” it is evident that our Lord expects these men to question him. He is attempting to arouse their curiosity. He is saying to them, “Why don’t you ask me some questions? Aren’t you interested in what is going to happen, what the result of my going away is going to be?” 

Instead, all they can think of is what it might mean to them. They are occupied with themselves, just as we so often are, and can see only their own little world. 

May our eyes and hearts be opened to the needs of the world, and may we become more outward looking.