The Pointer November 2020
Rector The Rt Rev Darren McCartney 028 4175 3497 suffragan1@gmail.com
The Magazine of the Church of Ireland Parishes of Clonallon & Warrenpoint with Kilbroney in the Diocese of Down and Dromore
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The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:30&31
Do you ever need to get your head cleared? I often do. One place I find particularly beneficial is on the motorbike. I am away from the normal distractions and can clear my head and spend time in prayer. Now I am not talking about the type of prayer used when you discover that the corner you are taking is tighter than you first thought. On the bike I feel you are closer to your surroundings, you are in fact often in the elements, you can feel the air on the bottom of your chin and smell the different environments that you travel through. I happened to be in a Christian Book shop, and I was looking through the book titles, lifting the odd one and reading the contents page. My eyes happened to fall on one titled ‘How to care for your Pastor’. I picked it up and opened it, glancing down the page I was happy to see a chapter titled ‘The pastor may become spiritually bankrupt’. Now I am not drawing your attention to this so as to get your sympathy, but rather to caution each of us that it can become a reality for us. Often, we can become so engrossed with all that stuff that happens around us that we lose sight of what it is all about, our relationship with God, Our Father. Getting the head cleared of all the demands and spending time in prayer with Our Father. I don’t know what works best for you. Perhaps it is a certain room in the house, a certain chair but I do hope and want to encourage you to get that place, make that time.
‘The Imitation of Christ’ is a book I came across many years ago and it is a wee book I find myself often going back to. In recent years it seems to have grown in popularity. A book written by Thomas a` Kempis who was a son of a metal worker, born in 1379/80 Germany and a man who spent most of his life in monasteries. He writes in chapter 16 ‘That True Comfort Is to Be Sought in God Alone’, “Whatsoever I can desire or imagine for my comfort, I look for it not here but hereafter. For if I alone should have all the comforts of the world, and might enjoy all the delights thereof1, it is certain that they could not long endure. Wherefore, O my soul, thou canst not be fully comforted2, nor have perfect refreshment, but in God, the Comforter of the poor, and Patron of the humble. Wait a little while, O my soul, wait for the divine promise, and thou shalt lose the celestial and eternal. Use temporal things, and desire eternal. Thou canst not be satisfied with any temporal goods because thou art not created to enjoy them. Although thou shouldst possess all created good, yet couldest thou not be happy thereby, nor blessed; but in God who created all things, thy whole blessedness and happiness consisteth3; not such as is been and commended by the foolish lovers of the world, but such as the good and faithful servants of Christ wait for, and of which the spiritual and pure in heart, whose conversation is in heaven4, sometimes have a foretaste. Vain and brief is all human comfort. Blessed and true is the comfort which is received inwardly from the truth. A devout man everywhere carrieth with him his Comforter Jesus, and saith unto him, “Be thou present with me, O Lord Jesus, in every place and time. “Let this be my consolation, to be cheerfully