Thought for the Day 2nd April 2020

IT'S ALL A MATTER OF TIME

In 1995 the satirist Peter Cook died, a man who I am not sure I would have personally liked but he could be very funny. When I was young his style of comedy was very prevalent and, in my opinion, he was marvellous. One of the most famous of his “Beyond the Fringe” sketches was when he was sitting on the park bench as E.L. Whisty. He said “Yes, I could have been a judge, but I never had the Latin, never had the Latin for the judging, I just never had sufficient of it to get through the rigorous judging exams.”

How many of you “have got the Latin”? Not many I expect, but many of our words are derived from Latin and many little phrases come into our everyday lives. Have a look at your clock and there is a good chance that you will find “Tempus Fugit” on the face. It means, in Latin, time flies, and it most certainly seems to especially when we do not want it to. Time is a most precious gift of God which we only get once. We can look backwards on our lives and learn from our mistakes as well as our achievements, but we cannot have that time again. Making the best use of our time is very important, and nowadays we have so many opportunities to do different and exciting things. Well, we will have again when this horrid Coronavirus is killed or cured.

But if we believe that we should o’offer our lives’ to God, then we must be prepared to give him some time, as well as other gifts. Give time to God with time in prayer, the reading of the Bible, through attendance at Church and service to the community.

At a school assembly some years ago I asked what week it was and a boy put his hand up and said “It's SATS week”. I was expecting the answer “Christian Aid Week”, but to an 11 year old the most important thing on his mind were his exams. Peter Cook as E.L. Whisty, had trouble with rigorous exams and all of us get tested at times and sometimes fail.

I have failed one or two exams in my time and have felt pretty devastated. So many thoughts go through your mind concerning why you did not do enough revision or just did not work hard enough during the year or perhaps answered the wrong questions. But, whatever the verdict, you cannot have that exam time or the whole year again. Live for today but give time to God.

Remember the words of Jesus “Do not worry about tomorrow, it will have enough worries of its own” (Matthew 6:34). This year will be a very worrying time for young people who should be taking exams. People who are good at exams might feel cheated of their opportunity to excel and those who are terrified of exams but do really well with course work will be feeling lucky, and of course teachers will perhaps relish a little bit of god like power. There will be a good few pupils who will be wishing that they had given an apple to the teacher rather than teenage cheek.

With time on your hands perhaps you could say some prayers for all the youngsters at school, college or university who are worried at this time.

Fr. Terry