Thoughts from our Chaplain - Not to us, Lord, but to you…!

When Manchester City had won the Premier League I sent congratulations to my girl friend in Aberystwyth. Don’t worry she is in her eighties! She is a fan but not a fanatical one. When I saw the scenes of the euphoria and adulation, I was beginning to wonder what it was all about. For some fans their players become not just heroes but idols.

Football becomes their religion and their players become their gods. Just imagine all the money that is spent on going to watch game after game. Could some of it not be spent on some more useful causes?               

I was reminded of all this when I read the loving reflection by Sr Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D. in Living Faith for May 19^th. She is reflecting on Paul’s and Barnabas’ visit to Lystra. They have cured a man who had been lame from birth. Immediately the people who saw it treated them as gods coming down from heaven in human form. The missionaries tried desperately to convince them that it was not them but Jesus who procured the miracle, saying that they themselves were mere mortals as they were.

The football fans have their idols. Have we them too? We shouldn’t. And we should have only one and he is not an idol, he is our God or our Creator, Saviour and Redeemer.  So with the psalmist let us say and pray “Not to us, Lord, but to you be the glory now and for ever. Amen.                                                                          

Fr Piet Wijngaard, O.Carm.