The Catholic Parish of
Saint John Henry Newman

 Covering most of East Leeds

Look Around You.

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Have you ever heard the story about a famous Chinese Philosopher, who some years ago were paying a visit to the United States of America? During the time he was there, he was due to give a lecture at a university, which involved him making a long train journey, which took him across a large part of the country. At the end of his journey as he alighted from the
train, he was welcomed by a member of the railway staff proudly announcing that on that particular trip they had managed to clip six minutes from the usual journey time. He waited expectantly for the Philosopher to reply with some form of praise, after a few seconds thought the Philosopher said, “Really! That’s very good and how do you intend to use those six minutes?”

Nowadays, we all seem to have got caught up in this passion for doing everything faster than it has ever been done before. Recently I was watching a news item on T.V. which was extolling the virtues of the new super-fast broadband now available for our mobile phones, giving downloads three times faster than at present. However, I’m sure that if we were to
meet the Chinese Philosopher, he would ask us too, what we have really achieved by all of this speed. If you happened to be travelling the same journey constantly and always by car and it happened that one day you had to slow down, get out of your car and maybe walk a bit of the way, you might be amazed at what you’d discover about the beauty of the countryside and the friendliness of the people you meet.

So it’s a good thing that on our eventful journey on life’s road, that we slow down now and again and see what’s really happening in God’s wonderful world. God can work through us much better, when we are not hurrying. We should go slowly and quietly from one day to the next, taking time to rest and pray in between.

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, any kindness that I can show to any of my fellow creatures let me do it now.”



Published Sun 18th Nov 2012 15:38:08

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