The development of the mobile phone from its original concept of the phone locating the person not the place has been a great boon. No longer does the excuse that you are “out” when you were “in” apply! Unless you switch off, which is rather counterproductive, you are available.
In its early days it was seen as a “ball and chain” as it was perceived to be tying its owner to the phone service. Gradually it found favour till today when there is countrywide telephone coverage and a mobile in every pocket!
In some countries anarchy was assisted by dissidents using mobile phones to alert the population until the government took down the network! In developing countries, the mobile has enabled land-line infrastructure to be bi-passed when the population were able to access mobiles for themselves.
There are now estimated to be 1,900 million users! Plenty of scope for ‘bad eggs’ to be amongst them!
This week some vigilantes in Leeds, England, set up a sting operation which caught an Irishman who had been grooming a 14-year-old girl for sex. Mobile phones were used in the operation and a citizen’s arrest of the man was made when he turned up at the rendezvous. He was duly handed over to the police in order for the law to take its course.
With cases of paedophilia being regularly reported by the media it is easy to see why these operations could increase as anxious parents try to protect their children and young people. Fake identities are easy to create and paedophile hunters may not be disposed to give the one caught a fair hearing!

Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble (St Luke Chapter 17 verses 1 and 2).
Do millstones become gravestones? Is there no hope for the paedophile?
The Good News of the Gospel is that Christ died for sinners – not the righteous
(Romans Chapter 5 verse 8).
St Paul puts it plainly when he wrote “God justifies the ungodly” (Romans Chapter 4 verse 5). But how? When they repent is the answer. What does repentance look like? The same as for any other sinner – a separation from the sin. This required boundaries to be put in place. Jesus said if your hand offends you, cut it off. Clearly a change of behaviour even if the separation is as sharp as the severance of a limb is required to remove the sinner from the temptation. This may well be a lifetime separation.
Both the predator and the victim need the strength which comes from putting their trust in Christ. To the first “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity”. To the second “Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness” (2 Timothy Chapter 3 verses 19 & 22).
Remember one ‘mobile’ that is always answered is Prayer!

Christie’s New York salesroom was amazed this week by flurry of bids over a 19-minute period culminating with a record sale price of €450,000,000. The same painting fetched as little as €10,000 in 2005!
At an exhibition in 2011 it was valued at €127.5 million so this week’s figure had been somewhat anticipated. The main reason for the price hike is its scarcity value. There are less than 20 Da Vinci paintings in existence.
The normal five-year window of authenticity now follows during which time the paintings provenance will be tested by those who have reason to doubt its genuineness. It also ensures that Christie’s reputation remains intact!
We need to consider why Christians, perhaps until recent times, have avoided portraying the face of Christ?
Besides the obvious one that no one knows what Christ looked like there is the fact of Christ’s two natures. He was fully human and fully divine. Whatever the difficulties posed in imagining his physical form there is the sheer impossibility of being able to portray his divinity.
The simple truth is that there was never a time when Christ did not exist. What was new was when he took flesh (St John Chapter 1 verses 1 and 14). The mighty God (Isaiah Chapter 9 verse 6) became a child of a virgin, Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, without ever ceasing to be what he always was (St Luke Chapter 1 verses 27, 31 to 35).
He was born into the lower end of the social scale. He was, in his short life on earth, the ‘Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’. He endured poverty, homelessness, pain, thirst and weariness; misunderstanding and rejection among those he came to save.
The wonder of God’s grace to us fellow human beings is that Christ can sympathise with our weaknesses because he was tempted in every respect as we are yet he was without sin (Hebrews Chapter 4 verse 15).
Perhaps most works of art of Christ show him on the cross as the great sin-bearer. There the artist tries to capture the suffering of unmitigated physical pain and total social isolation. His soul was in touch with all that Hell could do by way of darkness and temptation. But above and beyond all that he had to endure the bearing of the world’s sin as he was forsaken by God his Father (St Matthew Chapter 27 verses 45/46).
“He die, me no die” was the simple yet profound statement of the African believer. It captures the substitution of Christ’s death in the place of the guilty – ensuring that
the repentant guilty sinner can go freed to live a life of love (Ephesians Chapter 5 verse 2).
The fact is you cannot buy Christ – not even with the astronomical figure paid this week! But by God’s grace you can know him (St John Chapter 17 verse 3 and 1 John chapter 5 verse 20).

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 World War 1 officially ended. The date was declared a national holiday in many nations, and coincides with Remembrance Day in the UK and Veterans Day in the USA.
It is part of the UK tradition to wear a poppy, reminiscent of the fields of Flanders, where so many soldiers died. In Ireland a Shamrock with a red centre, as worn recently by the Taoiseach, may become the accepted symbol of remembering our war dead.
Sadly, it is 30 years since an IRA bomb killed 12 people at a Remembrance Service in the square at Enniskillen. They, and many other victims of violence, are now included among the dead who are mourned on the 11th November.

The legacy of war is hard to erase. Some attempt at having schoolchildren ‘adopt’ a dead soldier, perhaps one from their parish and visit his war grave, may help to counteract the bitterness left behind by war. This introduces the youth to the horrors of war but at the same time gives a practical outlet for their emotions. An added dimension is the introduction of schoolchildren from the opposing side in an effort to see that, there among the war graves, grief knows no boundaries.

When the prophet Isaiah looked down the avenues of time he saw Mt Zion (Jerusalem) with the nations streaming to it. There the ways of the Lord would be taught and justice dispensed (Isaiah Chapter 2 verses 1 to 5). There would be no need for weaponry. The hymn writer captures it: –
To ploughshares men shall beat their swords,
To pruning hooks their spears.
No longer host encountering host
Shall crowds of slain deplore; (no longer will there be grieving for the dead)
They’ll hang the trumpet in the hall
And study war no more.

We are far from this ideal of “study war no more”! King David, himself a warrior, realised the folly of pursuing war. In Psalm 68 he wrote the lines to the Lord: –
“Trample underfoot those who lust after tribune;
Scatter the peoples who delight after war” (Verse 30).

St Paul saw the cause of war most clearly. It lay within himself (and us)! There was a war on and it was against indwelling sin. He was defeated by it. He could not, by himself, get the victory. Only when he laid his sins at the foot of the cross; only when he saw the atoning blood flow over them could he claim the victory in Jesus name (Romans Chapter 7 verses 21 to 25).
This private war is one which, through trusting in the work of Christ, we can be on the winning side.

You may have missed noticing the removal from office of former UCD Students’ Union president Katie Ascough this week. She is a pro-life advocate in the debate around the 8th Amendment to our Constitution which currently preserves the equal right to life of both mother and un-born child.
So what did Katie do that was so wrong? Is it not possible to hold pro-life views at our Universities? Is it like heresy, OK to hold such views – so long as you do not utter them?
In Katie’s case she had a page of abortion information removed from the student union’s freshers’ magazine, Winging It, following legal advice that it may have been illegal. The students voted in favour of its retention apparently ignored the legal advice. Katie was removed from office.
In another university – Oxford – a group Oxford Students for Life issued an invitation to an Irish Journalist and a Barrister to each make a presentation of ‘Ireland and Abortion’. After making some introductory comments but before getting into the subject about 15 protesters disrupted the proceedings. They shouted pro-choice slogans and maintained their disruption for some 40 minutes.
It seems that the words in the Simon and Garfunkel song apply every bit as much today:
“All lies in jest, when a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
Oz Guinness, the son of missionary parents, who got his doctorate from Oxford, once related the difficulty he had obtaining a hearing. It was in the days when women’s rights were a hot topic and his female audience prejudged his talk. They thought it would not be to their liking.
The noise started immediately. Oz requested silence and sat down. After some 10 minutes the noise abated and Oz, after commending them for being obedient women, got on with his talk!
Of course hearing requires hard work to grasp what is being said. Much easier to repeat a slogan monopolising the air waves in a mindless way.
Jesus recognised a deeper problem as instanced by his quote from Isaiah “He that had ears to hear let him hear” (St Matthew Chapter 13 verses 13/15).
As in Isaiah’s time the people were unresponsive. Because of their disobedience God had made them deaf to the message. It was the same in Jesus day. Their hearts were hard. They heard the message but that openness of faith which is the gift of grace was not present and it did them no good.
An old illustration of this is that of the sun. It shines on both the clay soil and a piece of wax. It hardens the former but soften the latter.
The same circumstances existed for St Paul (Acts Chapter 28 verses 25/27). St Paul’s preaching had reached its end, he was in prison in Rome, the Jews had come to his cell, he had preached all day but few were convinced. He reminded them of Isaiah and turned his attention to the Gentiles for the last two years of his life.
Have you received the message of Christ crucified into a grace softened heart?

It is generally reckoned that the 31st October 1517 was the date Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church triggering the reformation. This was the usual method of drawing attention to a subject and normally would lead to a public debate. Luther chose the subject of purchasing indulgences which, it was said, released the dead loved one’s soul from hell.
John Tetzel was the salesman for Luther’s area of Germany. He was backed by the Pope (who needed money to rebuild St Peter’s in Rome) and the local Cardinal (who had debts he had to clear). Tetzel would enter a town with his followers and after some fiery preaching required the congregation to put money into his wooden chest. To encourage them he would recite, ‘As soon as the gold in the casket rings; the rescued soul to heaven springs’.
This was the setting of Luther’s thesis. An example of one of them reads “He who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God’s wrath,” thesis 45.
Matters came to a head when Pope Leo X in June 1520 issued a Papal Bull excommunicating Luther which the latter publicly burned along with volumes of canon law, papal constitutions, and works of scholastic theology. This led to an order to have Luther’s writings burned. (He wrote 60 books and hundreds of pamphlets).
Luther was summonsed to renounce his writings before the lawyers of the church at the Diet of Worms with Emperor Charles V presiding. He asked for 24 hours to reflect and pray. The next day the charge was again put to him and he responded,
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the Pope or in Councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen”.
While the Diet were considering Luther’s fate his friends took him away and kept him in hiding until popular opinion, which was always on Luther’s side, ensured his safety.
What was it that enabled this Monk to stand against the might of Rome? All through his youth he had been keenly aware of his sins, an awareness which increased when he took holy orders. He saw himself as unrighteous, under condemnation by a holy God and no amount of penance could clear his debt.
It was reading Romans Chapter 1 verse 17 “The just shall live by faith” he saw that God has offered to us the holiness of his Son as a covering for our sin so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
God changed Luther in that moment from a despairing sinner to a justified son. From someone trying to create his own righteousness so as to become acceptable to God, and failing miserably, to discovering that his righteousness was in Christ alone.
May God grant a like understanding to free you to serve Him!

The week started with hurricane Ophelia and ended it with hurricane Brian!
Ophelia came at us from the South producing some of the highest wind speeds ever recorded and Brian came out of the West laden with rain!
It is hard to get into perspective the force of Ophelia. It produced the biggest wave ever recorded off the Irish coast. It measured 17.81 M (58.4 feet) or the height of a six storey building. The mooring buoy which recorded this data was torn from its moorings some time later. Four other buoys were cast adrift. They are managed by the Marine Institute and help to validate the weather forecast models run by Met Éireann providing guidance to the national emergency planning efforts.
The storm passed straight up the country, from South to North causing devastation in its wake. The wind speed recorded at Fastnet lighthouse, as it was about to hit the southern shore was 190 km (118 mph).
Along with hurricane-force winds, the storm has caused red skies in England and wildfires in the Iberian Peninsula! Cyclonic winds kicked up dust from the North African Sahara, spraying sand into the English sky. From there, the desert dust scattered the sun’s rays into longer wavelengths, giving the sky an eerie, somewhat-apocalyptic hue.
The wildfires in Spain on Sunday were fanned by powerful winds as Ophelia brushed the coast. At least 32 people have been killed, and the sky was filled with a toxic mix of ash and smoke.
Back in Ireland three people died in storm related incidents and almost 300,000 properties were without power. Public transport came to a halt and the schools were closed on Monday and Tuesday. The countryside was strewn with fallen trees and the sound of the chainsaw was everywhere. Any loose corrugated iron roofing was removed by the gale; the sheets of iron being tossed around like giant playing cards.
Just when things were getting back to normal Brian has arrived. He is more like what we are accustomed to – plenty of rain and a gentler storm force wind!
There has been a lot of sky gazing this week as people tried to read the weather signs. Some, of a more prophetic inclination, were looking for “great signs from heaven” as St Luke puts it in his Gospel (Chapter 21 verse 11).
In St Peter’s first sermon he quotes Joel’s prophesy in full. In it he predicts the coming of the Holy Spirit without any limitations and “wonders in the heavens above and on the earth below”. Some of these are mentioned and will precede the return of the Lord. The quote ends with the invitation “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (verse 20). Then comes the explanation for his modern audience.
The Lord, the God of Israel, whom St Peter now knows as Lord and Christ ‘this Jesus whom you have crucified’ offers salvation to all who repent and are baptised (verse 38)!
This offer of forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit is available today.

This week some of us attended a lecture hosted by Iona Institute on how the sexual revolution is succeeding and how it is failing. After almost 60 years of its existence this seemed to be a good time to review it.
Most commentators on the subject reckon that it commenced with the decoupling of sex from reproduction. This was made possible by science producing a contraceptive pill. This promised freedom but introduced a new type of bondage. Men, never the brightest when it came to taking responsibility for their actions, now had a let out passing responsibility to the woman.

Selfishness has increased the distancing between the sexes. Women have gone for careers liberating them from what was considered to be the more menial household tasks postponing ideas of marriage or childbearing till the biological clock begins to chime. Men have largely done nothing! This lethargy having a negative effect even in Christian circles with marriage being postponed in a most ungodly way.

Many young people find this climate presents an opportunity to look inside and answer the question ‘Who am I’.
It is said to produce authenticity as people are true to what they are. Gay marches display this happiness, confidence and pride at being able to let it ‘all hang out’.
There is the claim to an overarching freedom coming out of all this typified perhaps by Madonna’s statement, ‘I am my own experiment, I am my own work of art’.

These sort of claims rest uneasily with the disclosure this week of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment of over 44 budding Hollywood stars hoping to get a role in his movies. You might say ‘that’s America’ but we have the unleashing of porn from the top shelf in the newsagents to the bottom shelf to the laptop in the bedroom.

This degradation of women turning them into objects for consumption polluting the minds of men making stable relationships even harder to achieve.
We also have more revelations of pedophilia, often by powerful people, on little boys and girls. Indeed, it is the children and those most vulnerable – the unborn – whose lives are now at risk. Perhaps the ultimate feminine freedom is the much sought after ability to legally kill the unwanted baby in the mother’s womb.

For the Christian freedom means something different. It too starts by looking within and recognising the selfish mess and the hopelessness of making our own rules. In turning to Christ we acknowledge our helplessness and in Jesus find all we need even the repentance that leads to the forgiveness of sins (Acts Chapter 5 verse 31).

Trading marriage for a career is never going to give the love and security that Christian marriage offers. Careers can and often come unstuck just when you need them most as more youthful staff compete for your position. The employment agreement is as weak as the living together deal. It does not compare with the marriage covenant with vows made before God in the presence of many witnesses. It has an everlasting element to it “till death do us part” which is unique.

Christian marriage, as opposed to the other forms available today, provides the space for true freedom in Christ, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (St John Chapter 8 verses 31/32).

Last Sunday America was rocked by the actions of a lone gunman, Stephen Paddock.
His attack on an open air musical festival in Las Vegas took the lives of 58 and injured somewhere in the region of 500 others.
In what was a carefully planned shooting Paddock equipped himself with 23 weapons out of the 43 stored in his arsenal at his house. His Philippian girlfriend had been sent home on a holiday and $100,000 transferred to her bank account. He had reconnoitred the site and picked the 23 floor of the Mandalay Hotel with rooms overlooking the festival to give the best view of his target.
The stage was set for the ensuing massacre. A number of his guns had been fitted with ’bump stocks’ converting semi-automatic to automatic weapons. In the corridor leading to the rooms he had placed surveillance equipment so he could see if anyone was coming who might upset his plans. He even had brought his hammer to break the glass in the windows! This 64-year-old retired accountant may not have been a successful gambler, for that was one of his passions, but he was calculating when it came to killing!
This motiveless massacre is different from similar events in the past. They have been mostly staged in schools where the shooter had been preoccupied with violence or mentally ill.
A US professor was interviewed on air this week as to the possible cause. He commented that it was easy to attach motive had the gunman been black or from the Middle East but much more difficult in the case of a mature white male. In his researches he understood there to be a lack of significance among the white American male. This was possibly caused by a dilution of their rights and loss of power which had been usurped by immigrants.
These feelings of inadequacy may have been compensated for in part by the accumulation of powerful weapons.
It is a sad reflection of our world today that the only power many people rely on comes out of the barrel of a gun. There was a time that we too had not looked to Jesus and his resurrection power for the here and hereafter.
St Paul’s advice to Titus puts it well. “we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Chapter 3 verses 3/7).

The difference Jesus makes – the goodness and loving kindness at the cross applied to all who believe – once enslaved now liberated with a future in heaven.

The death of Hugh Hefner this week brought to an end the evil genius that created the Playboy empire. Apparently he died peacefully in his mansion. He was 91 years old.
Reared in a strict Methodist home he showed little regard for his upbringing. His father refused his request, on commercial grounds, for funding his wish to found a magazine. His mother gave him financial support.
The magazine became the emblem of the sexual revolution. It sported a nude photo of Marilyn Munro in its first issue establishing the commodifying of women to drive its sales. The magazine with its playboy rabbit logo took pornography from the back streets to the boardroom. It laced its issues with interviews with famous people and received civil liberties awards!
At its peak in 1970 it sold over 7 million copies. This enabled Hefner to diversify into other avenues such as movies, cable TV, clothing, jewellery, clubs, resorts and casinos. His club franchise, with girls dressed in the infamous rabbit outfit, spread his form of sexual exploitation (he called it liberation) to many countries.
His own mansion in Beverly Hills, California, became renowned for its parties, a more enduring part of his Playboy Enterprises.

His legacy is that almost single handedly he created an immoral climate which has spawned an endless flow of pornography via the media and internet. He realised that the interest had to be fed to keep it growing. Among other things he supported same-sex marriage stating, ‘This a fight for all our rights. Without it, we will turn back the sexual revolution and return to an earlier, puritanical time.’

Jimmy Carter, whose Christian profession is well known, famously admitted in a Playboy article that he committed adultery in his heart many times (St Matthew Chapter 5 verses 27/8). Whilst applauding his honesty without mentioning the remedy of genuine repentance, all is in vain. It required an admission of guilt before God and a turning to Christ whose death for such sins offers forgiveness (2 Corinthians Chapter 7 verse 10).
When Job was trying to make his case that he was righteous he reminds God of the covenant he had made with him not to look lustfully at a girl (Job Chapter 31 verse 1). Job was mindful not to covet. He probably recalled the commandment widens it to coveting anything that is owned by someone else (Exodus Chapter 20 verse 17).

Job was probably the opposite of Hefner. Had he lived in our times he would have appreciated St Paul’s comments to the people in the church at Colosse: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth…. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Chapter 3 verses 2/5). Indeed, for Hefner it may have already come.

This annual farming bonanza, the largest outdoor event of its kind in Europe, got more than its fair share of rain during the three days. The middle day was subjected to a deluge which would have terminated any normal show but with the fighting spirit of Anna May McHugh and a multitude of water pumps the grounds were open for business on the third day!
Anna May has become a legend in her lifetime. She first joined the organisation in 1951 becoming its Managing Director in 1973 – a position which she still holds. Back in 1931 the first event cost £9 to host. This year the costs will exceed €5 million! Her biography comes out this year and is aptly called “Queen of the Plough”.
Our new Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, is an urban man, unfamiliar with country ways. When his motorcade of 4 x4’s entered the parking field, in the words of our humorous journalist, Miriam Lord, “as the vehicles turned into the top corner of the field, the large media contingent moved as one towards him, like a herd of cows heading for milking!” Highly descriptive but somewhat less that flattering to her colleagues in journalism.
The event has grown from its original farm focus to showcase what rural Ireland can do. It has developed a commercial side where deals for the latest in farm machinery are done. This year just under €36.5 million was spent during the three days of the event! This generates a tax take of over €6.6 million for the National Exchequer!
For all this we depend on the fertility of the soil.

Jesus was familiar with its importance. In his parable of the soils he lists four types; the compacted soil of the roadway, the arid stony ground with shallow soil, the thorny ground where the seed was choked by the weeds and the good soil which from one seed could produce heads of grain thirty, sixty or one hundred seeds in return. Clearly it paid to look after the soil!
Jesus explained the parable. The seed is the word. It is always good. It is the soil which is the problem. The first soil was a hardened roadway. The seed did not penetrate and the birds (Satan) snatched it away.
The second soil receives the seed with joy – immediate growth. But the stony ground doesn’t produce root growth and it cannot survive the storms of life.
The third soil already has thorns growing on it. The seed roots but cannot compete with these emblems of sin. Jesus names two sins, the cares of the world and secondly the deceitfulness of riches rob the farmer of a harvest.
The fourth soil has been prepared to receive the seed. It takes root and yields a harvest corresponding to each seeds potential (St Matthew Chapter 13 verses 3/23).

We are the soil. The fourth soil is different. The difference is it understands what is happening when the word is proclaimed. This understanding equates to a conversion so out of one seed comes many as the word of God takes root in prepared hearts.
Which soil are you?