Thought for the week
IN Rome, walking up from the Tiber to the Olympic Stadium in Rome, you pass a monolith, a needle, with the single word ‘Dux’ engraved on it, erected in honour of Mussolini, ‘Il Duce’.
It was never pulled down because it is a monument of history. The Romans know where they have come from and who they are. They take pride in that.
The secularists who try to erase Christian references from our modern society are failing to learn the meaning of history. You cannot wipe out your own past.
If you now have a heart for the poor and the sick and the needy you are, whether you are aware of it or not, drawing on an instinct you have inherited from your Christian past, even if you no longer profess or practise the Christian faith.
You may call yourself a humanist and your actions humanitarian but such notions are alien to the classic Greek and Roman basis of our western society.
This concern for the well-being of the needy came solely from the Church.
So too the idea of Sunday as a day of rest. Based on a Jewish tradition, the Church made the Lord’s Day (Sunday) a day on which people were bound to come to Mass and refrain from servile work.
This had a social purpose. It meant that masters had to allow time for their servants to get to church and rest from had been unremitting work.
Everyone should be allowed to have one free day in the week. We should not easily let our day of rest go.
DAVID HENRY
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Weather for Berwick-Upon-Tweed
Monday 20 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 8 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 7 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North
