Westminster Record August 2014 | 20p
Daily life captured in pictures
Westminster Cathedral School marks 50 years
The Power and the Grace DVD reviews
Page 3
Page 6
Page 16
A Lesson from Lourdes
Lourdes teaches a great lesson for life. Importantly we see and learn here that suffering should never have the last word in our lives and how we understand ourselves. Some argue that it does, and they believe the avoidance of suffering is the most important thing. But here we learn differently. Suffering is not the last word; it shouldn’t be given the last word. The first Word and the last Word is the name of Jesus and, as we anoint the sick with the sign of the Cross, we know that by his Cross suffering is given a totally different perspective.
Sometimes you can see a dead tree and it is just that: dead. See it against a hard, bright winter sky, touched with frost, and it suddenly becomes something of transcendent beauty. So here we learn that suffering is not God’s last word and shouldn’t be our last word; we place our trust in the gift of life given by God and eventually taken back to himself by God. Here we know that our journey, one we make together, is one in which we help each other to carry the burden of suffering until the Lord calls.