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A Little Bit of Give And Not Much Take
In the days following the end of the last World War it was grim up North for infants like me. The rag and bone man would not exchange our Mam's cardigans for hard cash and it could have been impossible to hide the goldfish which he offered instead. Sweets were on ration and the chocolates that our Dad brought home from Terry's he traded in for a sack of coal from Uncle Sid, who was a pit winder in South Yorkshire.
The two things in life which I cherished most were my model Spitfire, which I tried to make fly but which crashed onto the road and was run over by the only car passing by that week, and my scooter. Scooters have the disadvantage that they make one shoe wear out more quickly than the other so the decision was made that it had to go. As a blandishment, I was given a tricycle, but they don't offer the same satisfaction as scooting down the hill and jumping off before crashing into the roundabout at the bottom. Wouldn't I like to give my scooter to a little boy who had no toys? I was asked. My answer was a resounding NO and so much opprobrium was heaped upon my little head that I feel guilty about it still.
The reason for this baring of my soul nearly sixty years after I unwittingly sinned is that, on 11th June, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Barnabas. He was the apostle who sold a field that he owned and gave the money for the work of the nascent church. Whenever I read about this selfless act I muse that, as a child, he, unlike me, was the sort of person who would have given away his scooter.
And the modern church is full of people like Saint Barnabas. The annual Diocesan Report has a record of the percentage of the quota, for the upkeep of ministry, which each parish has paid. This is not a "name and shame" list. There are some grindingly poor areas which dutifully shell out tens of thousands of pounds to keep the work going. In this parish, and many others like it, we hold our hands to our heads when we see how much we have to contribute, but we do it, somehow. Saint Barnabas set an example of sacrificial giving and we proudly follow in his footsteps. Long may it continue!
May God bless you all, Fr. Allan
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