A LENT LETTER.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 35, Issue 11, 1 February 1945, Page 6

A LENT LETTER.

By the YEN. AECHDEACtiN H. W. MONAGHAN:

This Lenten letter, written by Archdeacon H. W. Monaghan to the parishioners of St. Mary's Timaru, at a tftne of great personal loss, is reprinted from the "Church News" to give readers the opportunity of • ■ v,., ■ • sharing its wonderful message.

I have lived amongst you now for sixteen years, and I know many of you. very well, and you know me and mine. We are, .for the most part, ?ust ordinary, frail sinful men ?nd women, often perplexed and worried by our experience of life. Life'is such a mixture, isn't it? There is so much joy we want to remember and so much sorrow we want to forget; there are so many doubts and so many uncertainties. And then we. ourselves are such mixtures; there is so much good to love and^so. much evil to despise m each of us. There W times when we are selfish beasts GrOd. , j But worst of all, when we stand and s£ the crowd pass by, or read m our papers of the. horror, and con Son of mankind throughou^ the world to-day, we lose our faith and say, "Who am I and what can my life count for good or ill m such a^world? What does it matter how I live? What does anything matter? Let us go to the pictures, pick up a woman from the streets, ge t ; di unk anything to make us iorget and drug our souls to insensibility. I would be tempted to say that you were right were it not forgone fact- a fact which stands like a rock £ the middle of the mad seething torrent of human life. This is the faS of Jesus Christ. It is a plain indisputable fact of human history that there came into human life m the" person of Jesus Christ One who felt as no one else has ever felt the tragedy of human life. "He gathered Them" His~heart went out to the worried and the anxious,- the sick and the sinful, and He gathered them round Him and told them that He had been sent to save them from it all. "I am come that ye might have life ; which means life as it was meant to be on God's earth. And so He taught them, and His teaching has been preserved for us all down the ages of His Church. My friends, I write to ask you to face up to life again. If, like me, you are a sinner, let us come to Jesus Christ and see if He can cleanse us and lift us up again. If, like me you are worried and per-

plexed to despair about life, let us cofne and see if this Man, who claimed to be the Light of the World, can lighten our darkness. If, like me to-day, you are sad and brokenhearted let us come and see if we find m Him a Comforter. Furthermore, I have a word for those of you who read a lot, and talk a lot, about the problems of our distracted world. Honestly, don't you really think that things come, to a point where the solution baffles human understanding and contriving? No workman, however skilled, can fashion a sound article out of a rotten piece of wood. No one can builcl a stable structure on drifting sand. We are planning great things for a new world order, but human nature has become rotten and our civilisation has crashed because it was built on sand. It always seems to me just plain common sense to believe that as there are laws governing the

material world, such as the laws of physics, so also there must be laws governing the life of man. If the scientist, disregards the laws of physical energy, he gets nowhere, and if men disregard the moral law then life falls into confusion. The problem of the world to-day is a moral problem which can only be solved by religion. , My friends, the Creator of the universe will not be mocked. No man can sin and get away with it. No nation can sin and get away with it, as Germany will soon learn; and the whole human race must find God before there will ever be a better world order. I therefore invite you to come and consider .again what the Word of God has to tell us.

The Days of Their Childhood Parents of young children, my last word is; to you. Cherish the days of their childhood or you will regret it all your life. Never will such an opportunity come your way again. You cannot spend top much thought, too much time, too much love on your children. If you fail to win their love and their confidence all the other successes of life will rise and mock you. Most of you are eager to bring your little ones to baptism, but why are so many of you so forgetful of your undertaking? You promised there very solemnly that you would bring them up to lead a "virtuous and godly" life. A godly life is a life which knows God, prays to- God. and serve God. In Sunday School and Bible Class and Children's Services we try to help you. Suffer the little children to come unto Jesus Christ that we may teach them the way to make a world m which they will not be destroyed by war or broken by unemployment. "The common people heard him glady," was written about our Lord when He first came. By "common people" is meant ordinary people, like you and me; people who do not give themselves airs &s being too good or too clever or too cultured or too rich or too poor to mix with their fellow men. Your Parish Church belongs to you all and is here to serve you all. If you are a Labour man or a Nationalist, a Communist or a Capitalist, you must leave your politics outside Si: Mary's, for the worship of the Church and the message of the Church are things which are common to all. If you have not been coming to Church I ask you to begin again this Lent. If you have been irregular and slack, read through the list of services and make a new rule of worship. If you are a regular worshipper, be very careful not to become smug and satisfied with yourself and with the Church as it is today. With a smile of welcome move off your pet cushion and make room for others. This year will be a terrible year m the history of mankind; let us all get together to think and pray and hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.