The Holy Spirit falls on these fearful folk and what they encounter echoes
Pascal – fire. From a place of dejection and death there erupts abundant
hope and life. But this fire doesn’t consume these contrasts – it inflames
them, it ignites the disciples’ imaginations; it kindles their passion; the Spirit
is the divine incendiary that consumes the disciples and yet leaves them
unscorched. They remain who they are in the fiery crucible of life. They are
unchanged but can never be the same. And in the midst of all this they could
say along with Pascal that single word which reflected their burning hope –
fire.
Another French (he, like Pascal, was born in Clermont) theologian/scientist,
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, writing optimistically some 300 years after
Pascal, would agree. He had a strong sense of the connectivity of God with
all things. This led him to combine his scientific and theological thinking and
suggest that:
Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and
gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and
then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will
have discovered fire.
Teilhard, Pascal and the disciples in their contrasting ways are Pentecost
people. Their experience puts ours in question. And I guess, fol lowing the
theme, that question may well run something like this: ‘Who or what are you
holding a torch for?’
Love
Scott
Bus Service to/from South Glasgow University Hospital
The 77 bus branded Hospital Connect will run
from Buchanan St. to hospital up to every 10
minutes 7 days a week.
The 34A will serve Castlemilk, Croftfoot, Victoria
Infirmary, Battlefield, Shawlands and Cardonald
to the South Glasgow University Hospital.
These buses are run by First Glasgow and, hopefully, this information might
be helpful to people with appointments or visiting at the new hospital.
DN
StOM Page 4