鲍鱼tv

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with writer and broadcaster Mark Dowd

Good Morning.

鈥淭o live is to change. And to be perfect is to have changed often.鈥� The words of Blessed John Henry Newman, England鈥檚 most famous convert, who will, tomorrow, be made a saint in Rome in front of tens of thousands of the Roman Catholic faithful. Newman will be the first person to be canonized from these isles since forty English and Welsh martyrs were made saints in 1970. His own personal change 鈥� from the Church of England to Rome, was in 1845, something of an earthquake in church society circles.

Now we can all go along with Newman and agree that change is good: I mean no-one wants to get stuck in a rut. But surely too much change can resemble a chaotic flux. We all know those people for whom constant change results in a maddening restlessness and indecision. Being around such people can be exasperating. They can be very trying holiday companions!

Maybe what Newman was thinking of is the kind of openness to transformation that is the hallmark of the person who鈥檚 endlessly curious, questioning, and dissatisfied with easy answers.

Change has been at the heart of a number of open Alcoholics Anonymous meetings I鈥檝e attended in support of people with addiction issues and the sessions always end with the so-called Serenity prayer. AA adopted this prayer from the American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr in 1941 and ever since then, it has become a key part of its Twelve Step recovery programme. So, even if you鈥檝e seen the words emblazoned on teatowels and charity shop mugs, this morning let us not give in to dismissing it as clich茅, but embrace its wisdom and counsel:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

AMEN.