The Feast of St Pius of Pietrelcina, Padre Pio | Friday 23 September 2022

Today is Friday the 23rd of September, the feast of St Pius of Pietrelcina, Padre Pio, in the Twenty fifth week of Ordinary time.

The monks of the Abbey of Keur Moussa sing:
This is the time, most Holy Spirit, when you, One with the Father and the Son,
come to shed your light in the hearts of your faithful.
Pause for a moment, and become aware of the Holy Spirit, present here, come to give life and light. Pause for a moment, and welcome that light into your life.

(Lyrics currently unavailable)

Today’s reading is from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace,


and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain have the workers from their toil?

I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.

He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

There is a sense of age-old wisdom in these famous words, like an old man or woman – or indeed like God himself – who has seen all this, seen the seasons and the years and the generations come and go. Do the words ring true for you? From your own experience, can you think of some period in your life when you were trying to do something, and all that was wrong was that it just wasn’t the right time? - or when something suddenly came together, just because the right time had come?

“He has put a sense of past and future into their minds”, the reading tells us. What is your sense of your own past and your own future? – of where you have come from? – of where you are heading now?

As you hear the reading again, notice how you hear it? – does it sound to you like fatalism? (there’s nothing you can do, the seasons turn of their own accord)? – or a message of hope? (be patient, your time will come).

Speak to God about these words you have been reflecting on. Ask God, perhaps, what is it the time for, now? What dreams or desires or aspirations of yours might the time be right for, now?

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.