St Peter and St Paul, Old Brampton

Dear Friends

From the Vicarage
15 St. Mark’s Road

Dear friends

For more than forty years  people have been longing and praying for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Through all that time, one of the names that was never far from the headlines was that of Dr. Ian Paisley. As everyone knows, he became synonymous with intransigence and hard line Protestantism. Any form of compromise was
absolute anathema to him. 

In the 1960’s he was a comparatively young man, a
firebrand denouncing all things Catholic and setting his face against the prospect of any form of power sharing with
Nationalists.  Now at the age of 80, with beaming smiles and words of healing, he is working in partnership with men whom he had for decades regarded as implacable
enemies.

On the day that the new Northern Ireland Assembly was inaugurated, he joked with Tony Blair - asking how was it that a young man in his fifties should be laying down office, just as he, now eighty, was taking it up?

My mind again goes back to the 1960s - and the Second Vatican Council, which was called by Pope John 23rd, who was also in his eighties.  He had been elected as a stop-gap - someone who would not rock the boat.  But what happened? He presided over a Council that brought a transformation of the Roman Catholic Church, and its
relations with other churches.  Its effects are still felt today.

In 1990, Nelson Mandela, a septuagenarian who had served twenty-seven years in prison in South Africa, walked to freedom and presided over a miraculously peaceful transfer of power that ended white minority rule.
One of the most effective and influential movements that spanned the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the present one has been ‘Jubilee 2000’, the campaign to bring about the
forgiveness of debt for the world’s most impoverished countries.  It was begun by two elderly men, Bill Peters and Martin Dent who had previously worked in the diplomatic service.  They were once described by Archbishop George Carey as 'two retired gentlemen of whom nobody has ever heard'.  There is still much more to be done to reduce the burden of international debt that is carried by so many poor countries, but already the campaign has benefited some of the poorest and most marginalised people in the
developing world.

I’m writing this on a computer—in fact I rarely write with a pen these days, except for the odd scribbled note.  But while I readily admit my computer skills don’t compare with those of many younger people, none-the-less it is true that one of the largest growth areas in the computer world is among ‘silver surfers’, older people who are keen to keep abreast with modern technology.

Probably the demographic section of the population most
represented in our churches is the over sixties.  Some might say that this is a barrier to change and growth—but evidence suggests  otherwise.  God can and does make use of people of every age for his purposes. 

Michel Quoist, a French priest and writer in a book called ‘Prayers of Life’ put the following rather startling words into the mouth of God:
‘I want only children in my kingdom; this has been decreed from the beginning of time. Youngsters—twisted, humped, wrinkled, white bearded—all kinds of youngsters, but youngsters.  There is no changing it, it has been decided, there is room for no-one else.’

Every blessing

Frank Willett