Everything is 'monster' these day!

Fr. Padraig Standun

ALMOST every place I go in recent times I come across advertisements for a 'Monster Raffle' or a 'Monster Draw' or a 'Monster Sale'.

There are even 'Monster Card Games'.

They do not make it clear if it is the monsters who are playing the cards or if it is the winner who will have a monster going home with him or her.

Who would want to win or to buy a monster anyway? Was it not enough to have people with funny masks coming to the door at Halloween?

At least they are not real monsters. It is bad enough to see my own hairy face in the mirror without having a monster looking over my shoulder at the same time.

With Halloween over, thoughts turn to Chrismas. It will take considerable discernment and discipline not to buy the things we don’t need, but Covid-19 has taught us that we don’t need to have everything. It is nearly enough to just have our health.

"May you always have enough," was an old wish or prayer that might serve us well in good times and bad. We don’t need everything, but it helps to have enough.

In recent years the various recessions have led me to welcome any commercialism attached to Christmas or any other feast or festival that is likely to put as much money as possible into pockets that need it.

While many people like to observe their Sabbath, whether that is on Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to a person’s religion, the priority in recessionary times has been for people to feed themselves and their families.

Jesus himself got into trouble with the authorities of his own religion for breaking the Sabbath in order to do good – to heal people in his case.

The flexibility that comes from observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law was one of the astute lessons taught us by the man Jesus was to become in later life.

One of Pope Francis’ great attributes is his ability to relax about some of the issues that had almost become defining aspects of Catholicism while putting emphasis on the poor and the marginalised, as the birth of a baby in Bethlehem did a couple of millennia ago.

Jesus, too, preached and practised a fairly relaxed form of religion, as I understand it from the Gospels.

He saw clearly what was important in life and religion and did not allow molehills to become mountains.

He did not get hung up on minor indiscretions but saw the good behind the struggle that is part of every life.

As he said himself, he did not come to call the perfect.