麻豆约拍

Good morning. It seems amazing to me that it is thirty-five years to the very day since the world gasped in horror at the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

He attributed his recovery to the prayers of Our Lady of Fatima whose Feast Day also occurs today and to whose statue in Portugal he donated the bullet once lodged in his flesh - as a gesture of thanksgiving to the Mother of God. It is now embedded in the jewelled crown that adorns the statue; and will today be carried in procession before the million plus pilgrims gathered in the shrine of Fatima.

But for me, it isn't that symbolic gesture but another that echoes in the memory.

Over two years later, Pope John Paul visited his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali-Agca, in prison to convey his forgiveness in person; and a friendship began that lasted until the pope's death.

Living, as I did, in the Northern Ireland of the eighties, where it often felt to me that everyone was on hair-trigger to take offence and hardly anyone seemed capable of saying "I'm sorry," let alone, "I forgive," it was a gesture that challenged me to go beyond the pettiness in my own life.

The power of the gesture - especially the gesture of humility. As an old priest I admired used often to say: "words may persuade but actions convince."

None of my contemporaries who witnessed Her Majesty the Queen on her Irish State Visit, bow her head in respect at the memorial of the revolutionary founders of the Irish Republic, or hear her speak the Irish language, will ever forget these gestures of the heart...or be challenged by them.

Creator of the world, give us a sense of the power of our actions today; and, when needed, the courage to act with forgiveness and humility. Amen.