Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons: Leading up to Pentecost + Stephen Sutton Award petition

From time to time the Holy Spirit speaks through events that catch the imagination. I know many of you have been touched by the story of Stephen Sutton, he is, I know just one of many wonderful people who make a difference to life, but sometimes as with the Lord Jesus, his life and death give an extra meaning, an extra something to the wonderful gift of life that we as human beings have.

I am not young anymore, but I still feel, love, pray, search, question like a young person. I really hope you do too. To be young in heart is also to be like the children to whom the Kingdom of God is always open.

Yet friends, we belong to a tired European culture and faith, especially the Christian faith. What we hold fast to is under siege, even attack… But don’t ever lose heart, remember those words of `Jesus, ‘I am with you always’. That should give us hope, the Lord of all will never disown, neglect, ignore us, instead he brings us into contact with those he loves and asks us to care for them in many and various ways.

So, back to Stephen, his story belongs to Easter, that is when he gave himself to the mystery of death, that encounter with the risen Christ . But as the Gospels suggest, death leads to ascension, returning as it were, to home, the place where we belong.

For us who still live our lives in the time-scaped places of earth, life goes on, but a life tinged with God and suffused with the love of those who give us hope, Stephen is one of those people. My hope is that his life and death can shape future directions, change our society a little by honoring the little ones who are often ignored, remain unnoticed. And yet they are those who turn the world around. Honours are strange things , greedy people need them to appear important, but the ones who should be honored are often forgotten.

Join me in trying to shift perception, change this society for the future, ask our PM and others in public life to create a new public award at a national level. May Stephens’s life give life to others! Join the campaign now!

To sign the petition to Prime Minister David Cameron calling for the creation of a Stephen Sutton award: see: www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/prime-minister-create-a-stephen-sutton-award-and-start-changing-the-honours-system?utm_campaign=new_signature&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt#