We can expect to have to confront the consequences of our actions 

By Canon Gerry Conroy

When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire he paid a visit to the tomb of King Cyrus, one of the great figures of the ancient world and on that tomb it was reported that there was an inscription that read, “O man, whoever you are, from wherever you come, for I know you shall come, I am Cyrus, who founded the Persian Empire. Grudge me not, therefore, this little earth that covers my body.”

Here were words of a great man who was all too aware that in the grand scheme of things, he amounted to very little. It is an inscription that seems to fit in very well with the Cyrus of the first reading where it presents God as using one of the most powerful and famous Kings of the Ancient Near East to show people not to get too sure of themselves as if they were the ultimate power in the universe. A reminder that in the grand scheme of things they are not as powerful as they might like to think. 

Pope Francis – “It is hard to imagine that this global disaster is unrelated to our way of approaching reality.”

In his latest encyclical, Pope Francis, mentions the Pandemic and says that, ‘If everything is connected, it is hard to imagine that this global disaster is unrelated to our way of approaching reality, our claim to be absolute masters of our own lives and of all that exists’. He isn’t saying that the pandemic is a direct result of God’s action, but he is suggesting that when we do not respect the order that God has established in creation, we can expect to have to confront the consequences of our actions. 

Perhaps another way of understanding this is to consider that one of the problems we face is that in order to create something, we have to destroy something else. And in the last good few years we have created a lot of things without giving much thought to what we have been destroying in order to get these new things. Cost isn’t to be reckoned only in money terms. Isn’t it time to consider a bit more exactly how we go about things in life? 

The importance of Christ’s words for our time to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belong to God, means we have to recognise that we are not God. We have to have the Wisdom King Cyrus had to recognise that our place in the grand scheme of things is not the place that God occupies. We are not all-powerful, we are not independent of others. We cannot do what we want without there being some come back. When we ignore God, we don’t just ignore God, we are ignoring the reality of the world. We need God, we need faith or we will continue down the wrong path.

Canon Conroy is parish priest of St Patrick’s, Dumbarton