
Twinkle twinkle in the light of the Holy Spirit?
At mass recently Father John Goulding told a story which comforted me enormously. Living where I do, in the remote Western Suburbs, it is rare for us to have any discussion of social justice issues in the pulpit. I have to say Jubilee 2000 was for us a farce of self-congratulation rather than an opportunity to examine our consciences and clean our slates. So this sermon was like a breath of fresh air. Fr John told us about the Polish pianist Paderewsky. A woman had taken her five-year-old son to one of Paderewsky’s concerts. Finding her seat in a front row, she started to chat to an old friend nearby. When the lights went up, there was her son sitting on the piano stool in the spotlight, picking out ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’. Paderewsky came on to the stage, whispered to the boy, ‘Don’t stop playing,’ put his left hand round one of the boy’s shoulders and started to play the bass, put his right hand round the other and sarted to play a variation above. The audience was transfixed. No one remembers what else Paderewsky played that night, but everyone remembers ‘Twinkle, twinkle.’ Father John went on to say that faced with the problems of the world, we can wonder what our feeble talents and resources can possibly do to heal it, but that if we do our tiny bit, the Holy Ghost (it was Pentecost) can do the rest: by ourselves, we are just a feather, with the Holy Ghost, we have wings.Twinkle twinkle in the light of the Holy Spirit?
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