Happenstance

Just occasionally, something appears before you at the perfeclt appropriate moment.

Here are some parts of the second Reading from the Office of Readings for yesterday. Does it sound even vaguely familiar ?

‘The modern world shows itself at one and the same time both powerful and weak, capable of the noblest deeds or of the foulest. Before it lies the path to freedom or to slavery, to progress or decline, to brotherhood or hatred . . .
Many, it is true, fail to see the dramatic nature of this state of affairs in all its clarity for their vision is blurred on the practical level by materialism, or they are prevented from even thinking about it by the wretchedness of their plight.
Others delude themselves that they have found peace in a world-view now fashionable.
There are still others whose hopes are set on a genuine and total emancipation of mankind through human effort alone and look forward to some future paradise where all the desires of their hearts will be fulfilled . . .’

That passage is another extract, as it happens, from Gaudium & Spes to which I referred yesterday. . . a product of Vatican II. As I said the other day, plus ça change !