10/10/2010: 19th Sunday after Trinity.

The OT lesson appointed for today's Sung Eucharist was from 2 Kings 5. 1-3, 7-15. King Naaman did not believe that the great God could cure him without a great deal of fuss and bother. Eventually he was cured of a skin disorder simply due to his simple faith in the end. Tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of St Kenneth. An Irish saint honoured by the Scottish Church as, like many Irish missionaries he spent much time here in Scotland. He founded a community at St Andrews and was Abbot. He moved to Wales and then to Iona to join the Community of Columba and travelled to visit the King of Picts at Inverness with Columba. Kenneth is reputed to have quelled the king's hand as he drew his sword to smite them, and the hand withered. He just got on with the job and collaborated with others to spread the word of God and demonstrate the Holy Spirit at work.

I was saddened to read of the demise of Fr Charles, Arnold Simister, one time Rector of Kirkudbright and Gatehouse of Fleet for over 20 years. He never was a man to stand out; never said much at Synod, but went about his priestly role with a quiet dedication. He demonstrated Christ's quiet love and the presence of the Holy Spirit in a quiet and most loving way. Indeed, he was well loved by all who knew him. No fuss, he just got on with his priestly job. He was at St Nazaire during the War where, as a Royal Marine Commando he was nearly bayonetted by the SS who were going amongst the British troops bayonetting the wounded. He 'played dead' and they by-passed him. He prayed to God that if God spared him then he would devote the rest of his life to His service, and he did. I feel fir him then and what he endured, for nearby my father was buried alive by the Germans, only to be dug out by the Free French resistance who were shocked to find that my father wore the unifom of a Birkenhead Corporation Bus Driver, as the Army had no uniforms to go around at the onset of the war and at Dunkirk. A Maquis tailor made him a British Army uniform and he had to give a solemn oath never to divulge which farms he was hidden in for fear of German sympathasisers amongst the French who would have the farmers shot. The Maquis got him back across the Channel eventually where he was "de-briefed" by the Intelligence Corps, which included a French Army Officer. My father rembered his vow and refused to speak for fear that the French Officer was a German collaborator, so they sent my father to a military psychiatric hospital as they thought he must be mad, which was far from the truth. Until he died he never told any of us, except to give thanks to God for 'Maman', whoever that was.