My Thoughts 26/04/2022

Over twenty years ago I had the good fortune to spend three weeks in Cairo, as part of an international meeting of priests.

While there, we visited the monastery of of St. George, where there was a shrine containing the chains that were placed on St. George as part of the tortures to which he was sentenced, after his trial under the Persian King Dadianos.

The reason St. George replaced Edmund the Martyr and Edward the Confessor as patron of England was that when Richard the Lionhearted was crusading in the Middle East in the 12th century he had a vision of St. George who promised him victory in battle.

In the office of readings today we read,

“Saint George was a man who abandoned one army for another: he gave up the rank of tribune to enlist as a soldier for Christ. Eager to encounter the enemy, he first stripped away his worldly wealth by giving all he had to the poor. Then, free and unencumbered, bearing the shield of faith, he plunged into the thick of the battle, an ardent soldier for Christ. Clearly what he did serves to teach us a valuable lesson: if we are afraid to strip ourselves of our worldly possessions, then we are unfit to make a strong defence of the faith.”

Let us ask St George to be with us today, so that we are able to slay the dragons of greed, apathy and selfishness that hold us captive and prevent us from putting Christ before all else.