Photo was taken at Millstreet, Co.Cork (Irl)

This Swedish dog was certainly enjoying the view during the ‘Parade Of Nations’ during the week in Millstreet. The town gave the 16 countries taking part in the 2017 FEI European Eventing Championships for Young Riders and Juniors, a special welcome last Wednesday. All teams walked through the town with a huge crowd out to give them a big cheer and welcome. The competition is being held in Green Glens and Drishane in Millstreet all this week.

Thought on Saturday – July – 22/07/2017

‘God’s love doesn’t discriminate, it simply embraces everything. Like the sun it doesn’t shine selectively, shedding its warmth on vegetables because they are good and refusing its warmth on the weeds because they are bad. It just shines on everything and irrespective of its condition, receives its warmth.’ ~Ronald Rolheiser

Words like incredible, brilliant or amazing could be used to describe God’s love. To say that God loves us when we are good and that God loves us when we are bad is indeed amazing. But it also throws up some key questions. The first big one is why bother to be good if God loves everyone the same and equally? To bother to be good means that love is always the priority. We aren’t loved because we are good, but we become good because we experience love. The more love we experience the better it is for us, our family, our community and the world we live in. We do our best to grow in love, to nurture it, to share it, to celebrate it and to allow it shape us into the wonderful person God created us to be.

Sure enough, we sometimes stumble and sometimes fall spectacularly. Does this mean that we should abandon the road of love that guides us each day? Of course not! The same goes with God. God loves the sinner but hates the sin. There is a big difference between the two. So today should be a day to begin to believe in you, to believe in God’s love for you and to believe that now is the time to start again, even after a stumble or fall in your life.