Dr Ruth Patterson, the widely-acclaimed Presbyterian Minister and author who founded Restoration Ministries in 1988, an organisation based in Dunmurray which aims to restore brokeness through prayer and teaching, was the guest speaker at one of the Centenary Novena nights in Holy Cross Church, Lisnaskea.
Dr Ruth was introduced by Canon Joseph Mullin, PP who thanked her for the wonderful work she had done and hoped she would derive the energy from the Novena prayer service to begin again and again.
Addressing her theme, 'Taking it from here - the Challenges of the future', Dr Ruth commended a sentence from Hebrews Chapter 13, 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever': If we truly believe that, then it enables us to look back to our yesterday with courage, to live in the present moment with hope and to face the future with confidence".
Much of her talk turned on the 39 years of the Troubles, from where some of the broken people Restoration Ministries has helped, come from. She urged her listeners to remember the cost of those years and the lives of many no longer here held dear.
She went on: "We need also to give thanks for this brave new beginning that seems to have come too late for some but, whatever our personal feelings of pain or regret, it is something that has been given to us, a window of opportunity".
Jesus Christ, she told the congregation, was with them in their yesterday, 'maybe especially at the times when you did not know it': "He was with us when fear would clutch our hearts like an iron vice, when the flame of hope diminished to a smouldering wick, when dreams were shattered. There is nowhere where he is not, and that includes our yesterday, yours and mine".
That, she admitted, begged the question: why did He let bad things happen? Why, she asked, couldn't people have learned the lesson earlier to see one another as human beings, 'rather than the demonised images that give them the licence to kill and hate'?
"I don't have any answers", she stated. "The biggest gift God gave us when He made us was the freedom to choose, even the freedom to choose not to choose Him which, to my way of thinking is mind blowing.
"It wasn't God who made the last years of nightmare happen, it was human beings, driven by bigotry, hatred or their 'cause', who made the wrong choices and did unspeakable things - and it was usually the innocent who suffered.
"There are no answers to the mystery of suffering", she said.
But, she suggested, God had a reason for 'stepping back and letting it happen', it was so that, even in one's darkest hour, those suffering know He shares their suffering and see that the only reason they came through a nightmare was that He walked with them.
Turning to the recent peace brokerage here, Dr Ruth suggested that politicians could not have done it all, 'without all the valiant efforts made by so many individuals and groups, both faith and community based, who had worked so tirelessly throughout all the long years'.
"It is my firm belief that it has been prayer and prayer-motivated action that has created the seismic shift that has brought us to this amazing point in our history".
In the final part of her homily, Dr Ruth focused on the traditional suspicion between the two cultures here and how, today, caring for the stranger had taken on a global dimension.
"Overt sectarianism and racism, both of which have the same root (ignorance and fear) have been all too familiar here over the years. If we have the courage to go further on our inner journey, we may well find ourselves tapping into latent forces that could have the same discriminatory and destructive effect.
"But, if we keep holding on, we may find the recognition of a common humanity. We're not there yet, but I believe that we in Ireland could collectively be on the border of God's kingdom".
