False idols
Sir – When I was young, my widowed mother would gather her children together for prayers at bedtime. She always included this: “Gentle Jesus meek and mild, look upon a little child; pity my simplicity, make me good to come to Thee.” Simplicity is a beautiful, childlike quality when it is present both in childhood and adulthood; now, in my old age, I feel it has become undervalued.
The Ten Commandments may be difficult to keep, but they are simple to understand; I have found during my lifetime that the Second Commandment is given too little attention. Graven images are pagan idols; likenesses are ideologies. Idolatry and ideology are closely connected. Paying service to national socialism, communism and fascism in the last century brought about catastrophe – although now the Church seems to be reaching out to Communist China – but their legacies remain and have been added to in recent decades.
