Thought for the Week

Today, with several other countries, we celebrate the feast day of St Andrew.

Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.

St Andrew’s Day is also celebrated in Germany, Austria and Poland.

Andrew was a humble fisherman and a follower of Jesus Christ.

Andrew introduced his brother Peter to Jesus, and then Peter went on to introduce many others to his Lord.

Andrew also brought someone else to Jesus.

It happened on a mountainside when the crowds gathered to hear Jesus speak.

Time went on and the crowd realised that there had been no thoughts of bringing food for the journey.

They grew hungry and Jesus told the disciples to feed the people.

The disciples were not at all sure what Jesus meant by this, as there were more than 5,000 folk gathered on the hillside.

It was Andrew who found a wee boy who was prepared to share what he had.

A meagre offering of five small loaves and two fish, but the boy was willing to share and amazing things happened.

Andrew was good at bringing people to Jesus and did so all his life.

If we can follow that example today, we will indeed be a country of compassion, of caring, of welcome, and of integrity.

So whether we are Scots who are ‘Remain’ or Scots who are ‘Leave’, whether we are Scots who are nationalist or Scots who are unionist, whether we are Scots on the left or Scots on the right, we can be all proud of our patron Saint and all of us can own his flag as our own and emulate his ways.