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My Personal Message to each and every one of you this week...

People are telling me how they are 'streaming' Masses from Wales, Ireland, USA and various European countries - at least there is access to these resources for a large number of us.

Mass continues to be 'said' here in Chepstow at the usual time, on the usual days - apart from 9:00am Sunday morning. There is one Mass on Sunday morning at 11:00 am.People have been in touch by telephone, letter, email and texts concerning Mass intentions. You are welcome to use any of these channels of communication, if it is your wish, to request a Mass to be Offered. 

‘DRACONIAN’

How many times have we heard or read that word in these desperate and deeply troubling times, to describe the restricting of our everyday life-style through measures that we have either voluntarily adopted, or that have been imposed upon us by legally binding ordinances?

I’m sure the eponymous, (a Greek word with the meaning ‘giving your name to’), lawmakers of Athens in the 7^th century   BC and called variously DRACO/DRAKO/ or DRAKON, would never have dreamt that his name would be banded about in such a cavalier manner by citizens in other democracies nearly three thousand years after his times.

Not that Athenian society of that era had yet reached the status of a democracy – but, the career of Draco was an important step along the road to that destination. He is credited as being the first Greek politician to enact impartial laws and statutes that had to be accepted and obeyed by the people. Up to his time, ’law’ was dished out through blood feuds and ‘honour killings’, based on an oral tradition handed down from generation to generation.

Mind you, the ancient Athenians got much more than they bargained for with Draco, for he mandated the death penalty for just about every infraction of his ‘laws’. He argued that capital punishment was justified even for minor offences, such as stealing a cabbage, while there was no greater deterrent for more serious offences. In fairness, his system did away with the aristocrats, (from the Greek ‘aristoi’, meaning ‘the best men’), literally lording it over the rest of the populace, (the ‘hoi polloi’, Greek for ‘the many). Hence, any act or piece of legislation that is deemed to be severed or harsh can still be deemed – ‘draconian’.

In other societies in ancient times the handing on of ‘laws’ by word of mouth was common, and you get an idea of this less-than-perfect practice in its common name, the ‘Law of the Claw’ – which the Romans called ‘lex talionis’, with its reminder of the predator’s ‘talon’. In everyday life this was expressed as an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and the Israelites were no strangers to this. In the Book of Leviticus, the third volume of the so-called ‘Law of Moses’, we find:

‘If a man strikes down any human being, he must die. If a man strikes down an animal, he must make restitution for it: a life for a life. If a man injures his neighbour, what has he done must be done to him: broken limb for broken limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’

For those who have a yen for this, take a look at the Book of Exodus, (Volume II of the ‘Law of Moses’), especially Chapter 21, where you will find the attempt to codify accepted practices concerning the treatment of slaves, homicide, blows and wounds and the theft of animals, among other things. The ultimate source of correct behaviour, however, is not Moses himself, but the God of Israel: ‘The sentence you pass shall be the same whether it be on native or on stranger: for I am the Lord your God’. (Cf. Leviticus 24:22)....

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People are telling me how they are 'streaming' Masses from Wales, Ireland, USA and various European countries - at least there is access to these resources for a large number of us.

Mass continues to be 'said' here in Chepstow at the usual time, on the usual days - apart from 9:00am Sunday morning. There is one Mass on Sunday morning at 11:00 am.People have been in touch by telephone, letter, email and texts concerning Mass intentions. You are welcome to use any of these channels of communication, if it is your wish, to request a Mass to be Offered. 

Our phone number is: 01291 622649 or

Our email address is chepstow@rcadc.org

Our Vision – ‘To develop the faith of our Parish Community to meet the Spiritual, Social and the Moral challenges facing us in the modern World’