Chocolate Frog

The other day I went to buy bread at the supermarket. But on the way through the checkout a chocolate frog winked at me, seduced me and before you could say ‘Do you have a loyalty card’ the delectable beast was mine. I tore off the wrapper with a wicked cackle of glee. Bah ha ha! I went to put the helpless little thing in my mouth and.. oh dear. It was only then that I realised that I had my mask on. How naive and forgetful I was. While I hope that my faux pas went unnoticed, it felt like the whole world saw my blunder. There are many lessons here. There is the obvious one about gluttony and did I really need the chocolate frog to make a nutritious balanced diet? There is a lesson about patience. Would it have done me any harm to wait until I got home? There is a lesson that my blooper is really a first world problem. Much like a stolen car or a phone is a first world problem. But dig a little deeper friends, there is a lesson here about developing helpful habits.  This is particularly difficult when we swiftly have to adapt, change and develop new patterns of behaviour in order to look after the most vulnerable in our community. It’s about discipline. It’s doing the new habit even when the novelty has worn off and nothing much seems to be happening. It’s about doing the new habit especially when we don’t want to do it. But then it's not about the chocolate frog or me; it is always about the other person and it must always be about Him.