Normally Bangladesh is associated with cheap clothing but this week it was identified with the most costly clothing on earth. Most costly in terms of workers lives with the death toll in the collapsed clothing factory currently at 300 and rising.

The eight storey factory, in a town outside Dhaka was unsafe. Cracks had appeared in the walls the day before. The President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said “We had very clearly told the owners not to open.”

The workers were aware of the danger and did not want to enter the building. Their supervisors told them that all pay would be stopped if they did not go inside.

There are no trade unions in this factory. If there had been workers could have withstood the order to return to work. The owners, one of whom is a politician, have disappeared. News just in indicates that two of them have given themselves up.

Retailers in the West who use these factories have basic requirements written into their contracts. These cover such matters as the exploitation of children and the right to collective bargaining. Of course some manufacturers have been known to outsource production to other less well regulated factories that may operate to yet lower margins.

Wages can be a low as €1 per 10/15 hour day. This enables garments to be sold in Dublin at unbelievably low prices.

Before we boast of our latest bargain we need to consider the true cost which may be much higher.

What has the Bible to comment on these things?

St James has something to say to the greedy factory owners who hold back on their labourers’ wages –how much more dire their peril where they disregard the safety of their workers for their own profit Chapter 5 verses 1- 6.

Wealth is attractive because it brings temporal power, control over others and the pride that accompanies these things.

It has been said that money will get you anywhere except into heaven. St Peter put it succinctly in his first letter to the Christian churches, “It was not with silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him so that your faith and hope are in God”. Chapter 1 verses 18-21.

Faith in Jesus is the only way any of us will be redeemed whether we be the factory owner or the most recent worker to be rescued from the rubble…or the purchaser of that cheap shirt!

This was the unanimous verdict of the jury at the Savita Halappanavar inquest into her death and the death of her baby. It was the delay in aborting the latter that sharpened the focus on this case at a time when Ireland is debating the introduction of legalised abortion.

The coroner’s court was a chilling place for Praveen, the deceased’s husband, this week as the staff of University Hospital Galway gave their evidence.

According to the post-mortem the 17 week old foetus was healthy when she was contaminated by the E.coli infection that killed her mother. This infection was a highly toxic strain producing the septicaemia that ended her life. The autopsy findings were “almost certain that the microbe was present in the deceased’s bowel” from where it migrated to the baby with fatal results for both mother and child.

An expert witness stated that termination of pregnancy would probably have saved the mother’s life. The difficulty for the hospital staff was the baby was alive and at that time is was not evident that a termination of pregnancy, as requested by the mother, would be a solution. A further difficulty was the ambivalence of the law in this situation with its requirement that there be a real and substantial risk to the mother’s life before obstetricians can intervene but gives them no guidelines to quantify that risk.

It is the devising of these guidelines without opening the door to widespread abortion that will be exercising our legislature for much of the remainder of this year.

In the meantime Praveen claims he has neither heard why his wife died nor who is responsible. The official response of “systemic failure” may not satisfy him and the usual absence of finding anyone at fault may not be allowed to pertain in this case.

What does the Bible have to say?

The cries for vengeance were quenched by the teaching of St Paul in Romans Chapter 12 verses 17 to 19 where he says that it is in the Lord’s province not ours. The desire for justice is strongest when it is someone else who is perceived to be at fault and weakest when the blame could be laid at our own door!

It could be said that God too lost a loved one through a miscarriage of justice. The laws did not save Jesus. In fact they were set aside to permit injustice. The only law that could not be quashed was the law of love and in Jesus prayer for the forgiveness of those who were bent on killing him, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”(St Luke chapter 23 verse 34) we have the christian response to injustice.

Praveen may take the case to the European Court but the law is a blunt instrument to right wrongs. It can never bring back the dead. A better course is to turn to the Lord and follow the way he took leaving the work of justice in God’s hands.

The death of Margaret Thatcher has filled many column inches of our papers this week. Love her or hate her she has stirred almost as much passion in her death as she did in her life. She created a two tier Britain with an affluent South and a devalued North.

The grocer’s daughter understood and appreciated hard work and individualism, qualities which gave her the confidence to reach the top in what had been a man’s world.

As the 1^st female prime minister she broke the mould and went on the break the unions! In Scotland she was known as Maggie – and it was not said with affection! Her use of the population North of the Border to experiment with the hated poll tax did not earn her any friends there.

Her callous indifference to the sufferings of the hunger strikers brought the “Troubles” in N Ireland to a new level and cemented the Nationalists opposition to her.

Abroad the Argentine Government, thinking that a female prime minister would roll over and die when they invaded the Falklands, made a gargantuan mistake! I can recall listening with disbelief to the TV broadcast of her speeches as she whipped up enthusiasm in the House of Commons for an all out war to rescue the Falklanders.

In Europe her reputation as “The Iron Lady” was well deserved. On one occasion when the UK were due a rebate which was not immediately forthcoming she endlessly repeated the phrases, “It’s our money” and “We want it back” and added “There is no alternative”, till she got her way. The expression “to be hand-bagged” arose from such encounters!

By the time she left office, the principles known as Thatcherism — the belief that a free (and largely unregulated) market and individual liberty are interdependent, that personal responsibility and hard work are the only ways to national prosperity— had won many disciples at home and abroad.

What comment can we elicit from Scripture?

Baroness Thatcher’s view of reality gives few indications of her faith. The championing of individual effort often at the expense of the good of society brings her into conflict with the work of the Good Shepherd. Indeed her comment on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” to the effect that he would not be remembered if he didn’t have money, speaks volumes!

It is in her single-mindedness to her cause which is reminiscent of Jesus setting his face to go to Jerusalem to complete the work his Father had given him.

As St Paul put it in Philippians Chapter 2; “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

So place your faith into the completed work of Jesus. As Maggie would say “There is no alternative!”

What do developers do when their empire crashes and the creditors move in to take charge of the much devalued assets? We have had a few to study. Each tries to retain as much of the spoils as possible vesting them in their family.

We had a classic example of this when Sean Dunne’s wife re-immerged this week as a skilled negotiator with considerable assets to her name. Some might see her husband’s hand in all this!

Sean, like some of his compatriots, has gone for bankruptcy in the hope that the courts will be more forgiving than his creditors. Apparently he has twice been able to avoid Irish bankruptcy proceedings being served on him in the USA where he now lives. This is understandable as our laws are more severe than whose in the UK or USA. It may not be quite so easy to prove that the USA was his principal business location. This was the hurdle which brought down some of his fellow developers when they tried to file for bankruptcy in the UK.

However the genius behind the re-development of the Jury’s hotel site at Ballsbridge will doubtless have found a way to authenticate his US credentials.

To be declared bankrupt and have the slate wiped clean is the failed developers dream. Of course the Court cannot make the mega-million debts disappear. They have to be picked up or rather thrust upon the “little people”. Some of them, it must be said, did rather well out of Sean’s big spending projects during the boom. However, for the vast majority, heavier taxation is their lot. As someone has said with more than a grain of truth, the only thing that “big people” need to keep going is a constant supply of “little people”!

What has the Bible to say to these things?

One of the problems of wealth is its addictive nature. When one well known millionaire was asked what is enough? He replied “After the next million!”

According to St Paul it’s the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil that plunge men into ruin and destruction. This is written in the passage which states that, “godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out of it” (1Timothy chapter 6).

This “godliness” which is identified with contentment is likened by St Paul to Jesus.

So if you want godliness, whether you are a developer or a taxpayer you need to know Him. “Great indeed is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory (1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16).

For some years now N Korea has been preparing for war. It has done this at the expense of the welfare of its citizens. The Kim family have bankrupt the country using its resources to develop its nuclear capacity and maintain its army.

Kim Jung-un who recently succeeded his father as Leader has become increasingly belligerent threatening to attack both South Korea and the USA. The latter have been carrying out military exercises in S Korea which have enraged Kim and, along with the tighter sanctions unilaterally imposed, have isolated N Korea even more and pushed the regime to the point of threatening war with the South.

Kim has created a fantasy state ruled by police and the army enabling him to adopt the approach of his father and grandfather in using the perception of an external threat to solidify support at home. His grandfather, Kim 1, started the last Korean war when he invaded South Korea in 1950. His defeat did nothing to diminish his god-like status – there is a 90 foot high statue of him in Pyongyang to which people must bow.

His son Kim 11 invented the ideology Juche (Joo-chay), meaning “self-reliance” which bans all religion and takes the form of mind control. In it the Kim dynasty exercises a perpetual rule and worship the dead Kim 1 as the “Eternal President”. Time starts with his birth, this is year 102.

Approximately 6 million of their citizens live at starvation level as much of their resources are channeled to the army which is 1 million strong.

Today Kim 111 has declared war on South Korea. Technically they never made peace since the armistice of 1953. Is it more bravado or will they use their nuclear option?

What has the Bible to say?

The desire to take S Korea has never left the Kim regime. Resolution of difficulties by fighting always appeals to the one who appears to hold a military advantage. The problem of an appropriate response is as old as the limiting rule of “an eye for an eye” Exodus Chapter 21 verse 24. In attempting to match the punishment to the crime restraint has to be introduced. The meaning behind this text was brought out by Jesus in his famous “turn the other cheek” (St Matthew chapter 5 verse 39) we find so hard to put into practice. But how do we apply this to national disputes?

Scripture makes a distinction between personal behaviour and national conduct. St Paul deals with the former in Romans Chapter 12 verses 9/21 and the latter in the following Chapter 13 verses 1/7. The former amplifies Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and the latter grants power to the authorities to maintain the rule of law for the common good. It is out of this latter passage we get the basis for a “just war” by considering acts of war to be analogous to acts of civil government. In this case, should war materialise, the USA and its allies would be seen as the authorities with the power to act.

Scripture speaks of a day when “swords will be beaten into ploughshares” but that will be when Jesus returns to reign and the Kingdom, which we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, becomes a reality. Are you ready for its coming? St Matthew Chapter 24 verses 4/14…then the end will come.

The week started with adulation and a triumphant entry to the city but ended in desecration at the cross. The fickleness of the crowd contrasts with the stability of the Saviour. He had “Set his face to go to Jerusalem” as St Luke graphically describes it. This was the work his Father had given him to do.

In his humanity he had read about it in Isaiah Chapter 53 “Stricken by God and afflicted”. His mother had told him the reason behind the angel’s message giving him his name, “you shall call him Jesus because he shall save his people from their sins” (St Matthew chapter 1 verse 21).

St Peter shied away from it when Jesus said that suffering, death and resurrection lay ahead. The thought of a crucified leader was not to be entertained. (St Matthew Chapter 16) Thus St Peter joined the multitudes who recoil from the cross seeing only the pain, the shame and desolation considering Jesus as a model to copy (an impossibility) rather than a saviour who was to redeem sinners by taking their place and save them from hell.

But some may say there is little textural evidence for believing that Jesus on the cross became a sin offering for us. Let’s look at Israel’s history.

The Passover which was about to be celebrated reminded the people of their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. They were “blood bought”. The blood of the sacrificial lamb protected them from judgement. (Exodus Chapter 12) They were being taught to trust God.

Israel was given the commandments which showed how far short she came of God’s standards. They were being taught about the need of confession and forgiveness.

The reality is that she (and we) do not live by keeping the laws but by breaking them. God’s remedy was the sin offering whereby the repentant sinner could offer a lamb on the altar. The approach to God was always made on the basis of blood of a sacrificed animal. The animal was substituted for the sinner. Its blood purchased his pardon before a holy God. This was at the heart of the ceremonial law throughout the Old Testament and still in use in Jesus day.

But they were always provisional Hebrews Chapter 9 verses 9/10.

Man has not changed since Isaiah wrote “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (Chapter 59 verse 1-2).

Jesus death on the cross spanned the separation by his taking our sins to himself. Our part is to give him our sins and not vainly try to obliterate them. The poet captures it: –

T’was not the mortal pain He bore when hanging on the awful tree,

But His pure soul in touch with hell that crushed Him in such agony.

The wounds of Christ were horrendous but the work of Christ is glorious.

And to think it’s all available to the repentant sinner out of pure grace!

Only believe.

When it comes to the election of a new leader there can be no doubt that the Roman Catholic Church is in a class by itself. The news this week has been dominated by reports from Rome where the conclave of Cardinals moved slowly towards a conclusion.

The drama was played out in a very public way with the Cardinals being locked up in the Sistine Chapel which had electronic jamming equipment installed under the floor. Clearly mobile texting of the results was to be avoided in favour of the traditional smoke signals.

There can be few people subjected to such scrutiny as Pope Francis. His past has been delved into and his present actions examined minutely. On both counts he has not been found wanting by the faithful. His first words to the crowd of pilgrims was to ask for prayer rather like St Paul in his 2^nd letter to the Thessalonians, “Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honoured, as happened among you” and a good start made to his ministry.

In his first homily he sought to steer the church away from work which NGO’s were engaged in and focus more on Jesus and his cross. Whilst he did not say that the preaching of the cross was offensive, as we do not like to hear that we are too sinful to contribute to our salvation, he did say that to be a disciple we need to profess Christ with the cross.

To the more liberal minded in the crowd mention of the cross may not have sounded like shorthand for the death of Christ on their behalf. To the conservative it may not have sounded vital for salvation. Ultimately the cross stands over against all other methods of self-salvation. To rely exclusively on the work of Jesus on the cross requires the convicting and converting power of the Holy Spirit.

Those who proclaim it soon get the labels of un-loving and intolerant. Pope Francis starts with reservoir of goodwill will stand him in good stead if he is to fulfill the Pauline goal, “we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” 1Corinthians Chapter 1 verses 24/25. In today’s world we could substitute Liberals and Conservatives for Jews and Gentiles and pray that both might find salvation in Christ at the foot of the cross.

The annual migration from Ireland to that famous horse racing track in the Cotswolds is gearing up to go as next week is the Festival. Such is the Irish input that the third of the four days of racing is named after St Patrick our patron Saint!

The 27 races are run over the four days. Part of the attraction is the prize money which, this year is £3.76 million. This goes some way to explain the attraction it has for members of our government who travel there no doubt with the intention of reducing our budget deficit!

My first exposure to the races arose many years ago when a somewhat sleepy colleague transformed himself into a smartly dressed racegoer replete with a very large pair of binoculars and took himself off to Cheltenham. This change, I was informed, happened every year as the magnetism of the festival proved irresistible.

The recession has had the effect of reducing the numbers of punters but not the number of horses. There is a record entry with no less than 600 making the journey from Ireland.

The actual amount of money bet on the horses gets harder to calculate as online betting now rivals on course betting. Taxing these considerable sums has proved to be difficult but ways have been found to ensure that whatever the fate of the Bookmaker or Punter the Government always wins!

What would the Bible have to say to such matters?

Quite a lot as festivals formed the framework of the religious year. They were joyous occasions celebrating such things as harvest and bringing to recall the goodness of God in providing for them in the wilderness.

Perhaps the best known festival is the Passover as it was the precursor of the Communion in the New Testament. It was designed to enable the worshipper to remember what the Lord had done in delivering his people from bondage in Egypt. It entailed the sacrifice of a lamb the blood of which was applied to the doorposts and lintel of the house. Those in the house were protected when the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn struck the land (Exodus chapter 12 verse 29).

The plague passed over those sheltering under the blood.

This act of salvation for God’s people foreshadowed the death of Jesus Christ for sinners. He was the sacrificial lamb that was promised of which the lambs in Egypt were a foretaste. He died so that those trusting in the efficacy of his sacrifice would receive eternal life. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” was how St John put it in his Gospel.

Unlike Cheltenham this gift comes without money and does not rely on chance. It relies on the promise of God to hear the cry of repentant sinners and as St John writes about Jesus, “ All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out”.

Never mind the official dates for the arrival of Spring it really arrived this week! The almost continual wet weather that stretched way back into 2012 dried up at last and Spring became a reality.

The start of the calving and lambing has brought life back into the fields around the farmyard as the first to calf and the first of the lambs got their taste of freedom. Their mothers enjoyed some fresh grass but had to go looking for it as the growth is minimal and their diet has had to be supplemented with silage.

The garden birds resplendent in their breeding plumage have entertained us throughout the winter but now have something else to sing about as they set about the business of attracting a suitable mate. The usual collections of Tits and Finches have had their numbers swollen by a flock of Siskin that only now have dispersed.

We have a few nest boxes on trees around the house and today I noticed a Blue Tit examining one of them with a view to setting up house there.

The Rooks which always started to build on 1^st March look like they have deserted us again this year. We blamed their departure on the destruction of the Palmerstown woodland some three miles away. It had the largest rookery in the County but a more likely explanation for their disappearance is the arrival of Buzzards. A pair of them have nested on the farm in recent years and their whistle call put the Rooks on red alert. Initially the Rooks were able to fight off the Buzzards but the latter have had some success at robbing the nests in the Rookery so our friendly Rooks have packed up and moved on.

Elsewhere there is a tinge of green appearing on the hedgerows and the snowdrops which cover the floor of the spinney have now to compete with the bright yellow of the emerging daffodils and primroses.

Another spring has arrived as promised, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Genesis Chapter 8 verse 22.

A promise kept. Another reminder given to us of the heavenly harvest of which the earthly harvest is but an analogy.

The writer to the Hebrews touches on this when he describes who Jesus is and the work He has done, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3.

A seated Saviour represents a job completed. The sin barrier removed by the cross. A way opened for the blood bought believers. A harvest of souls of which our harvests are analogous.

Put your faith in Jesus the Lord of the harvest.

It is a source of wonder that things can go on in a small country for many years and yet go unnoticed. This seems to be the case of the 10 Magdalene Laundries who are reckoned to have had 30,000 women pass through their hands.

When they were founded their task was to rehabilitate young girls back into society. A hundred years on into the 20^th century and these places had become increasingly prison-like with a daily diet of long hours of laundry and needlework.

As there was the presumption that the girls had sinned their day included extended periods of prayer and discipline was maintained by means of enforced silence.

The extent to which suffering was endured came to light with the publication of the McAleese Report which was discussed in the Dial this week.

The evidence showed that Irish courts routinely sent women convicted of petty crimes to the laundries; the government awarded lucrative contracts to the laundries without any insistence on protection and fair treatment of their workers, and Irish state employees helped keep laundry facilities stocked with workers by bringing women to work there and returning any workers who escaped.

For those incarcerated, whatever wrongs they did, and for many it was simply that they existed, their rejection must have seemed complete. The brutality of the regime could have been coped with better if there had been some love, some compassion, some link to family, even an end date to look forward to. Instead there was silence, the removal of self worth and an inability to share even their sorrows with each other.

The Taoiseach’s apology on behalf of the Nation was fulsome and complete. He had taken the time to hear many of their stories as they recounted how they endured all that “a cruel and pitiless Ireland” had thrown at them. Perhaps the noblest thing which he did was to believe them – something which many had not experienced before.

It was a cathartic moment when at the conclusion of the Taoiseach’s speech. The T D’s stood to applaud the survivors in the visitors’ gallery, who in turn applauded the House.

Although no one mentioned it the Gospel had been played out. A confession of past sins was followed by a genuine apology and the promise of restitution to come.

The Word for the Week must surely be for all of us, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John chapter 1 verse 9.

All sin is ultimately against God and forgiveness is the prerogative of the One who is “faithful and just to forgive” because Jesus has made a complete atonement for them.

It exactly matches the survivors’ needs and it exactly matches our needs also.