成人快手

Good morning.聽聽 I鈥檓 just back from a few days in Ferrara, in the north east of Italy, near Bologna. It鈥檚 a city whose history is dominated by the Este family who built its huge castle and redesigned its fine streets.

But I must admit I knew little of that till I got there. Except that one of them, Ercole, had married into a family whose name I did know: the Borgias. And indeed, he married perhaps the most notorious Borgia of all, Lucretia, whose name has been linked with a whole series of husbands, lovers and unexplained sudden deaths.

But not in Ferrara! There Lucretia is remembered primarily as a great patron of the arts, pious and full of works of charity.

It鈥檚 a puzzle, to find a person with two such different reputations. Did she become a whole new woman when she married Ercole Este? Or was it rather that the real Lucretia had never before been given the chance to shine?

Lucretia might be an extreme case, but such stories often challenge the way we form judgements on others. We can be reluctant to believe someone can really be a reformed character. We allow something from the past to overshadow what they鈥檙e doing now, however laudable. We feel we still can鈥檛 trust them.

But the Christian gospels are full of stories of Jesus willing to do just that. He welcomes tax collectors and prostitutes, forgives the disciple who denied him and even when he鈥檚 dying on the cross, promises a penitent thief a place in paradise. The only reputation that endures is the one that he creates for them: they are children of God.

Merciful God, you set us free from what we once were to become what you will make us. By your grace we are your sons and daughters, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. Help us now to shine as lights in the world, to the glory of your name. Amen.