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Good morning. The sense of anxiety and anticipation amongst the hostages in Gaza must be intense this morning as some of them prepare for their release from captivity. For seven weeks they’ve been locked up and under the control of others. Soon 50 or so should be with their families and in control of their own lives. They’ll be able to choose what they have for breakfast and how they spend the day. What bliss to be able once again to do the simple things in life without being at the mercy of others. This is what most of us take for granted, the ability to run our own lives the way we want. But not everyone, even in a free society, has this freedom. Those with Motor Neurone or other devastating diseases find they cannot do all the things they would like. They are no longer fully in control of their lives. And in the end, with death, this applies to us all, for life itself is taken away from us. Towards the end of John’s Gospel the risen Christ appears to Peter and says: ‘When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you where you do not wish to go’(John 21, 18). The Gospel writer takes this to mean that Peter will have died. Pierre de Chardin the Jesuit priest and palaeontologist who developed a highly spiritual view of evolution used to argue that there were two phases in our lives, not necessarily one after the other. The first is when we are developing all the powers we have within us: the other is when we have to face what he called the forces of diminishment, when we can’t do what we once did. He believed we had to learn to see God in the forces of diminishment, as well as when we are fully in control of our own lives. He wrote a moving prayer which begins ‘When the signs of age begin to mark my body’, and goes on to ask that when he is absolutely passive and the dark forces are taking over his life, he might still trust that he is in the hands of God. But today most of us, within the constraints of ordinary living, will be able to do some of the things we want - go for a walk in the fresh air, chat to a friend, listen to the radio - and we rejoice that some of those hostages will be able to do the same, praying that all may soon be released and an end be brought to this terrible conflict, with a just and lasting peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.