Author: Andrea Jones

On two Sundays in Advent our Gospel readings look at the character of John the Baptist, Jesus’s cousin, who travelled around the region proclaiming a message of repentance, calling on people to prepare for the arrival of the Messiah.

When I was a child there was a man used to stand at the end of what was then Warwick Road , now Sir Matt Busby way, in Old Trafford on match days, wearing a sandwich board – on it was emblazoned  the words Repent: the End is Nigh.   He would even call out to the crowds surging towards United’s ground “Come on lads repent!”.  I wonder if many people responded to his call.  I sort of doubt it.  Most of us would shy away from such a person, never mind wearing one of those sandwich boards ourselves and calling others to repent.

My brother once told me that he didn’t like religious people because they tried to tell others what they were doing wrong.  Now that may be true of some but my experience as a priest is that the big problem many people is that they are only too ready to blame themselves – to keep on confessing the same mistakes and sins, often year after year.  Over and over again. People beat themselves up about not being good enough.  They find it hard to believe that God has forgiven them. They clearly cannot forgive themselves. Of course looking around at the world today there is much to lament and repent about  – but  what really matters is how we are facing up to what we feel is wrong in our lives,  and what are we doing about it.

The word sin in the Hebrew is hattat.  It is best translated as meaning “missing the mark” and comes from a term used in archery.  The word sin speaks therefore of aiming at a target and missing or maybe aiming at the wrong target altogether.  But if we don’t hit a target we usually try again.  And if we do have another go we need to look at where we want to hit and adjust our aim.  Aim for the centre of the target.  During Advent it’s a good time to think about what targets we are aiming at. Are we settling in aiming for something that doesn’t require too much of us?  Are we afraid to align ourselves more closely to what God might want us to do in our lives?   

And if we do find ourselves going over old wrongs are we buying into the idea God cannot love us because we aren’t good enough? Well we might be missing the target – we might have missed the target big style and hurt people in the process but God loves us, just as we are and it is never too late to make a new start.

And when we adjust our aim we repent.  The New Testament Greek word in the Gospels for repentance is metanoia which means a change of mind or heart. Looking at things differently. Not beating ourselves up and dwelling on past wrongs but living with the Good News that we can encounter the Risen Christ in our lives.  That is far more about sharing tea and cake and love rather than pointing out someone’s faults.

Learning a new way of life is about living life in all its fullness.  We are here to share in the joy of the Good News.  I don’t think that man outside Warwick Road on match days had the right idea about sharing the Gospel really. But that is not to say we are not to share the message that Jesus brings – John the Baptist took his message out around the region – but the best way for us to do that is to understand that God loves us, just as we are, forgives our faults, uses each of us, however weak and feeble our faith sometimes feels.  We don’t need that sandwich board, we don’t always need words or a long speech – but we need, as the candles at our baptisms symbolise– to shine as a light in the world. Andrea Jones – Rector

What is Advent all about?

For most people the word Advent conjures up an image of a calendar with little doors one of which can be opened every day from the 1^st December until Christmas Day.  If you are really lucky there might be a chocolate behind each one and a couple of years ago I saw one for sale which revealed a daily phial of gin.

Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas- this year that means it starts on 28^th November.  Advent is derived from the word coming in Latin and it is a time when we look forward to the birth of Christ. It is a time of waiting, of preparation.  Just as in the weeks before Easter when we prepare through the season of Lent, Advent has traditionally been a season of fasting, prayer and self-examination.  It is also a time to reflect not only on the coming of the child Jesus at Christmas but of the expectation that Christ will return. 

I remember a former of curate of mine telling me of her time at the College of the Resurrection at Mirfield.  The students and brothers who live there keep the season of Advent rigorously.  She told me of the shock she and her friend had when they left the calm and solemnity of college one day and were faced with a barrage of Christmas lights and Christmas songs in all the shops.  She told me that the contrast between the loud brash outside world and the calm of the college and community was unnerving. She said to her  friend, “Next year when we are ordained and serving in a parish things will be very different. We won’t have the luxury of Advent”. And of course she was right.  For those of  living in Wales in the year 2021 trying to have a penitential season in the run up to Christmas is not easy.  The early onslaught of Christmas cannot be avoided even if we refrain from putting our Christmas tree up until Christmas Eve  – we have carol services, Christingles, schools come into church to hold their Christmas services.  Christmas Fayres are held early in December to get ahead of the game before money is spent elsewhere.  And this year more than ever, after last year, we will want to get together with friends and socialise.

Also it can be harder to “give things up” in Advent than in Lent.  In Lent we see the spring bulbs beginning to flower, nights are getting shorter, days longer.  Advent is at the darkest time of the year for those of us living in northern Europe.  Surely a time to eat, drink and be merry!

But in the midst of a world which can become more and more frenetic, when we are constantly being tempted if not urged  to “splash the cash” there is something to be said for spending a little bit more time in prayer each day and perhaps choosing an Advent book to read.  It is an opportunity to think about how we are living our lives and what our priorities are.  For most of us Advent is no longer a solemn season and most of us do not live, as the early Christians did, in the expectation that Christ’s return is imminent. But Advent does call us to ask ourselves – if Jesus did return today what would he find me doing? What would he make of the choices I am making in my life?

Here are some suggestions for Advent reading

Bishop Gregory has recently written and published a book for Advent entitled  “An Advent Book of Days – Meeting the characters of Christmas”.  This little book, which is beautifully illustrated by Bishop Gregory, features a different character or aspect  of the Christmas stories every day – looking at what we know from the Bible and tradition and also what that might mean for us today.

In the Bleak Midwinter – Through Advent and Christmas with Christina Rosetti  by Canon Rachel Mann helps us reflect on the themes of Advent, Christmas and right through to the feast of Candlemas through Rosetti’s verse.  I used this book for the last two years and can highly recommend it.  It is a book that can be read and re-read.

Stephen Cottrell’s book Walking Backwards to Christmas, the title of which reminds us of the Spike Milligan song, tells the nativity story in reverse beginning with the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and going back through to characters in the Old Testament helping us look afresh at the Biblical characters.

Wishing you a blessed and nourishing Advent.

Revd Andy

Confirmation – continuing the journey

On Sunday 10^th October several members of St Deiniol’s Church were confirmed along with some other members of our Mission Area by Bishop Gregory, Bishop of St Asaph, in a service at Emmanuel Church, Bistre. 

• 

• 

What does it mean to be confirmed and why do we do it? 

Confirmation is a sacrament – an outward sign or ritual revealing an inner spiritual grace. All those coming for confirmation will already be baptised (or need to be baptised before being confirmed) but unlike baptism which one’s local priest usually conducts, only a bishop can confirm someone.  He will lay his hands on the candidates and anoint them with oil.

 At one time it was the practice that those who had been baptised could not take communion until they were confirmed. This usually happened, as in my own case, during someone’s teenage years.  Now, however, anyone who is baptised can receive communion in the Church in Wales and therefore there is not the same pressure to be confirmed as there once was.

But confirmation is important. Many of us were baptised as infants. Confirmation allows us to affirm the promises which were made on our behalf by parents and godparents when we were infants. Confirmation is a strengthening and deepening of our relationship with God.

When the bishop lays his or her hands on a person at confirmation and says the words “God has called you by name and made you his own.  Confirm, O Lord, your servant with your Holy Spirit” we believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit comes down upon that person.   

These verses from the Acts of the Apostles seem to describe confirmation telling how some who came to faith in Samaria had been baptised but  received the Holy Spirit when Peter and James laid their hands upon them.

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.  (Acts 8:14-17)

Confirmation is an important stage on our life journeys as disciples of Christ.   Through Confirmation, our personal relationship with Christ is strengthened, we are called to be witnesses to Christ in the world and to deepen our relationship with him through prayer, worship and service.

Please pray for our candidates Beryl, Tony, Zak, Hannah and Eadie.

Revd Andrea

2.10.21

The Church year unfolds through its different seasons and is peppered with feast days.  Our year begins with Advent, we have Christmas, closely followed by Epiphany, then on to Lent, the great feast of Easter, then comes Ascension Day, Pentecost and Trinity.  However, we then enter a time the Church calls Ordinary Time – a time which sounds rather dull and not much fun.  Though maybe in these extraordinary times of Covid we might yearn for a bit more ordinary!

Ordinary Time though does not mean ordinary in the way we usually use it meaning commonplace but because the weeks of Ordinary Time are numbered.  It comes from the Latin ordinalis, which refers to numbers in a series and from which we get the word order.

Nevertheless, as a child I did find Ordinary Time a bit boring!  I would look down at my Book of Common Prayer and count how many Sundays before we might have a bit of a change and work out the Roman numerals!  The author Barbara Pym in one of her novels refers to the “endless Sundays after Trinity”.

However, we overlook the everyday at our peril.  Our lives cannot and indeed are not one long party.  Every day cannot be a feast day.  I remember for a while attending a church in Canada where every Sunday was something special. If there were not a saint to celebrate it would be Homeless Sunday, or Family Sunday or Sea Sunday.  All those things are worthy to be remembered of course but I feel if we think we have to make every Sunday something special we fail to appreciate the rhythm of our days.

If every day is a special occasion, there is no anticipation of a feast day.  Much of our lives are routine, everyday encounters.  And it is very important too that we learn to recognise God in our everyday lives as well as at festival times.  In fact, if we are always simply waiting for the big occasion, we are surely condemning ourselves to lives of dissatisfaction.  God’s glory is all around – in every conversation, every tree, every flower, every leaf, every sunset, every encounter.  Unless we seek God in the everyday we may miss God altogether.

RS Thomas famous poem The Bright Field speaks of this.  

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once but is the eternity that awaits you.

The poet doesn’t take time to notice and too late realises what he has missed. 

Ordinary Time, most of which takes place through July and August, is a time which often has a slower pace than other times of year. Certainly slower than the run up to Christmas! It is an opportunity to take some time to notice, take some time to see where God might be found and perhaps listen to what God is saying to us.  It is a time to make sure we are not, in the words of Thomas, “hurrying on to a receding future or hankering after an imagined past”.  Rather a time to stop and look around, live in the moment and to develop our capacity to notice where God is at work.  For if Moses had not done so he may never have seen that burning bush!

I’ve just come back from a refreshing ten days on the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde.

I have been visiting the island for some 50 years now and I love it.  It is, for me, a very sacred place.  It’s not a famous pilgrimage destination such as Iona or Lindisfarne but it is a place where I have spent time just being with God and the natural beauty of its coastline and hills and glens help me to pray.  It does have its own Holy Island off the coast of the main island where the Celtic hermit St Molios resided in a cave (this island is now owned by a group of Buddhists and continues to receive people seeking retreats).  I was also delighted to return to the small white wooden church at the village of Sannox built during a religious revival in the 18^th century.  I have spent time in this church, simply sitting and putting things in God’s hands,  but was saddened to visit some years ago to find that it was falling into disrepair. However, God has revealed a new vision and purpose for the site and I discovered it is being restored and rejuvenated by a group of committed Christians. Its website says, quoting the book of Jeremiah, that Sannox “seeks to answer the call to rediscover the Ancient Paths and find rest for our souls”. You can find out more about the Sannox Christian Centre at www.sannox.org

Places of pilgrimage are often referred to as “thin places”,  places where the veil between this world and the next is very thin, where the distance between heaven and Earth seems to collapse.  They are usually places of great beauty, often remote and where Christians have prayed for generations and there is a sense of the very building or landscape being soaked in prayer.  We don’t have to travel very far to find such a place because, whilst not remote,  our church at St Deiniol’s  where people have prayed and worshipped since mediaeval times and probably before that is such a place.  And not only our building.  Many people experience that sense of being close to God in our churchyard as well with its expansive views across to Cheshire and beyond often giving us a sense of perspective when we are overwhelmed.

But of course we don’t even need to walk down to the churchyard to find a sacred space.  Useful and important though such places can be in our faith journeys it is good to remember the prayer of St Catherine of Sienna   “build a cell within your heart and never put a foot outside it”. That might seem a counsel of perfection for those of us running about our daily lives with long to do lists and worries and anxieties. But what St Theresa was saying is that we all have that thin place within us. It is good to get away on retreat or pilgrimage or find time to pray in our churchyard.  We might find it helps to have a room or a corner of our own homes where we pray, where we might light a candle or have an icon or cross  but actually we all have within us the ability to open our hearts to God wherever we are.   I have a friend who used to find a quiet corner of the 8.20 am train from Flixton to work each day and spend the time in prayer.  What helps us find that sacred space where we can feel God’s presence is time.  Wherever we are we need to spend time with God.

This does not mean, however, there is no value in leaving our every day lives behind and going on retreat or pilgrimage, be that a very organised pilgrimage to a famous location or as I have done gone away to somewhere special to me. Going to Arran has done me the world of good! What it does mean is that we don’t leave God behind when we return to our every day lives. The value of spending uninterrupted time with God in a quiet location is that it helps us bring back that sense of closeness and reliance on God back with us into our everyday lives.  

I end with a prayer from St Theresa of Avila

Let nothing disturb you ,Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away :God never changes. Patience obtains all things Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.

Last Easter was a difficult time for all of us.  Our church doors were closed. Since then we have gone through a year like none other but there is a sense now of new beginnings. The vaccine has given us hope and the sacrifices we have made during lockdown enable us to look to opening up our lives again, albeit cautiously, and St Deiniol’s church will be open again for public worship from Palm Sunday.   Whilst we cannot journey through Holy Week with our usual traditions (social distancing isn’t going to permit foot washing obviously!) we will be together, God willing, on Easter Day.

This last year, during which our churches in Wales have been closed for long periods, has led me to reflect on how our Gospels tell the story of Christ’s death and his Resurrection. What happens in public and what happens “behind closed doors” as it were.

All four Gospels tell the Easter story in different ways but there is a lot of similarity. We are given a lot of detail about Jesus’ arrest, how he is brought before Pilate, condemned to death and then his harrowing death on the cross.  Many of his disciples fled at the end of Jesus’ life but we are told that several women stayed to witness his death and presumably it is their descriptions and that of others who stood by that made it into the Gospel narratives.

By comparison we have no witnesses to Jesus’ actual Resurrection. He was laid in the tomb and what happened is not discovered until the morning when Mary Magdalene and her companions come and find the stone rolled away.  The Resurrection happened in the dark of the night.  The event remains mysterious and without human witnesses.  But happen it did.  Mary Magdalene met the Risen Christ, mistaking him at first for the gardener and then realising it is Jesus.  

This last year we have spent quite a lot of time withdrawn from the public lives we usually lead. We have lived behind those closed doors.  Our prayer lives, especially for those living alone, have been solitary though we do give thanks for Zoom! This can be hard but it can help us deepen our discipleship too.  This pandemic has changed us and some of how it has changed us can be for the better.  It may well be that we do not recognise that yet, that we need more distance to enable us to look back at what has happened, is happening to us.  But I really believe that in this  time of being out of our church buildings, finding different ways to pray and worship, something has happened to us in the dark of the night.  It may be too early to properly look back and reflect on this pandemic – it isn’t over yet but it may be that a lot is happening  “behind the doors” and that there will be a time when we are distanced enough to look back when we realise we were able to look at ourselves and our mission afresh.

The Resurrection did not begin with a press release, or a choir of angels, or a fanfare.  Three women came to the tomb and found Jesus’ body gone. Mary Magdalene ran to tell the disciples who were themselves locked away behind doors for fear of persecution.  They were sceptical at first of this woman arriving with this unbelievable news.  If we were designing a campaign to launch “The Resurrection” I am not sure we would plan it this way!  New life, new growth in our church, will not necessarily begin with a press release, or a fanfare either.  The dawn comes gently.  But the starting point for the mission of our church is that we need; like the three women who went to the tomb; to recognise in our own lives the Risen Christ and have the courage to live out that discipleship.

It continues to be a great disappointment that we cannot worship in our church building at the present time.  We can only hope that this “fast” does not need to continue for too long now. Despite not being able to be in church for Ash Wednesday or meet in person for Lent groups,  it is important that we keep the season Lent, a time for reflection, reappraisal and for penitence. Lent is about walking with Jesus as we journey with him towards His final days of Holy Week and to the Cross.  It is a very good time to find some extra time to spend with God.

This booklet includes some words and prayers which you can use each day.  Lent is a time for saying sorry but we must not see it as a time for “beating ourselves up”.  It is not only a time to remember the things we regret doing, or not doing, as individuals, though we may want to do that.  It is a time to lift up to God the injustices across the planet, the damage we are doing to each other and to the Earth, the structural sins which beset our world and asking God for guidance and healing.

Many people like to read a book during Lent and I list a few titles below that you might wish to consider.

I am aware that not everyone is on the internet or Facebook or can use Zoom but we are, in the absence of not being able to be in church, worshipping in the following ways:

• Ash Wednesday:  a Celtic service will be live streamed on Facebook at 12 noon.
• Each week during Lent: Sundays 10 am Zoom Eucharist
• Each Tuesday: 7pm Zoom Eucharist.
• Every evening at 9.00 pm: a Celtic Service of Compline is posted on Facebook

Messy Church on Zoom – there will also be Messy Church in Lent and at Easter.  Details will be given on Facebook and email. Our Facebook is St Deiniol’s Church in Wales Hawarden For a link to any of our Zoom services please email Revd Alan on 794alan@gmail.com

Best wishes, Revd Andrea Jones, Rector 01244 520992

Some suggested readings in Lent:

• Saying Yes to Life by Ruth Valerio
• Living His Story by Hannah Steele 
• Looking Through the Cross by Graham Tomlin
• Thy Will be Done Stephen Cherry
• Candles in the Dark Rowan Williams

Reading the Bible in Lent

Some people like to use the time of Lent to read a chapter of the Bible each day or to read a psalm (in addition to the one in the order of service below).  Here are some suggestions taken from the Church in Wales Lectionary, that is the readings set for each day, and you might want to use whilst praying the short service below.

Wed 17 Feb Luke 15.11-end	Thur 4 Mar Heb 3.1-6	Fri 19Mar Hb 10.26-end
Thur 18 Feb Gal.2.11-end	Fri 5 Mar Heb 3.7-end	Sat 20 Mar Heb 11.1-16
Fri 19 Feb Gal 3.1-14	Sat 6 Mar Heb 4.1-13	Sun 21 Mar 2 Cor 11.16-12.10
Sat 20 Feb Gal 3.15-end	Sun 7 Mar2 Cor 5.20-end	Mon 22 Mar Heb 11.17-31
Sun 21 Feb 2 Cor.4	Mon 8 Mar Heb 4.14-5.10	Tue 23 Mar Heb 11.32-12.2
Mon 22 Feb Gal 3.23-4.7	Tues 9 Mar Heb 5.11-6.12	Wed 24 Mar Galatian 4.1-5
Tues 23 Feb Gal 4.8-20	Wed 10 Mar Heb 6.13-end	Thur 25 Mar Heb12.14-end
Wed 24 Feb Gal 4.21-5.1	Thur 11 Mar Heb 7.1-10	Fri 26 Mar Heb 13.1-16
Thur 25 Feb Gal 5.2-15	Fri 12 Mar Heb 7.11-end	Sat 27 Mar Jeb 13.17-end
Fri 26 Feb Gal 5.16-end	Sat 13 Mar Heb 3.1-15	Sun 28 Mar John 12.1-19
Sat 27 Feb Gal 6	Sun 14 Mar 2 Cor 9	Mon 29 Mar Col 1.18-23
Sun 28 Feb 2 Cor 5	Mon 15 Mar Heb 9.1-14	Tues 30 Mar Gal. 6.11-end
Mon 1 Mar 1 John2.1-8	Tues 16 Mar Heb 9.15-end	Wed 31 Mar Rev 14.18-15.4
Tues 2 Mar Heb 2.1-9	Wed 17 Mar Heb 10.1-18	Thur 1 Apr Eph 2.11-18
Wed 3 Mar Heb 2.10 – end	Thur 19 Mar Heb 10.19-25	Good Friday  1 Pet 2.11-end

A short service of prayers and reflection for use in Lent

Opening Prayer: God of our days and years. I set this time apart for you that I may be formed into the likeness of Christ and that my life my glorify you.

• The Beatitudes
• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are those who mourn,for they shall be comforted.
• Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,for they shall be satisfied.
• Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
• Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
• Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Reading (See the readings listed above or choose a Bible reading): Psalm 130: Out of the depths I have called to you, Lord. | Let your ears be open to hear my voice. | If you recorded all our sins who could come before you? | There is forgiveness with you:therefore you shall be feared. | My soul is longing for the Lord, more than those who watch for daybreak. | O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy. | Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

Confession and Forgiveness: Compassion and forgiveness belong to the Lord our God, though we have rebelled against him.Let us then renounce our wilfulness and ask his mercy by confessing our sins in penitence and faith. Wash away all my iniquity Lord, have mercy. Against you, you only have I sinned Christ, have mercy. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Lord, have mercy. May almighty God, who sent his Son into the world to save sinners, bring us his pardon and peace, now and for ever.

Intercessions: A time to pray by name for those people and situations that we want to especially place before God today.

The Diocesan Lent Prayer 2021: Sovereign Lord, all our beginnings and endings are encompassed by you. Help us follow in the footsteps of Christ and seek your Kingdom with all our hearts. In Jesus, may we find firm footing for our feet and clear direction to our travels. With his life and love breathed into our witness, may we stand with him, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Final Prayer: God of compassion, through your Son Jesus Christ you have reconciled your people to yourself. As we follow his example of prayer and fasting, may we obey you with willing hearts and serve one another in holy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

copyright: New Patterns of Worship Archbishops Council 200

The season in Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, the 17^th February, is in many people’s minds linked in some way to campaigns like Dry January or Go Sober in October.  A few weeks when we give up something we are sure we eat or drink too much of – maybe alcohol or chocolate.  In more recent times there has been a movement to take something up during Lent rather than abstaining from something.  Maybe go a run each day or give a bit more to charity.

Neither of the above approaches is wrong. It certainly does me no harm at all to eat a bit less cake for a few weeks and it is never a bad thing to consider our charitable giving. But the real purpose of Lent is to focus on God and it is time for reflecting on our own life and faith. 

Lent is a penitential season.  It has traditionally been a period of abstinence in preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ triumph over death, His Resurrection and that has involved giving things up and making sacrifices.  In our society one of the biggest issues we face is that we live out of balance.  Treats are no longer treats because we can buy chocolate muffins every time we go to the shop. Easter eggs appear in the shops straight after Christmas and one needs an iron will to walk past cream eggs!  We no longer have 9 to 5 jobs because modern technology, which should in theory liberate us, enable us to be available for work from getting up to going to bed. We don’t concentrate on eating our meals because we either watch TV or look at our phones.

Lent gives us an opportunity to become a bit more balanced.  Part of this process is being easy with ourselves, admitting we are not perfect and setting gentle goals.

This year when we are in lockdown it gives us the ideal opportunity to slow down a little, become more mindful of our daily routines, care for ourselves, be that spending a bit more time planning and cooking our meals, or taking a bit more time to walk slowly and appreciate the world around us. We may be separated from friends and family but we might take up the rather forgotten habit of letter writing. A friend of mine sends a postcard every day in Lent to someone she hasn’t seen for a while.  Or rather than a letter maybe a phone call.

You may want to go further. Another friend of mine always fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays by not having lunch on those days and only eating modest meals.  She finds that helps her appreciate food more.  

It’s always good to find some more space in your life to spend a bit more time in quiet listening to God.  Many people enjoy reading a book during these weeks and either discussing it with friends or simply reflecting upon it themselves.  I’ve listed some titles at the end of this post.

Whatever you do though I would urge you do two things – one is definitely look to this season as a time to reflect, reappraise and rebalance but always in the joyful expectation of the joy of Easter day. Secondly, be kind to yourself.  Don’t set yourselves goals that make you feel inadequate or doom you to failure.  Don’t let Lent feel like an additional burden as you juggle all the other things we are facing with the pandemic.  

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth “Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Our Lenten journeys with Jesus should give us greater freedom to live life more fully and to grow closer to Him.  We should never see Lent as a time of simply giving up things so life becomes more dull and difficult but a time that can show us new things about ourselves and about our relationship with God. 

Some suggested Lenten reading:

• Living His Story by Hannah Steele 
• Saying Yes to Life by Ruth Valerio
• Looking Through the Cross by Graham Tomlin
• Thy Will be Done Stephen Cherry
• Candles in the Dark Rowan Williams

Rev’d Andrea Jones, Rector St Deiniol’s Church, Hawarden

The day which we here in the Church in Wales celebrate as the Feast of the Epiphany is in some countries the day that Christmas is celebrated because this is the time that we remember that the coming of the Messiah, the birth of Jesus, is not just something for the Jewish people but for all of humanity.  We are told the Magi, the wise men, came from the east and made a long journey following a star until they reached the place Jesus was born and they presented him with gifts.  There are a lot of details which have grown up around the story of the Magi which do not appear in St Matthew’s Gospel.  We usually see three figures depicted – but St Matthew doesn’t tell us how many there were only that they brought three gifts.  The names we have given them – Balthazar, Melchior and Caspar, so familiar from the solo parts of the carol “We Three Kings” don’t appear in the Bible either. And of course they are not described as kings at all in the Gospel story. We read that they came from the east which might mean they came from Babylonia, or Persia, where the word magi originated. 

What is clear is that these travellers felt compelled to follow this star.  They didn’t know their final destination.  They travelled outside their own country and presumably way out of their comfort zones. Perhaps understandably, the first person they sought out was King Herod, a person of power, someone who surely knew what was going on. When it became apparent that this was not the case  they continued to follow the star until it stopped over the place where Jesus had been born. 

The story has a lot to tell us in our lives which we often see as a journey.  I recently heard the Christian journey described as an “off road excursion”.  Life doesn’t turn out how we expect and trying to plan can sometimes end up being futile (2020 has  shown us that!) but looking back our lives often make more sense in retrospect when we can see where God has guided us and the times we were following our own particular stars and the times we made a wrong turning. I am often struck how in life we often turn to “King Herods” we think power, wealth, success or possessions are what matters in life and forget that Jesus was born in an outhouse and that his family were ordinary people, certainly not from the ruling classes.  If we do describe Jesus as a king, and we often do, we are talking about a very different kind of ruler to the despotic leaders of the world.

We hear in the Gospel that the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to King Herod but to find another way home.  Like the Wise Men this might be a good time, at the start of a New Year when we are making resolutions, to plot a better route for our own lives and look afresh and how we are following Jesus.

The three gifts that the Wise Men brought to Jesus – gold, frankincense and myrrh have been the subject of endless discussion down the centuries about what they symbolised.  But this is also a good time to reconsider our own gifts and what we bring to Jesus.

Perhaps that’s never been summed up better though that in the last verse of the poem by Christina Rosetti which is familiar to most of us as the carol In the Bleak Midwinter. Rev’d Andrea Jones 28 December 2020

Nobody knows the actual date that Jesus was born and most people don’t imagine it was the 25^th December.  Here in the Northern Hemisphere, however, the 25^th December, so close as it is to the Winter equinox,  the shortest day of the year, is a very good day to celebrate the birth of Christ.  Not just because we need a time of celebration, of feasting and alleviating the short dark depressing days although that is important and should not be easily dismissed, but because we celebrate the coming of the Jesus, the Light of the World coming to illuminate the darkness.

And it is important to remember that everybody’s lives are made up of good times and bad and that life is not like a double page spread in one of those Good Housekeeping magazine photoshoots that are featured in the December editions or a smiling, beautiful family sitting round a Christmas table on a TV advertisement – who never fall out, and whose Christmas fayre is always perfect.  Real life is much more messy than that.

And times now are difficult.  Covid has turned our world upside down leaving so many people in dire need with people losing loved ones, unable to visit members of their families in care homes and anxious about their jobs and the future. Yet it is not the only issue, across the world there is war, famine, we see people fleeing murderous regimes and making perilous journeys to try to bring their families to safer climes sometimes dying in the process.  We worry about climate change and the world our children will inherit.

But if the world seems a dark place that means we need Christmas more than ever.  Christmas is not just about fairy lights, carols singers and robins on Christmas cards.  Joseph and Mary found shelter in a stable, having been unable to find any better lodgings for the night.   Let’s not forget that they had to flee their homeland after Jesus’ birth and were refugees in Egypt.  The birth of Jesus actually led Herod to an act of great violence against children.  This story is just about as far away from the impeccable staged home photographs I referred to earlier as you can get.  All aspects of being human are in that story.

And Jesus brings hope and light to all humanity. The nearest we can get to describing just what it is like when we let Jesus into our lives is to describe it as a light shining in the darkest corners of our world.  God came into the world as a helpless vulnerable baby but he brought light and hope.

My purple stole has a lighthouse embroidered on it with shafts of light reaching out – for me that symbolises how I see Jesus in my life – constantly shining and calling me safely home, however difficult the times. Sometimes I forget to keep my eye on the lighthouse but it is always there, ready to guide me.

There is light amongst the darkness. The prophet Isaiah foretold that “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
Those who lived in a land of deep darkness- On them a light has shone” (Isaiah 9:2).  

This year, perhaps more than ever, we need to fix our gaze on Jesus, on our  lighthouse, guiding us from stormy seas safely into harbour. Rev’d Andrea Jones, Rector, 18th December 2020