Category: Rector’s Blog

John 2:1-11

Anglican churches across the world use a three year cycle of Bible readings called the Lectionary which means that over the Sundays of those three years we cover quite a lot of the Bible. The reading allocated for last Sunday was Jesus’ first miracle – the turning of the water into wine at Cana at a wedding party.   I wonder how many preachers avoided mentioning parties in their sermons this week – a word that has been in our news bulletins every day it seems!

I was not in church last Sunday.  I was self isolating after contracting Covid.  Very mildly I am pleased to say but it did give me some time to read and reflect on the reading.

I was struck by however different life in first century Palestine might have been; some things today are remarkably similar.  It seems that weddings – two people making promises to each other, the dancing, the food and the drink, the celebrating weren’t that different from our weddings here at St Deiniol’s in 2022.  

Of course Jesus’ miracles do raise questions for us.  Why did Jesus choose to heal certain people and not others.   What do these stories mean to us today?  We often pray for family and friends and for healing but that does not always mean a cure. But this, the first recorded miracle of Jesus, is even more puzzling.  It does not tell the story of someone regaining their sight, or being able to walk.  Here Jesus changes gallons of  water into alcohol.  So much for recommended safe drinking levels!  I used to work with a young Muslim man – he was horrified when I told him about this story in the Bible and even more horrified when I told him we actually consumed alcohol during the service albeit just a sip.

However, I don’t think it is surprising that this  miracle happened at a village wedding rather than a  party in a palace.  Jesus’ first recorded miracle was amongst ordinary people – people like you and me – and at an occasion where people were sharing and enjoying themselves. Weddings are times of joy, where we come together as family, as community to celebrate the joy and  capacity for love.   And when people come together in love and community: there we will find God.  

And at this joyous occasion it becomes apparent that there is not enough wine.  Well maybe wine isn’t essential for every wedding reception (my parents wedding was dry apparently)  but when people are expecting to be able to celebrate with food and drink then running out of wine is fairly disastrous.  

It is Jesus’ mother who draws his attention to the situation. I can imagine this conversation between mother and son. Of all the people who would recognise at this stage of Jesus’ life that he has a special ministry it would be his mother.  And as for his reply – well that’s quite often how sons behave.  As a mother of a son I can recognise such as conversation.  As a young adult he appears to be dismissive of  what his mother says but he doesn’t ignore her!  In actual fact he is listening  to what she says and  He does something about it!

This is a story is about something that people needed.  People needed wine to celebrate the wedding feast.   Jesus comes with something that people need, that people want, indeed that people yearn for.  Something we need, we want, we yearn for. And  Jesus didn’t work out how much wine they were short and provide a little bit to top up their glasses .  He filled the water jars to the brim.   His miracle was an extravagant act of generosity. And the wine was of the finest quality. The wedding steward is amazed when he tastes the wine.  He isn’t aware what has happened or where the wine  has come from. “You’ve saved the best till last” he says. Jesus can replace what is poor in our lives, what’s broken with something new, something whole, something wonderful. So good in fact that it doesn’t get any better.   In turning the water into wine Jesus was showing that he was bringing what people wanted, what people needed, what people longed for. Jesus restores us to our very best by His love, and that love comes in abundance.

And what about the other characters in this story?  Jesus doesn’t just walk into the wedding and perform this miracle alone.  Other people are involved.  It is his mother, Mary, who is first aware of the situation and prompts her son to take action. And then there are the servants.  It is the servants who take the empty jars, fill them with water and bring them to Jesus.  He then performs a miracle – he changes water – let’s not forget that water is in itself a precious gift – into the best quality wine.  Jesus needed the water to perform that miracle and he needed people to bring him that water.  We have gifts. Like the servants bringing the water to Jesus we can bring our gifts and place them before God.  And just as Jesus changed the water into wine we can be transformed.  Jesus opens up for us new possibilities.  If people come together in love and community and if we bring our variety of gifts to God,  we  can play our part in building a world in which, like that day in Cana, there is an abundance of what we most need, most want, most crave –  sharing, healing, acceptance, peace and love.

As with gladness men of old 
did the guiding star behold,
as with joy they hailed its light,
leading onward, beaming bright,
so, most gracious Lord, may we
evermore be led by thee.

A reflection on the Feast of Epiphany

Just the words The Magi, the Wise Men, conjour up a vivid image in our minds.   They have been given names and we often see Caspar depicted as a black African, Melchior as being South Asian in appearance and Balthassar looking more European. But these details are not included in the Bible.  We don’t know how many people came from the East.  There might have been three or four or even more.  Their names are a medieval invention which add detail to the story.  Describing them as coming from right across the then known world does though remind us that Jesus did not come just to save the people he lived alongside, people of his own nation and race, but all of humankind. The Magi like us are outsiders – their inclusion in the story tell that all of us claim a place in God’s salvation – this is a story in which we all belong. 

The Magi seemingly set out on a long and perilous journey, simply because they had seen an unusual star in the sky.  They didn’t know where they were going but they set out bringing with them gifts.  To us it’s a very strange thing to do but these visitors are portrayed as astrologers who plotted and understood the world through the night sky. However unlikely it is to us that they would  gaze up and be guided by the heavens God was revealing himself to them a way that they could recognize and understand.  The Jewish people always saw God as communicating through their language, their prophets. But in reaching out to the whole world God speaks to us where we are standing and in a way we can interpret and understand. There are no restrictions on the way God communicates as we often discover in our everyday lives.

The story of the Magi has something particular to tell us in this time of Covid.  It is a reminder that how difficult our life feels God is present in the world.  It is a reminder that we must continue to follow his star.  It tells us that our journeys can always leads to Jesus, even if we feel we do not know where we are going.  In fact, we never know where we are going do we? Again, surely the last couple of years have taught us that.    We can have a big plan in our lives but life doesn’t always turn out how we imagine. But God is present in the world.

The details we recall in the story of the Magi are not all included in St Matthew’s Gospel but the three gifts are – gold, frankincense and myrrh.  We are often told that gold is a symbol that Jesus is king. Frankincense, a symbol that Jesus is the ultimate high priest and myrrh, the ancient spice of wisdom and of death, a symbol that Jesus is the true wisdom. He has come into the world and that through his death, we shall be redeemed. 

What these gifts remind me is that we also have gifts to bring to Jesus.  This is a chance to think about what we have, what we are willing to give and give up for Jesus.  

The Magi’s gifts were expensive – not just the gold but the frankincense and myrrh.  But the wise men gave them freely. At this beginning of a new year is, I think, a good time for me to reassess my priorities.  Am I expecting God to fit in a very limited space in my life – the short time I am willing to put aside for God – or am I willing to follow that star and make God my destination.   

In other words is my gift to God costly or simply the spare change in my pocket?

We all have a gift to bring Jesus, everyone of us. The gifts God gives us are not be stored away but to be used, used in the service of others.  

Our lives are a journey with many turns in the road. Many times we feel as though we are going in the wrong direction. Sometimes even with the best intentions. The Magi clearly thought it was the right thing to go straight to Herod’s palace when they arrived in Israel – and sometimes it’s a hard and painful process deciding which way to go. But if we listen for the presence of God, – if we seek to see the light of the star before us, – if we are willing to use our gifts in the service of others; then we will see the lesson that the story of the Magi teaches us that if we follow the light in our lives, all of our journeys will lead to Jesus 

For we can find in every journey we take, that Christ is present and that we have a gift to bring in that moment.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Isaiah 9:2

This year, after continuing to live through the pandemic – sometimes quite frankly feeling as if we were staggering through, and after a year which began with our churches being closed, our churchwardens decided that we would hold a Christmas Tree festival. We have held them in the past but we do not hold them every year. They are an awful lot of work both organisationally and physically to set up. However, our wardens were adamant – this year we needed a festival!  

The theme we chose for the festival was Light in the darkness – taken from the quotation from the book of Isaiah Chapter 9 v2 – “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone”.  I felt we all had been living in a time of darkness, bereavements and in some cases serious illness, separation from family and friends, and anxiety caused not only by the actual virus but what it did to livelihoods. 

Our village has really come together to make this festival happen.  Many people, local organisations and businesses have sponsored trees: for a full list of sponsors, please see the end of this page.

All the trees are different. They all interpret the theme differently – our Rainbows and Brownies decorated theirs with handmade robins. Robins are almost the only bird which sings during the winter.  Their lovely birdsong brings us cheer and light up the winter months.  The Tailors decorated their trees with tiny outfits – black at the bottom, then grey and then hey presto white and light at the top!

But I suppose the question we are all asking ourselves is where on that continuum from dark to light do we feel we are now? We were hoping we were over the worst and then Omicrom appeared.  All of us are tired and weary and some of us, careworkers, health workers, teachers, are exhausted.

What do we feel this Christmas? Are we still living in the dark?

We come back to the story of the first Christmas told to us in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.  There is no doubt that the Bible never shies away from describing this world as it really is.  The story is not the sugary version we sometimes see on our Christmas cards.  

Mary and Joseph trudge through the streets of Bethlehem trying to find somewhere to stay.  They both know that the baby will be born soon.  Finally they find an outhouse. The shepherds who come to the stable have difficult lives.  Living and caring for their flock on the hillsides.  The Magi visit the Christ child and their interaction with Herod leads to him launching a reign of terror on the children of Jerusalem and Mary and Joseph flee with their baby to Egypt. The very gifts that the Magi bring a hint that this newborn child is destined to suffer and die on the Cross for  one of the gifts is myrrh, traditionally used in embalming. The verse from We Three Kings goes “Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume/Breathes a life of gathering gloom/Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying/Sealed in a stone cold tomb.”

However familiar the Nativity Gospel passages may seem  when we read them with fresh eyes we cannot but see that the narratives include some very dark passages and the whole story is set in a country living under the rule of the Roman Empire.

But this is still Good News. It is light shining in the darkness.  This story is real.  It does not pretend the world is something that it is not. It’s not saying baby Jesus arrives and they all live happily after.  What this story tells me is that in the coming of Jesus, however messy and unsatisfactory the world is, however far from perfect,  Jesus’ birth gives us life and new hope. In the words of the poet Christina Rosetti:

Love came down at Christmas,Love all lovely, Love Divine,

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

God came down at Christmas and God’s totally accepting sacrificial love and how we are called to mirror  that in the way we live our lives is the light in the darkness.

Madeleine L’Engle’s poem speaks of this.  Christ is our Light in the darkness – so now is the time, even in the middle of a spike in the pandemic, to rejoice.

First Coming

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

-Madeleine L’Engle, from The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle

Our Christmas trees	Kindly sponsored by:
Bank Beauty	Cedar House Flowers
4th Hawarden Brownies	Hawarden Rainbows and 3rd Hawarden Brownies
Hawarden Camera Club	Hawarden Guides
Hawarden Mothers Union	Hawarden Post Office
Hawarden Rotary	Hawarden WI
Serenity Nails and Beauty	St Deiniol’s clergy
St Deiniol’s Thursday Morning Group	Sophisticut
The Village Tailors

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.

The Feast of Pentecost is not on a set date very year.  In the Christian calendar it is known as a moveable feast, falling fifty days after Easter Sunday.  Whilst the date is not set it is an important day as it is a day when Christians celebrate the birth of the Christian Church.  

The events of the first Pentecost  are set out in chapter two of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. It was a day when all the Apostles were gathered together, a day when they were filled by the Holy Spirit, something that Jesus had promised before His death on the Cross.

As the Apostles received the Holy Spirit those around them heard them speaking different languages, the scoffers immediately accused them of being drunk! But it was not gobbledegook or Jabberwocky language they had been given a gift, a gift to ensure that the Gentiles were able to hear the Good News proclaimed in their own languages.  This would ensure the growth of the fledgling Christian Church in the known world.

And so, language, has been at the forefront of the Christian Church throughout its history, enabling the development of the Church, from those first Apostles who were mocked, to the needs of current day worldwide church. The importance of language has not diminished.  

Indeed, in the Church in Wales we are committed to a bilingual Church, Welsh and English with each language having parity with the other.  Without doubt this an important issue but there is also a need to recognise how the language, Welsh, or English, can influence the listeners in the context of our communities today. 

This is not an issue of bilingualism but about accessibility, some would say that the language we use in our worship, in our liturgies, and even in our hymns, is archaic, or unintelligible to some, and so the scoffers remain.  

Personally, I do not accept this argument, yes there are times when there is a need to have a simpler style, say at services for families with children, or specific services where there is a need to change the traditional style of worship, such as a Nativity service, or a Christingle service or indeed a carol service.  Language in such services can be modern, can be of a light touch, perhaps making it attractive to those who feel uncomfortable in a church.  

This is all well and good but there are times in the Church year when quietness, reflection and the mystery of faith must take precedence and the use of traditional language must lead our worship and that includes, at St Deiniol’s Church our weekly Holy Eucharist Service…a service where we proclaim the mystery of faith…which for me is a simple and clear-cut statement in language accessible to all!

‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come in Glory’.

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.