I was browsing though a book that recently arrived on my desk, when I came across this rather interesting passage:

“Even of those who do come [to church], we find many behaving themselves in such a careless Manner, as if the Worship of God was either not their Business there, or not worth minding. Some sit all the Time of the Prayers; or put themselves into such other lazy and irreverent Postures, as shew sufficiently that they have no Sense of what they should be doing, nor any Awe or Reverence of the glorious Being they come to address. Others lay themselves to sleep, or trifle away their Time thinking of their worldly Affairs. Others gaze and stare upon the Congregations, or keep talking and whispering with their Neighbours; and this is especially observable while the Lessons are reading; as if the Holy Scriptures, though given by Inspiration of God, were not always to be heard, marked, learned and inwardly digested . . . Others there are, who do indeed shew some Inclination to mind the Prayers and all the rest of the Service; but they do it with so much Ignorance, Distraction, or Confusion, as discover that they do not rightly understand the Difference between one Part of the Service and another . . . We often find them repeating after the Minister what he alone should speak, and they should only hearken to. They are also apt, when they join the Prayers, to say them after him so loud, as must needs be troublesome, and disturb those that are near them . . .”

It comes from a tract ‘Directions for a devout and decent behaviour in the public worship of God; more particularly in the use of the Common Prayer appointed by the Church of England’, which was published in the early 1700s. It was apparently so popular that by 1799 it had reached it’s thirtieth edition and had been translated into both Welsh and French.

Just in case you thought that this was purely an English problem and we in Scotland were immune from such deviations from ‘seemly conduct’, closer to home the ‘Directory of Publick Worship of God’, published in Edinburgh in 1645 for the benefit of Scottish congregations included this paragraph: 

“The publick worship being begun, the people are wholly to attend upon it, forbearing to read any thing, except what the minister is then reading or citing; and abstaining much more from all private whisperings, conferences, salutations, or doing reverence to any person present, or coming in; as also from all gazing, sleeping, and other indecent behaviour, which may disturb the minister or people, or hinder themselves or others in the service of God.”

So that is us all told!  It set me wondering if inattentiveness to what is going on in church is such a bad thing or if what my training rector when I was a curate used to call “looking about yourself” might actually be part of encountering God rather than a turn away from God.  It is interesting that whilst Scottish edition of ‘The Directory’ is concerned with signs of inattentiveness that cause noise and distract others, the other document is much more concerned with the internal thoughts of worshippers that manifest themselves in the distracted behaviours.

The last two verses from “Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican” a poem by John Betjeman, that recounts the day-dream of a man rather distracted by a lady in church, reads:

The parson said that we shouldn’t stare
Around when we come to church,
Or the Unknown God we are seeking
May forever elude our search.

But I hope that the preacher will not think
It unorthodox and odd
If I add that I glimpse in “the Mistress”
A hint of the Unknown God.

I wonder if how we behave in church nowadays and any advice on such matters shouldmake more allowance for the fact that we’re all different in how we encounter God and shouldn’t be quite so judgemental about outward signs and how we interpret them. I wonder what feedback such exhortations might elicit today – perhaps you might let me know:-)

Later on in the ‘Directory’ it says:

“IT is the duty of the minister not only to teach the people committed to his charge in publick, but privately; and particularly to admonish, exhort, reprove, and comfort them, upon all seasonable occasions, so far as his time, strength, and personal safety will permit.”

That last clause certainly gives food for thought and I wonder how Our Lord viewed His ‘personal safety’ when He was out and about in Galilee and Jerusalem admonishing, exhorting, reproving and comforting!!

Blessings
James

“Nothing” David Hume, enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, maintained: 

“is more dangerous to reason than flights of the imagination.and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.”

Hume has hardly proved the most popular philosopher in Christian circles. Nevertheless, ever since the era of the Church Fathers many theologians have done their work as if nothing were more dangerous to theological reason than flights of the imagination.

Undoubtedly the imagination can lead us into a mess at times. That happens when we use images in attempts to describe and explain abstract realities as though they were the reality itself. At the same time, was there not value in the view championed by the romantics – that art and the imagination provide an authentic way of reaching reality?  The poet Keats put it this way: “What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth”.

In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Shakespeare writes:

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact”.

What then has any of this to do with Easter and Christ’s resurrection?  Well, I wonder ifsome images help us to understand those mysteries much better than a more literal understanding of what the Gospels are telling us about such matters. If we take things too literally, we might fail to see what the Resurrection actually means and why it’s so important. However a word of caution, in doing so we need to avoid any temptation to try to actually describe what a risen life might look like?  So what can we learn from a moreimaginative approach to Christ’s Resurrection and even our own?

Many Christians find it easier (and bizarrely more comforting) to think about the life and death of Jesus rather than His resurrection. Their imagination fails, once they move beyond Good Friday. Amos Wilder, the American poet, minister, and theologian, observed: 

“Imagination is a necessary component of all profound knowing and celebration”.

Great artists create ‘symbols’ through which we can share their experience and insights. They invite us to enter in our imaginations, into the work of their imaginations. In imagining the human body, artists as different as El Greco and Rodin go behind the familiar appearance of the human body to re-express it in a new way. They move beyondorganic, material bodies beyond mere replicas, to glimpse hidden splendour and beauty. This is much the same as seeing beyond skin colour, gender, disability or any other observable characteristic, to see the real person within. They discover an inner glory in their subjects and, as it were, propel them into another world. The creative imaginations and hands of the artist liberate new life from within the constraints of ordinary life.

The Apostle Paul repeatedly speaks of God the Father as having “raised Jesus from the dead”. Might we see God the Father as the ultimate artist who sets free Jesus’ real bodily glory? In doing this for his crucified Son he promises to transform each of us into the splendour and beauty of what Paul calls the ‘spiritual body’. Paul encourages such an imaginative leap when he recalls an analogy from his Jewish background. Even dull readers, he expects, can marvel at the growth that transforms a grain into a mature plant ready for the harvest.

“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.” (1 Cor. 15:35-38).

Here Paul invites us for all our foolishness, to make the leap from the lesser miracle of harvest to the great wonder of the risen life: 

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.” (1 Cor. 15:42-44).

Over the past 18 months some of us have had to spend quite a bit of time thinking about church buildings, as we work to get St Andrew’s belfry tower repaired. In spite of the fact that once again we’ll celebrate the Resurrection with scaffolding inside the back of the church, Easter urges us to disconnect with the physical world and use our imaginations to see beyond such things as mere buildings.

At Easter, nothing trumps God’s Son being raised from the dead. Without that, Christianity is nothing at all and so as Christians we must never forget that it’s the risen Christ that’s at the heart of our faith and Easter is that time of the year when we try to use our imaginations to enter as fully as we’re able into the mystery of God Incarnate, Resurrected and Ascended and what that means for our lives.

May this Easter be a time of blessing for you and all those that you love.

Blessings
James

As I write we are just under half way through our Lenten journey. We have yet to arrive at Holy Week, probably the most difficult week of Lent. On Ash Wednesday we may have started with lots of good intentions to make a good lent, with perhaps a particular focus in mind. I did, but as time has gone on, many dreadful world events have distracted me, and my prayer has become increasingly centred around the plight of all those thousands of ordinary people, just like you and me, whose suffering, despair, and loss is so difficult to fully comprehend and while it has touched me deeply it has also made me deeply frustrated at our powerlessness in the face of all this awfulness.

As I reflect on these things, I take heart from the fact that Jesus Christ our Lord knows and understands what terrible suffering is like, at the hands of people who seek to dehumanise those they regard as their enemies. We have seen this dehumanisation so clearly in the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government and IDF and also in the actions of Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine and also in so many other areas of our troubled and broken world.

So in the remainder of Lent and as we approach Palm Sunday and start to recall the events of Holy Week, we have the perfect opportunity to listen and to engage with the retelling and reflect on Christ’s Passion of unimaginable cruelty.

To quote the famous words of the mediaeval mystic Mother Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), ‘And all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’. But it’s very important for us not to hear Mother Julian’s words as a ‘happily ever after’ fairy-tale ending to all the dreadful and distressing things that are happening around us in the world, because they’re not and they’re not just wishful thinking either. What they do however, is to offer us a glimmer of hope and in our lenten journey, the whiff of Easter in the air.  Now that’s not to say that they’re just a tea and sympathy response to all the suffering and loss causing hurt and distress to many thousands of people around the globe. 

T. S. Eliot ends his poem ‘Little Gidding’ with the words ‘The fire and the rose are one’. For me the power of this image lies in the fact that both fire and rose have positive and negative effects. Fire can be a source of warmth and light, but it also has the power to destroy. Roses are flowers of incredible beauty, but their thorns can draw blood if you don’t handle them carefully.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, doesn’t obliterate what happens to him on Good Friday. It doesn’t blot out its pain, or its darkness or its God-forsakenness, as if it never happened. What it does is it transforms it. It offers a new God-given perspective from which to view it, but it doesn’t erase it. The bruised body of a young Jewish man buried in a garden tomb on Good Friday evening still bears the marks of a crown of thorns and the cruel nails and the soldier’s spear. 

The Pascal Candle that we’ll light in St Finnbarr’s between sundown on Holy Saturday and dawn on Easter Day will burn with a flame lit from the new fire of Easter; but it’ll also be pierced with five grains of incense in the shape of a cross, symbolising the wounds of the crucified Christ. ‘The fire and the rose are one’.

Blessings
James

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity runs each year from 18^th until 25^th January. Now you might be wondering why it’s these particular dates.

The 18^th January is when we mark the Confession of Peter when he was led by God’s grace to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ when Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” getting a variety of answers and then “But who do you say that I am?” and Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” You can read the full exchange in Matthew 16:13-20. 

The 25^th January is when we celebrate the conversion of Paul the Apostle and what happened on the ‘Road to Damascus’ when Saul who had been persecuting the early Christians became a follower of Jesus and was renamed Paul.

The theme of Christian Unity is reflected in the fact that Peter was Apostle to the Jewish Christians and Paul Apostle to the Gentile Christians. Aspects of this will be discussed in our Lent Study when we will be studying Paul’s Letter to the Galatians which was written to address divisions over such matters. Outline details of the Lent Study can be found later in the Newsletter.

Back to the week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Each year the Christian’s from a particular country prepare service and daily reflection materials and this year’s service was prepared by an ecumenical team from the West African state of Burkina Faso (formerly French Upper Volta and then on independence the Republic of Upper Volta). The theme chosen was ‘You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbour as yourself’ (Lk 10:27) the material being based on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

This parable is of course one of the best known passages of Scripture, yet one that never seems to lose its power to challenge indifference to suffering and to inspire solidarity with those who are marginalised or outcast. It’s a story about crossing boundaries and emphasises the bonds that unite the whole human family regardless of race, creed, religion, ethnicity and so forth.

In choosing this passage for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the churches of Burkina Faso invited us to join with them in self-reflection as they (and we) consider what it means to love our neighbour in a world riven with war and conflict, where there are many people displaced or persecuted. Communities in the UK may be less vulnerable to the sort of acts of mass violence that there have been recently in Burkina Faso, but there are still many living with the memory and/or the threat of serious violence, centred on issues of identity and belonging. 

Ecumenical services were held in St Finnbarr’s on Monday 22^nd and in St Andrew’s on Wednesday 24^th January, prayerful events that demonstrated a visible unity of local Christians. In these services people from across denominational boundaries reflected on the fact that there are also groups within our own communities, including people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people seeking asylum and others who for one reason or another are marginalised and who feel particularly vulnerable to misunderstanding, hostility and even violence.

Loving our neighbours as ourselves is something that we should all reflect on regularly, especially during Lent and in particular the question: “and who is my neighbour?”

Blessings
James

Glory to God in highest heaven, and on earth, peace to all in whom God delights.

So sang the angels as they told the shepherds of the birth of Jesus.  Across the world those words are proclaimed in nativity plays and carol services; in places filled with joyful worshippers, excited by the festivities past and yet to come. But they are also proclaimed on battlefields and in refugee camps. They are heard in Israel and Palestine, in Russia and Ukraine and in the darkest places in our own communities. They are heard by people who have little to be excited about or to look forward to.

Yet in all these places it is the same message: the message of Peace, the Christmas message of Peace on Earth. Many of those who gather to listen to the Christmas story are seeking the same thing, a place and time of peace.

Too often those same people find themselves caught up in conflict, poverty and loneliness, yet all are those in whom God delights for God delights in creation, in us and in the wonders that we perform.

So I ask that we consider what we do this Christmastide. Do we hear the angels cry, then smile and drop off back to sleep around the campfire, or do we get up and go to find the Christ child? Do we put the call for peace into action? Do we gather with Jesus and demand justice and security for all? For let me assure you, God delights in all of us, God reveals that in his love for us through the life, death and resurrection of the child we gather to celebrate Christmas.

Last Christmas we prayed for those caught in conflict in Ukraine, and one year on, we pray for them again, and this time they are joined in our prayers by those whose lives are under constant threat as war wreaks its terrible toll in the Middle East; in the Holy Land. We pray for a permanent ceasefire there, and call on our leaders to see that peace is the only way forward, while the war they pursue or facilitate will only deepen the wounds.

Against that backdrop, how can we rejoice at this time, when there is so much suffering? But rejoice we must, as we retell the story of the love that came down to us, and all the time remembering that we are called not simply to listen to the angels but to respond, to be the peacemakers, in our homes, in our communities and in our hearts.

God bless you and may you rejoice this Christmastide wherever you are.

Blessings
+Mark

The are many deeply troubling events and situations in our world just now. Over the past year or two many of the old certainties, both political and personal, seem to have been swept away. And so it was for Jesus’s Disciples after His death and resurrection and for His followers ever since, but if our faith means anything, it must speak to us in troubling times as well as times of joy and celebration.

At such times, we need to choose either to live by the ways of the world or by the ways of God. That doesn’t mean separating ourselves off as a holy huddle focussed in on ourselves, hiding away from a world of dubious motives and evil actions and having anything to do with the other people living in it. No, we’re called to be in the world but not living by many of its cherished values; to be God-centred rather than self-centred.  In Advent, as we start a new church year, we have a few weeks to pause and reflect on what Jesus the Christ really means in our lives; and how we might respond to that realisation.

In our tradition, we re-tell the story of Jesus each year. I find that leaving the old year behind at the end of November and starting a new year on the first Sunday of Advent gives me a boost, just when I need it, when the days are short and winter is really beginning to take hold. It’s that sense of anticipation, that waiting to see what’s going to happen, that pause before the busyness of the festive season.

However, once things have started, most of us want to get to the conclusion as quickly as possible, preferring things to happen at once if not before. However waiting is an important discipline in our lives. The scriptures remind us that “those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength”. In fact, patience is a wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit, allowing us to take our time and live in the moment rather than always wanting to have arrived at some point in the future.

In Jesus’ time, people had waited a long time for the coming of the Messiah.  We all might long to see more decisive action from God; bringing justice and peace to our world and some stability and certainty, not least in the Holy Land where such appalling things are happening. In the Christ Child there is a clear sign of God’s commitment to us, in spite of our waywardness. In Jesus, God is with us, as one of us, a mystery “which passes all understanding” and one that we need time to reflect on. God’s gift to us in this season of expectant waiting, is the space to prepare ourselves to be able to sense and accept all that God longs to give us.

Let us keep a watchful Advent, so that when the time comes, we may celebrate with joy the one who came, the one who will come again, the one who promises to accompany us each step of our life’s pilgrimage, however uncertain the times.

Blessings
James

I’ve been away this past week or two in Cheshire staying with my sister who is convalescing after sustaining a number of fractures. It has been a very frustrating time for her as she is not able to do much and is largely immobile. I have in the course of this also spent quite a lot of time on trains, which to my surprise ran largely to time.

As I travelled, a quite appalling situation has been unfolding in the Middle East. We have seen just how low humanity can stoop in the way that people treat other people. The history of conflict teaches us that increasing the level of violence rarely achieves anything except escalation, until eventually there has to be a sitting down to talk about it and resolving things through negotiation. Along the way there is generally an appalling loss of life and often many of those killed and maimed are not ‘combatants’ but innocent men, women and children.

Contrasting with some of the worse aspects of the human condition, I have witnesses many acts of kindness during my time away. Random acts of kindness to strangers on trains and at stations as well as the kindness of friends and neighbours of my sister who have brought round cakes, meals, flowers and those who have just dropped by for a bit of a chat.

Whilst I was in Cheshire, the rains from Storm Babet struck. This was of course a day or two before they arrived in Angus and Aberdeenshire then coming on to Sutherland and Easter Ross. Massive amounts of rain running off fields and overwhelming the culverts and brooks resulted in a great deal of flooding around my sister’s village and I spent a happy day bailing out a cellar until someone kindly lent us a pump to keep the water below ground floor level!!

We watched as cars and lorries rushed at the flood waters outside the house and every so often one would stop, the engine overwhelmed by the 18 inches of water. On one occasion a lorry driver was very abusive to a driver whose car was stranded in the middle of the flood, using language that I wouldn’t dare repeat here, because his progress was being obstructed, but one or two of those who passed by stopped to offer advice or see if they could help. Sadly we were marooned and couldn’t get out without letting water into the house – perhaps I should have taken a pair of waders:-)

In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus says:

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

I give grateful thanks that many of the people that I encountered during my time away seem to embody that message and I hope and pray that others will see their example and do likewise.  Our world and particularly the Middle East so desperately needs that.

Blessings
James

I have recently been reviewing a book for the Church Times. The author is Annie Worsley who was an academic – a physical geographer whose specialism was landform. She and her family had visited the Highlands of Scotland for many years and in particular the more remote parts of Wester Ross. A decade ago she and her husband decided to trade in their busy lives in the North West of England and settle on a couple of old crofts in South Erradale to the West of the Torridon Mountains. They were both fond of walking and climbing and looked forward to getting better acquainted with this remote area. 

However as in many things in life, the best laid plans … Annie developed a debilitating autoimmune condition as a result of Lyme disease which reduced her to what she describes as “muddleheadedness and painful hobbling”. As so often happens, the plans we make are rendered worthless by events beyond our control. This was the case for Annie and her husband who were not able to tramp the Western Highlands together.

However Annie was a keen photographer and observer of the natural world.  She was able to get out for short slow walks and also observe the world around by looking out of the windows. So for several years she recorded what was happening in the vicinity of their home at Red River Croft in pictures and copious notes.  The book “Windswept”, that I was sent to review, was the result of her observations, reflections and recollections.  Annie adapted to her changed circumstances and her delightful book is testament to that.

Well that set me thinking about the extent to which God controls what happens in theworld. While Scripture affirms the sovereignty and power of God, it also provides examples when God doesn’t seem to be able to accomplish something. For example in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus seems to be unable gather Israel because they were unwilling –

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

Matthew 23:37-38

or in the second letter of Peter we read –

“But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

2 Peter 3:8-10

Of course many in our world will never come to God or to repentance. But even so God’s will isn’t simply imposed on us.  Without ‘free will’, we’d just be robots not free agents, able to respond to those around us and to the the God who loves us. As Peter says in his first letter –

“For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honour everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honour the emperor.”

1 Peter 2:15-17

In Mark’s Gospel we read –

 “And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’”

Mark 3:34-35

Well brothers and sisters, through prayer and reflection we can endeavour to discern the will of God for us in our lives and make the most of the opportunities that open up, even if they may not be what we initially desired, hoped for or planned.

Blessings
James

It seems to me that sometimes in church we seem to see creation as something that happened. It’s as though God ‘did creation’ in under a week, rested a while and that’s it. There are of course subsequently instances of God’s revelation but it’s always revelation that happened ‘way back then’ and is recorded in Scripture. From time to time in the Hebrew Scriptures God appeared through the odd burning bush a few smitings and getting the people of Israel out of a jam occasionally, such as out of the hands of the Egyptians. God also sent various prophets to try to get the message across, to no avail, the people just killed them.

Finally, rather fed up, God sent his only begotten son to show sinful humanity how it should be done, even to the extent of laying down His life. God knew that most people wouldn’t get it, but that the penny would drop for a minority and that would make all thedifference. Christ’s ministry was then written up in the Gospels and added to by revelation to the Apostle Paul and to St John the Divine and then that was it. There’s nothing further to be said except continuous praise and thanksgiving to God.

Now I stress that this is only how it sometimes seems.  That’s not what I believe and for me that understanding of things just doesn’t work. God may have rested on the Sabbath, but come Monday morning, was back in the office continuing the work of creation as part of continuing revelation. God’s revelation occurs not only in what was created but also in the ways of creation, in it’s development and evolution, but also in the lives of individuals, communities and cosmically. 

The evidence is all around us, if we only have eyes to see and ears to hear, but sometimes it’s revealed in living ‘parables’ that many neither see nor hear, what is all around them if they only stopped to look and listen. None of this denies the truth of Scripture, it’s just that it doesn’t end there. If one believes, as I do, that God’s continuing revelation is a part of who/what God is then it follows as night follows day that creation must be continuing because that’s a fundamental part of the nature of God.

I find it awesome how God’s creation can so often adapt and change no matter what humanity does to it: spoil heaps, poisoned ground, polluted air and contaminated seas and waterways, creation has considerable in-built ability to bring forth organisms and communities that can colonise and ameliorate.  However the problem is that it’s not always on a timescale that’s helpful to humanity. That of course is why we have a climate crisis.Now that is something to reflect on this month, in this the Season of Creation.

Blessings
James

I suppose that as I have got older, I have come to appreciate more the simple, ordinary, everyday, things of life – the sunrise, the dew on the grass, the spring flowers, the laughter of children and so on. It is not hard to make supplications to God when things are not going well and we feel that we need divine intervention, but it’s much easier to forget to give thanks to God for all the simple gifts that God gives us and without which we would not be able to survive.

A few years ago when I was travelling back from Edinburgh, our train was delayed just before Perth, to allow the train from Glasgow to go on ahead of us. Now those of you that travel this route will perhaps have guessed that we were supposed to join that train from Glasgow, for the journey from Perth to Inverness, but we arrived in Perth just as it pulled out. By this point the next train to Inverness had been cancelled on account of the weather. Some of our group got a little bit upset, but as a lovely lady said very movingly, after you have had a phone call from the back of an ambulance to tell you that your only daughter is being rushed to hospital in a critical condition having been seriously injured in a road accident, little inconveniences like missed connections never seem quite so important again.

This week I listened to a number of people grumbling about ruined holidays because of high temperatures and wild fires on the news and moaning that the authorities or airlines of tour operators had not done enough to help them, in contrast to those who expressed their gratitude for what had been done for them and that they, their fellow holiday-makers and their hosts had all escaped uninjured and alive.  Of course I have sympathy for people who suffer the disappointment of disrupted holidays, postponed operations and all the other things that don’t go according to plan, but it just goes to show that we can never be in complete control of our lives and have to rely on the grace of a God who “moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform”.

The ancient Eucharistic liturgies began their Eucharistic prayer with thanksgiving for creation and only afterwards for redemption through Christ. One of the earliest, “The Liturgy of St James” used in the Church of Jerusalem, which was used as a basis for the 1764 Scottish Communion Office by Thomas Rattray, Bishop of Dunkeld. 

In the Preface at the start of the eucharistic prayer we find the words:

“It is very meet, right and our bounden duty to praise Thee, to bless Thee, to worship Thee, to glorify Thee, to give thanks unto thee, the maker of all creatures visible and invisible, the treasure of all good things; the fountain of life and immortality; the God and Governor of the universe: to whom the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens sing praise, with all their hosts: the Sun and Moon, and the wholes choir of Stars: the Earth and Sea and all things that are in them”

Liturgy of St James

Later on in the Eucharistic Prayer we find:

“Remember, O Lord, to grant us temperate weather, moderate showers, pleasant dews, and plenty of the fruits of the earth, and to bless the whole circle of the year with thy goodness. For the eyes of all hope in Thee, and thou givest them food in due season; thou opened thy hand and fillest every living creature with thy gracious bounty.”

Liturgy of St James

I wonder whether we should not return to such wide-ranging and expressive offerings of thanksgiving, as I feel that our current Eucharist is focussed too narrowly on thanksgiving for bread and wine and the sacrifice of Christ, when we have all so much more to be thankful to God for.

Perhaps a greater appreciation of all that we take for granted might make us more sensitive to what our over-consumption is doing to “the Earth and Sea and all things that are in them” … and that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Blessings
James