A Milestone we didn’t want to reach…

From our Parish Magazine for February 2021 - apologies it's appeared here late: we forgot to post it when updating the rest of our site!

It’s truly wonderful that vaccines to fight the Coronavirus have been produced so quickly - and that the vaccination programme itself has already reached several million of those most at risk. But we find ourselves in a third Lockdown. Infection rates, we are told, are falling nationally (but not locally during this last week). However, the mortality rate has continued to climb - and as I write the most conservative assessment shows that over 100,000 people have died within 28 days of contracting Covid-19.

Our Archbishops have written:

As we reach the terrible milestone of 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, we invite everyone in our nation to pause as we reflect on the enormity of this pandemic. 100,000 isn’t just an abstract figure. Each number is a person: someone we loved and someone who loved us. We also believe that each of these people was known to God and cherished by God.

They invite us to pray - perhaps at 6pm each day. I hope we will make time for such prayer. And consider how we can move on from that prayer. 

I’m writing on National Holocaust Memorial Day, when we remember the millions who died simply because they were Jewish, gay, assessed as mentally unfit… and for other reasons which deny our humanity.

The poet and priest Malcolm Guite has written of those dying now:

Behind each number one belovèd face

A light in life whom no-one can replace,

Leaves on this world a signature, a trace,

A gleaning and a memory of grace

All loved and loving, carried to the grave…

These are sober words, but his last verse contains this prayer: “O Christ who suffers with us, hold us close…” As we approach Lent, Holy Week & Easter, and don’t yet know how we will celebrate them, that can be our prayer.                                                                                        

Martin Jackson