Prayer for Peace in our Communities

As I write after nights of violence and lawlessness in London and other communities, I see that the Prime Minister has just recalled Parliament to meet on Thursday.

Our diocese has issued this item this morning, but it won't be accessible to everyone so I print it here:

It's difficult to know how to respond to the current situation in London and elsewhere with what seems like a complete breakdown in law and order. At best (if we can call it that) it appears to be young people giving vent to their feelings of anger and frustration with society as a whole. At worst, it's simply criminal behaviour on a huge scale stretching the resources of the police and emergency services almost to breaking point. For those of us who aren't experiencing the horrors of these events first hand we must pray that things won't continue to escalate and that the communities affected can get their lives back to normal. And we can pray for long-term solutions to the problems.

The following prayer which may help has been posted on the Church of England website today:

A prayer for peace in our communities

Gracious God,
We pray for peace in our communities this day.
We commit to you all who work for peace and an end to tensions,
And those who work to uphold law and justice.
We pray for an end to fear,
For comfort and support to those who suffer.
For calm in our streets and cities,
That people may go about their lives in safety and peace.
In your mercy, hear our prayers,
now and always. Amen


Among the other prayers is a prayer for the current financial situation

Lord God, we live in disturbing days:
across the world,
prices rise,
debts increase,
markets are in turmoil,
jobs are taken away,
and fragile security is under threat.
Loving God, meet us in our fear and hear our prayer:
be a tower of strength amidst the shifting sands,
and a light in the darkness;
help us receive your gift of peace,
and fix our hearts where true joys are to be found,
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You can find more prayers concerning recent events by following this link.

Meanwhile, you can find links from this blog to two sermons preached by Rosie Junemann, our Reader, on the last two Sundays. Go to the Homilies and Magazines page by using the appropriate tab near the top of this page.

Here's our new Bishop of Durham...

... Justin Welby, at present Dean of Liverpool. He's to be consecrated in October and enthroned in November. The news has been out for some time, but the video has only just been released.

Our latest news

... is to be found in our new Parish Magazine. It's a double issue for July and August. The print edition is now out - and you can read it online by clicking here.

Ordinary Time - for Welcome and Hospitality

Many churches might have observed today as Music Sunday. We thought about it but wondered if it was really necessary - we have music every Sunday and hopefully do it pretty well. And we work on the maxim, "He who sings prays twice."

So we simply kept the First Sunday after Trinity - and the first Sunday in liturgical green for a long, long time. It's good to be back into "Ordinary Time" as we strike out into a new rhythm of life and worship. The call to be a people of Welcome and Hospitality was the key issue which we drew from today's Gospel reading - here's the text of the sermon which I preached.

Next Sunday it'll be the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle - and a special day as we admit two of the younger members of our congregation to share in Holy Communion. We hope there'll be many to join us.

Pentecost - over all too soon?

We've just been changing the altar frontal and church hangings from yesterday's golds and whites for Trinity Sunday to the green of Ordinary Time. I'm always rather relieved to "get back into green" - perhaps it's just the need to tone down the diet after such a prolonged season of liturgical feasting.

So now for all those "Sundays after Trinity," as the Church of England's Calendar terms them. I wonder if I really prefer this designation from the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship over the Alternative Serrvice Book's "Sundays after Pentecost"? Now - although there's a build-up to Pentecost in the days after Ascension Day, it's very much a matter of "hello and goodbye" in one day to this Feast of the Holy Spirit. Overall I think I'd prefer to keep simply "Ordinary Time" or "Green Time" - and isn't green an Orthodox liturgical colour for the Holy Spirit?

Anyway, we kept Trinity Sunday yesterday - as is only right and proper - and you can find my Homily for the day by clicking here; please read it in conjunction with "St. Patrick's Breastplate," which some members of my congregation claim not to be able to sing (I was congratulated on reading verses from it, rather than make them sing it).

But over the road in the Church Hall, members of Sunday School were still intent on celebrating Pentecost - and produced the wonderful "Birthday of the Church Cake" in these pictures. All the disciples are individually named - and yes, that does include Matthias...

Things of the Spirit

We had a wonderful celebration of Pentecost at St. Cuthbert's - too late to join in now, but you can read the sermon by our Reader, Rosie Junemann, here. You can find other past sermons and Parish Magazines by clicking the appropriate tab near the top of the blog.

No pictures, I'm afraid, from the Pentecost celebration - nor from our Summer Fair... Despite cold, wind and rain our indoor version nevertheless drew the crowds and was highly successful. Sorry we couldn't seat more people for tea. A highlight was a performance from React Youth Theatre, who came over very well from a stage shared with the tombola!

And appropriately for the period around Pentecost, we joined with our parishes from our Deanery (and others) for a Confirmation at Durham Cathedral last Wednesday. Over 80 candidates in total (it was very long - yet prayerful, with incredible concentration on the part of Bishop Mark). Just one candidate from St. Cuthbert's - Rebecca Dixon, but a good crowd of supporters from the parish (and a full cathedral nave).

Another Thomas - and a small room

In this morning's Gospel reading (John 14) it's the disciple Thomas who speaks out: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

If there's a temptation to associate Thomas with a tendency to doubt, then first I would want to say that the key thing about him is his honesty.

Reflecting on this and Jesus' promise that "in my Father's house there are many dwelling places / rooms" - or indeed "mansions" (AV) - I found myself talking about the priest and poet, R. S. Thomas:

... His final reputation was that of reclusiveness mixed with a tendency to venture onto the public scene with some outrageous political views. His Welsh nationalism was mixed with a keen regret that he found himself able only to write poetry in English. For all his long ministry as an Anglican priest he was not immune to uncertainty in matters of faith. But he would not hide from the contradictions he recognised in himself. Not least as a man of words, he relentlessly explored the silence he perceived: silence in which he prayed, but also silence which could denote the terrifying absence of God, silence in the refusal of answers to appear, a silence which he might long to find broken, but in which he had the courage to dwell. It would be rash to state any final conclusions as to the sort of faith with which he ended his life. But we do have some clues from his own words….

R. S. Thomas concludes what he calls his Autobiographical Essay with a picture of himself kneeling in a room furnished with chairs and books, seeing Orion and Sirius above the bay, and knowing it ‘difficult to hold the two in proportion.’ It is an image he reproduces in a poem from his last collection, ‘At the End’:

Few possessions: a chair,
a table, a bed
to say my prayers by,
and, gathered from the shore,
the bone-like, crossed sticks
proving that nature
acknowledges the Crucifixion.
All night I am at
a window not too small
to be frame to the stars
that are no further off than the city lights
I have rejected….

Thomas never comes to easy conclusions about God. He resists the temptation to domesticate a God he finds strangely revealed in the created order, a God who so often eludes him in prayer. But at the same time he finds the reality of God meeting him just where he is – living amongst the few possessions which are necessary, in a small room, with a window not too small to frame stars which seem so near. It’s a poem of maturity after a life of searching – and it points to God in utter simplicity, and says, “We meet him here. We know God because he reveals himself in those things which have become familiar to us.”

Just an excerpt of what I had to say. Click here to find the whole of it.