kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth» Compassion

Are You God’s Wife?

Paul Sibley — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 08:00:03 +0000

I came across this story recently, and thought it really quite moving. Fortunately, at least here in England, we don’t see many children running around barefoot because their parents couldn’t afford shoes. But it isn’t so many years ago when it was a common sight. And, of course, there are many countries around the world where it does still happen.

Are You God’s Wife?

A boy about ten years old was standing in front of a shoe store, barefooted, peering through the window and shivering with cold. A lady approached the boy and said, “My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?”

“I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,” was the boy’s reply.

The lady took him by the hand and went into the store and asked for the shop assistant to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the young fellow to the back of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his feet and dried them with the towel.

By this time the shop assistant had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy’s feet, she bought a pair of shoes for him. She packaged the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him.

She patted him on the head and said, “No doubt, my young fellow, you feel more comfortable now?” As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand, and looking up into her face with tears in his eyes, answered her question with these words:

“Are you God’s wife?”

Care for the Needy

Paul Sibley — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:00:01 +0000

I was on duty — officiating and preaching — at evensong in Godmanchester again on Sunday. I suspect every preacher preaching this past weekend wrestled with the same questions as I did: how much do I include about the terrible events of last week? These same questions are, of course, wrestled with following every major event. The answers will vary from parish to parish, and person to person, with no one answer being right for everyone. Had I been preaching at the main service in the morning I think I would have done things differently to what I did. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here is the sermon, more or less, I delivered.

Care for the Needy

‘The wife of a member of the company of prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead; and . . . a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.” Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you?”‘ (2 Kings 4:1-2)

Elisha
Many stories are told about the prophets of the Old Testament, and the times they lived in. It’s probably fair to say that compassion wasn’t a common virtue in those bloodthirsty days.

However, there are enough stories told about Elijah, Elisha and other prophets, to show that they regarded the care of the needy, as an important part of their service to God. Today’s Old Testament reading tells about the widow’s jar of oil, or, in the words of the Authorized Version, ‘the widow’s cruse’ — nothing to do with boating holidays! You mustn’t ask, with these traditional miracle stories how the trick was done — the story-tellers weren’t interested in that.

But notice the very opening words. One of the community of prophets had died, and in those days before social security, that meant the widow had no income. Worse still, she owed money to somebody, who threatened, unless she paid up, to take her two children and make them slaves. Result: a life of misery for the children; and guilt and worry for their mother.

Elisha was deeply moved by their predicament, and cut straight to the heart of the problem: ‘What shall I do for you?’ he asked.

Compassion
The key to compassion is the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes, and see the problem from their viewpoint. You may hear the statistics of poverty. But until you’ve put flesh on the figures, and thought about the grief of individuals, you haven’t a strong enough motivation forcing you to do anything about it.

God loves the whole world, and every person in it. Thank God, he cares deeply about you and me as unique people. So we, too, must care for the needy like that, seeing the worldwide problems of today in terms of individuals.

Statistics
So here are some statistics for you to think about. They’ve been gleaned them from various sources on the internet, so some may be out of date or inaccurate, but I think they’ll give the general picture.

I suggest you try to imagine what each problem means for one suffering person, or one parent; then try and imagine that pain multiplied by these colossal figures.

Poverty

People living on less than $10 a day — 80% of the human race.
People living on less than $1 a day — over 1billion people — a billion is 1000 million.
The wealthiest 20% of the world’s population account for over three-quarters of the world’s total private consumption.
The poorest 20% of the world’s population account for 1.5% of the world’s consumption.

Homelessness

The number of children made homeless because of war over the past ten years is 12 million.

Water

Inadequate access to water — over 1 billion people.
Lacking basic sanitation — 2.6 billion people.

Schooling

Primary age children who never go to school — 72 million.
People who can’t read or write — nearly 1 billion.
What would put every child in the world into school — less than 1% of what the world spends every year on weapons.

Deaths

HIV/AIDS: of over 40 million people in the world presently living with HIV/AIDS, 3 million die each year, and 15 million children are orphaned.
Tuberculosis: one-third of the people in the world are infected by TB, with 8 million new cases each year, and 2 million die each year.
Malaria: up to 500 million new cases each year, of whom 1 million die each year.

Child Deaths

Due to poverty — 25,000 children die each day.
Due to diarrhoea — nearly 1 million children die each year.
Each year, 10 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday.

Can we ignore it?
Can we ignore it? If your mind’s boggling, like mine, the temptation is to close our minds, because world poverty’s too big a problem for us to worry about. But in times of recession, when people in rich countries have to forgo some of their luxuries, third-world people are driven to despair, wondering where their next meal’s coming from.

A Story
I want to tell you a story. You may have read it, or heard it, before. I’ve used it a couple of times on my blog. I didn’t write it, though it is written in the first person.

The Starfish Story
I awoke early, as I often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean’s edge and greet the new day. As I moved through the misty dawn, I focused on a faint, far away motion. I saw a youth, bending and reaching and flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.

As I approached, I sadly realized that the youth was not dancing to the day, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night’s tide, stopping now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. I asked the youth the purpose of the effort. “The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back in to the sea.”

As the youth explained, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond my sight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the youth’s plan became clear to me and I countered, “But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you can’t expect to make a difference.”

The youth paused briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me he simply said, “I made a difference to that one.”

I left the boy and went home, deep in thought at what the boy had said. Then I returned to the beach and spent the rest of the morning helping the boy throw starfish in to the sea.

Making a difference
If enough of us start to throw starfish back into the ocean we can make a difference: if enough of us start to do even small things towards helping with the world’s problems we can make a difference.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the hugeness of the task, just concentrate upon the bits that you can effect. It’s all too easy to be overwhelmed, and do nothing; but every little bit can make a difference — especially when added to lots of other little bits.

This week
We’ve seen some of that on the streets of our cities this week. There’s no doubt about it that events of the past week or so have brought to the fore an awful problem in our society. I think it’s going to take us a long time to sort through the myriad reasons for what’s happened. And I don’t intend to try and explain it all here, because I don’t know the answers any more than you do.

But in amongst all of the terrible things that have happened, there have been some positive things too — people not being overwhelmed by the wider problems that none of us can yet explain, but concentrating instead on the bits they can effect.

Some of the most striking images, for me, were of the hundreds of people turning up with brooms to begin the clear up, after their communities were wrecked. I’m sure they were all asking themselves, “Why?” — just like the rest of us. But they put those questions to one side, and concentrated on the bits they could effect, and so helped to bring some hope back to their communities, and the individuals living in them.

The prophets showed us that God has compassion on suffering individuals. Surely we can do no less.

Fill your Church with power and compassion

Paul Sibley — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 08:00:57 +0000

When you look at the churches around about — certainly here in England, and much of Europe, not sure the same would be true for all of the world — it’s very often relatively easy to see something of the power they have enjoyed over the centuries. We have a magnificent legacy in the buildings that are our churches and cathedrals.

Buildings like these don’t spring up from weak Churches. No it needs power to build them. And, while the purpose of building such magnificent buildings is more about God than an overt display of power, power is, nevertheless, one image that is projected by them.

Our Churches aren’t so good at displaying their compassion however. Perhaps that’s because compassion isn’t so easy to picture in something physical. Sometimes you can’t help but wonder if it even exists when you look around at all of the arguing and disagreements between the Churches, both of the same denomination and different ones. It must give a poor image of God at times when you see some of the pettiness that causes untold misery to people everywhere.

But there is compassion in our Churches; both institutional and individual. At Godmanchester, I think, we’re very good with pastoral care. There’s a whole team of people who’s role it is to care for others in the congregation and the town: and a whole lot more people who do the same in an informal, and, too often, unrecognised way. With the other Churches in Godmanchester that is expanding all the time. We’re in exciting times; made more so because the care and compassion is about care and compassion, and not about bringing more people into Church.

And when you read Church websites and magazines, you can see the same kind of things happening all over. The compassion and care is there within our Churches, it’s just that it happens quietly, less visibly.

So, while I would want to pray that our Churches here on earth will be filled with power and compassion: I would also want to pray that they, particularly the compassion, could become more visible; so that more of those who need it can access it. It’s one sure way of sharing God’s love with those around us.

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the father.

Additional Collect for The Seventh Sunday of Easter
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council

Kindness

Paul Sibley — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 08:00:34 +0000

This is one of those story’s that you can’t help but hope is, at least, based on an actual event. It illustrates, wonderfully, how kind we can be to each other. Sadly, it does also illustrate the opposite of that — But kindness does win out in the end.

Kindness

One day a woman was walking down the street when she spied a beggar sitting on the corner. The man was elderly, unshaven, and ragged. As he sat there, pedestrians walked by him giving him dirty looks They clearly wanted nothing to do with him because of who he was — a dirty, homeless man. But when she saw him, the woman was moved to compassion.

It was very cold that day and the man had his tattered coat — more like an old suit coat rather than a warm coat — wrapped around him. She stopped and looked down. “Sir?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

The man slowly looked up. This was a woman clearly accustomed to the finer things of life. Her coat was new. She looked like that she had never missed a meal in her life. His first thought was that she wanted to make fun of him, like so many others had done before. “Leave me alone,” he growled.

To his amazement, the woman continued standing. She was smiling — her even white teeth displayed in dazzling rows. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

“No,” he answered sarcastically. “I’ve just come from dining with the president. Now go away.”

The woman’s smile became even broader. Suddenly the man felt a gentle hand under his arm. “What are you doing, lady?” the man asked angrily. “I said to leave me alone.”

Just then a policeman came up. “Is there any problem, ma’am?” he asked.

“No problem here, officer,” the woman answered. “I’m just trying to get this man to his feet. Will you help me?”

The officer scratched his head. “That’s old Jack. He’s been a fixture around here for a couple of years. What do you want with him?”

“See that cafeteria over there?” she asked. “I’m going to get him something to eat and get him out of the cold for awhile.”

“Are you crazy, lady?” the homeless man resisted. “I don’t want to go in there!” Then he felt strong hands grab his other arm and lift him up. “Let me go, officer. I didn’t do anything.”

“This is a good deal for you, Jack,” the officer answered. “Don’t blow it.”

Finally, and with some difficulty, the woman and the police officer got Jack into the cafeteria and sat him at a table in a remote corner. It was the middle of the morning, so most of the breakfast crowd had already left and the lunch bunch had not yet arrived. The manager strode across the cafeteria and stood by the table.

“What’s going on here, officer?” he asked. “What is all this. Is this man in trouble?”

“This lady brought this man in here to be fed,” the policeman answered.

“Not in here!” the manager replied angrily. “Having a person like that here is bad for business.”

Old Jack smiled a toothless grin. “See, lady. I told you so. Now if you’ll let me go. I didn’t want to come here in the first place.”

The woman turned to the cafeteria manager and smiled. “Sir, are you familiar with Eddy and Associates, the banking firm down the street?”

“Of course I am,” the manager answered impatiently. “They hold their weekly meetings in one of my banquet rooms.”

“And do you make a good profit from providing food at the weekly meetings?”

“What business is that of yours?”

“I, sir, am Penelope Eddy, president and CEO of the company.”

“Oh.”

The woman smiled again. “I thought that might make a difference.” She glanced at the cop who was busy stifling a giggle. “Would you like to join us in a cup of coffee and a meal, officer?”

“No thanks, ma’am,” the officer replied. “I’m on duty.”

“Then, perhaps, a cup of coffee to go?”

“Yes, ma’am. That would be very nice.”

The cafeteria manager turned on his heel. “I’ll get your coffee for you right away, officer.”

The officer watched him walk away. “You certainly put him in his place,” he said.

“That was not my intent. Believe it or not, I have a reason for all this.” She sat down at the table across from her amazed dinner guest. She stared at him intently. “Jack, do you remember me?”

Old Jack searched her face with his old, rheumy eyes “I think so — I mean you do look familiar.”

“I’m a little older perhaps,” she said. “Maybe I’ve even filled out more than in my younger days when you worked here, and I came through that very door, cold and hungry.”

“Ma’am?” the officer said questioningly. He couldn’t believe that such a magnificently turned out woman could ever have been hungry.

“I was just out of college,” the woman began. “I had come to the city looking for a job, but I couldn’t find anything. Finally I was down to my last few cents and had been kicked out of my apartment. I walked the streets for days. It was February and I was cold and nearly starving. I saw this place and walked in on the off chance that I could get something to eat.”

Jack lit up with a smile. “Now I remember,” he said. “I was behind the serving counter. You came up and asked me if you could work for something to eat. I said that it was against company policy.”

“I know,” the woman continued. “Then you made me the biggest roast beef sandwich that I had ever seen, gave me a cup of coffee, and told me to go over to a corner table and enjoy it. I was afraid that you would get into trouble. Then, when I looked over, I saw you put the price of my food in the cash register. I knew then that everything would be all right.”

“So you started your own business?” Old Jack said.

“I got a job that very afternoon. I worked my way up. Eventually I started my own business that, with the help of God, prospered.” She opened her purse and pulled out a business card. “When you are finished here, I want you to pay a visit to a Mr. Lyons. He’s the personnel director of my company. I’ll go talk to him now and I’m certain he’ll find something for you to do around the office.” She smiled. “I think he might even find the funds to give you a little advance so that you can buy some clothes and get a place to live until you get on your feet And if you ever need anything, my door is always opened to you.”

There were tears in the old man’s eyes. “How can I ever thank you,” he said.

“Don’t thank me,” the woman answered. “To God goes the glory. Thank Jesus. He led me to you.”

Outside the cafeteria, the officer and the woman paused at the entrance before going their separate ways. “Thank you for all your help, officer,” she said.

“On the contrary, Ms. Eddy,” he answered. “Thank you. I saw a miracle today, something that I will never forget. And… And thank you for the coffee.”

She frowned. “I forgot to ask you whether you used cream or sugar. That’s black.”

The officer looked at the steaming cup of coffee in his hand. “Yes, I do take cream and sugar — perhaps more sugar than is good for me.” He patted his ample stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I don’t need it now,” he replied smiling. “I’ve got the feeling that this coffee you bought me is going to taste as sweet as sugar.”

He Needed Me

Paul Sibley — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:00:19 +0000

This is one of those stories that may, or may not, be true; but you hope that it might, at least, be based on an event that actually happened. I’d like to think that if I were in the situation this young man found himself in, I’d be able to show the same compassion he did. But, I guess, we’ll never really know until such a situation arises.

He Needed Me

A nurse escorted a tired, anxious young man to the bed side of an elderly man. “Your son is here,” she whispered to the patient. She had to repeat the words several times before the patient’s eyes opened. He was heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack and he dimly saw the young man standing outside the oxygen tent.

He reached out his hand and the young man tightly wrapped his fingers around it, squeezing a message of encouragement. The nurse brought a chair next to the bedside. All through the night the young man sat holding the old mans hand, and offering gentle words of hope. The dying man said nothing as he held tightly to his son.

As dawn approached, the patient died. The young man placed on the bed the lifeless hand he had been holding, and then he went to notify the nurse.

While the nurse did what was necessary, the young man waited. When she had finished her task, the nurse began to say words of sympathy to the young man.

But he interrupted her. “Who was that man?” He asked.

The startled nurse replied, “I thought he was your father.”

“No, he was not my father,” he answered. “I never saw him before in my life.”

“Then why didn’t you say something when I took you to him?” asked the nurse.

He replied, “I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn’t here. When I realized he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, I knew how much he needed me…”

Fill your Church on earth with power and compassion

Paul Sibley — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:00:40 +0000

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the father.

Additional Collect for The Seventh Sunday of Easter
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council

Jesus at the Temple

Paul Sibley — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:24:50 +0000

Jesus at the Temple

The following is the text of the sermon I preached when I led Evensong on Sunday, 13 July; at Church — St Mary the Virgin, Godmanchester.

It was quite disconcerting when I first started to speak; I looked into the relatively small congregation (19), to see three Priests and a Bishop looking back at me. I think I may have gabbled the first paragraph a little, as nerves kicked in. Sometimes (often), as much as I know I shouldn’t, I doubt my worthiness — this was one of them.

Jesus at the Temple
Luke 19:41—20:8

Lord God, take my words and speak through them, take our minds and think through them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you, you who are Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Luke’s Gospel
In the reading we just heard from St Luke’s Gospel, we have his account of the events that took place on Palm Sunday — Jesus’s final entry into Jerusalem, a few days before his arrest, trial and crucifixion. In Luke, the story’s a bit shorter than the accounts given to us by Matthew, Mark and John; for example, it doesn’t mention the spreading of palm branches on the road by Jesus’s followers.

But Luke’s account does something very useful. It highlights the character and qualities of the Son of God, whose attitudes and feelings, we as Christians are encouraged to imitate. So let’s take a few minutes to see what Luke’s story of Palm Sunday, tells us about this man Jesus that we must try to follow.

Compassion
First, as you might expect, we see his compassion. He knew what was going to happen to Jerusalem. His description of enemies building an embankment against it, killing many of the inhabitants, and not leaving one stone on top of another was a close description, even if not entirely accurate, of what was to happen some forty years later, when the Romans put down a Jewish revolt.

The tragedy was that it could all have been avoided, if only the Jewish authorities had accepted Jesus, and God’s message of peace and love that he’d brought them. The leaders preferred to take the way of political manoeuvring, and intrigue rather than the way of peace — and the tears that Jesus shed for the forthcoming fate of Jerusalem, were the tears shed by God, when he sees needless human pain and suffering.

We, too, should be shedding the same tears as Jesus did, when we think about the plight of the poor and hungry, in Africa today; the innocent civilians still suffering as a result of the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, and too many other places of strife around the world; the atrocities being meted out under Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe — I could go on, but I’m sure you don’t need me to. But our compassion shouldn’t stop at tears; wherever possible, we must try to follow our Lord, in bringing relief to those who are suffering, wherever and however we can.

Brave
Not only was Jesus compassionate; Luke tells us that he was brave — you might say he was recklessly brave, in the service of God his Father. Some time before he came to Jerusalem for the last time, the Jewish authorities had put a price on his head, and they were constantly looking for opportunities to arrest him. But Jesus knew that this final journey, was what his Father intended for him, and he insisted on making it, even though he knew what the agonising end would be.

On top of that, after Jesus very publicly arrived in Jerusalem, one of his first actions was to drive out the merchants, who were trading in the Temple — an act which would have been highly unpopular with the authorities, for reasons we’ll see in a moment. And then he continued his defiance, by openly teaching the people at the Temple every day.

Most of us can count ourselves fortunate, that we’ll never have to face, such a challenge to our courage as Christians. Yet there will be times when we’ll instinctively know, that publicly expressing a Christian view, may well be very unpopular with those around us. Taking a stand against racial prejudice, that neighbours are showing towards an Asian family that’s moved into your street, for instance, can cause a lot of resentment. But if we’re to follow our Lord’s example, we somehow have to find the courage to make that stand, that he himself would make — and be ready to take the consequences of making that stand, just as he did.

Social justice
Then, in addition to his bravery and compassion, Jesus had a passion for social justice. Throwing out the merchants, who were selling things in the Temple, wasn’t only an act of bravery; it was an instinctive act to help the poorest members of society that the merchants were preying on.

Temple worship called for the sacrifice of animals or birds. The law insisted that all of them should be without blemish, and the Temple employed inspectors to make sure of it. The only way to be sure that you were presenting an “officially approved” offering, was to buy it from an officially approved merchant in the Temple courtyard — at a greatly inflated price, of course. Temple taxes also had to be paid, in a dedicated “Temple currency”, which also had to be purchased at a sort of, bureau-de-change in the courtyard — also at very unfavourable rates of exchange.

Naturally the people who suffered the most from these officially approved rackets were the poorest, who were least able to afford the high, but unavoidable costs of worshipping their God. It was a deliberate act of legalised robbery; indeed, the very worship of the house of God, was being used to exploit the worshippers. And, perhaps something that helped make Jesus really angry, was the fact that the merchants’ and currency traders’ shops in the Temple courtyard, were actually owned by the family of Annas, the High Priest.

Social injustice today
Again, you don’t really need me to give you a catalogue of all the social injustices of our time. But ask yourself — how would Jesus have reacted when he heard about pensioners having to live on or below the poverty line? Or, the ever-increasing occurrences of families breaking apart in our society? Or, ever-younger children being stabbed to death on our streets, as the levels of mindless violence continue, inexorably, to rise?

Do such things fire you with indignation — or better still, a real desire to see something done about it? Because for those who really want to emulate our Lord, they should!

Christian qualities
Bravery in the face of unpopularity or hatred. Compassion for the underprivileged. A determination to achieve social justice. And perhaps we might, in conclusion, add a fourth quality — a readiness to argue the case for living the Christian life, as Jesus regularly argued it successfully with the scribes and Pharisees of his day. He wasn’t afraid of losing the argument, and neither need we – after all, there isn’t much of a case that can be made against a life governed by bravery, compassion and social justice, is there?

Amen.

Kindle in all who minister the gospel your countless gifts of grace

Paul Sibley — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:36:02 +0000

Kindle in all who minister the gospel your countless gifts of grace

Unexpected coincidences often amaze me, and leave me wondering if it’s God’s timing at work. I experienced one of those moments when I was reading the Additional Collect for this Sunday, The Fifth Sunday after Trinity. I looked at it soon after being tagged for the meme in my last blog post: Meme: what has God been teaching me? I was tagged by ElShaddai Edwards, and it was his response to the meme on his blog, “He is Sufficient”, that made me sit up and take notice when taken together with this Collect, or, at least, the phrase I’ve picked out to reflect on, “Kindle in all who minister the gospel your countless gifts of grace”.

ElShaddai talks about his conscience being pricked beyond the bounds of legalism. It sounds to me as though the Holy Spirit is moving him in a positive direction. I remarked in the comments on ElShaddai’s post about how easy I can find it to slip back into legalism, almost like a comfort blanket. When, really, the love and grace of God should be fulfilling that role for us.

And that’s really where I think the phrase, “Kindle in all who minister the gospel your countless gifts of grace”, comes in. Regular readers will probably not be surprised to see me thinking about “Love” again, I do it quite a lot. Whenever I’m preaching I always try to consider whether what I’m going to say fits with a God that loves each and every one of us as though we are the only to love. And if it doesn’t, then I have to wonder if it’s the right thing to be saying. I would be pretty hopeless as a “Fire and Brimstone” Preacher.

As ministers of the gospel I don’t think it’s a bad gauge for us to be measuring ourselves against, the Love of God. And even though I know I will frequently fall woefully short, it doesn’t mean I should stop striving towards that goal. All too often, though, I find myself clutching that comfort blanket of legalism.

You can probably tell from all this, that I’m a pretty mixed-up character at times. So this Collect will be a heartfelt prayer for me — especially when I’m preaching this Sunday.

Almighty God,
send down upon your Church
the riches of your Spirit,
and kindle in all who minister the gospel
your countless gifts of grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Fifth Sunday after Trinity
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council

Fill your Church on earth with power and compassion

Paul Sibley — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:47:20 +0000

Fill your Church on earth with power and compassion

The picture above is of Ely Cathedral, our diocesan cathedral. It dominates the fenland skyline for miles around and is a truly wonderful building, both inside and out. Find out more about the cathedral by clicking this link: Ely Cathedral. Much the same can be said of the church I attend at Godmanchester, pictured left: it’s always a welcome site, from many miles away, on a journey home. Again, more information can be found on the church website: Godmanchester Church.

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the father. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Seventh Sunday of Easter
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council