Claire Barracliffe

Words and Letters: A Reflection

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Every time we sit down at the page, we’re beginners.

CLAIRE VAYE WATKINS

This is a quote from the American writer Claire Vaye Watkins.  It is about the process of writing.

It reminded me of Revd Lu’s evening sermon last night, about sitting with God, and bringing our sometimes discomfort and disappointment with him or our lives into his abiding presence. The quote above is also about making a start, a beginning, and sitting with the feeling that we don’t really know how to do it or what will come of it. It is, in its own way, an act of humility.

It struck me that sitting with God in this way has that element of beginning too. As we begin the process of doing this, God begins a process within us and something new is born. The example Lu gave was King David being told he would not be the one to build the temple, God’s house, and spending time with the Lord in his disappointment.  There God tells him he will build him a house instead – the house of David, through which Jesus is born.

So, to return to the idea of writing, sitting with God in our difficulties, including the difficulty of prayer itself, allows God to write his words on our hearts, and to begin something new. St Paul, writing about writing to the Church at Corinth, calls them “a letter from God,” and says, “This ‘letter’ is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.”

As we pray for one another and our Church at this time of new beginning, may the Spirit of the living God write his Word on our hearts, and grant us a new faithfulness as we seek him in Scripture and begin to sit with him no matter what.

Healing Service, tonight at 5pm – online

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Please join us for our Service of Healing and Wholeness this evening at 5pm. It’s a gentle and reflective time of prayer, using an Iona Community liturgy, and lasts for around half an hour. A chance to join to pray for God’s healing and blessing for the world, people we know, and ourselves at this present time.

To find the link go to the red Menu bar at the top of this page and press ‘Worship.’ Then press ‘Live Streams.’ The Healing Service will show at the top of the list as the next Service to be streamed.

Prayer

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Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of your mercy.
Sustain and support the anxious,
be with those who care for the sick,
and lift up all who are brought low;
that we may find comfort
knowing that nothing can separate us from your love
in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Prayer from the Church of England website

"Beloved, let us love one another" 1 John 4:7

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copyright: Jacob Haywood

Today’s lectionary reading is from 1 John 4: 7-10

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love… 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Here are some prayers from Inclusive Church for Epiphany, which we celebrated on Sunday:

You share your love with every people;

we draw limits of race and creed.

Lord have mercy

You immerse yourself in love of life;

we hold back in fear and shame.

Christ have mercy

You change the water into wine;

we refuse to let our hearts be moved.

Lord have mercy

Christ has broken down the dividing wall that made us strangers to one another;

he has made us one humanity

that God might be all in all;

he is our life, our hope, our peace.

A poem

by Christopher Herbert, entitled Hedgehogs:

The hedgehogs

come snuffling and scuffling

through the garden

like old men walking along a path

Lord, thank you for the strangeness of hedgehogs.

At the beginning of this new year, we thank God for all that comes from the edges of our understanding and experience; and for all that challenges us from the highways and along the hedgerows, pointing us to deeper ways to love and pray. May we walk a wiser path and delight in your presence with us O God. When we feel our own prickliness to difference and put limits on your love, speak to us by your Spirit and immerse us in your love for all you have made and all who seek you. Christ, be our peace. Amen.

Steven Shakespeare, Prayers for an Inclusive Church, Canterbury Press 2008, p.149

Christopher Herbert, Prayers for Children, The National Society and Church House Publishing, 1993, p.48

Prayers for Healing

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” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16

Our Carol Service is this Sunday in the evening, so our next Healing and Wholeness Service will be in January. As we look forward to celebrating the birth of the Christ Child, we pray for all in need of healing – body, mind and spirit – over this Christmas time.

In Church, at the entrance to the Chapel, we have prayer cards and lights for anyone to bring their requests to our Lord, at this time when we can all experience sadness and worry as well as joy. We offer our thanks for the gift of Jesus, and for answered prayer. We also remember loved ones no longer with us on earth, and pray for their eternal rest in God’s Kingdom; and for the tender mercies of our God to touch and heal all those who struggle at this time.

If anyone has prayer requests or would like to talk, please ask our Vicar or a member of the ministry team.

May the Lord Jesus, Wonderful Counsellor and Prince of Peace, bless and us and keep us, and those we love and pray for, over the coming weeks. Amen.

Quiet Day for Shirley Churches Together

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“This is the homely heart of Incarnation, this meeting of God with men and women, this simple face of divine graciousness in ordinary life”

Eugene Kennedy, Joy of Being Human

We were very privileged to welcome Hilary, former chaplain at the Croydon University Hospital, to lead our meditations for Advent. We were able to spend time reflecting on how wholly present in our earthly lives is our incarnate God.

Awaken us, Lord

To your presence in the ordinary,

Open our eyes

To the wonder of your incarnation.

May the Lord make us ready for his coming in glory

For All The Saints

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Yesterday was All Saints’ Day, and our sister Church, Shirley Methodists, marked the day with the first of the Revd. Dr Leslie Griffiths’ talks on faith, hope and love. This was a fascinating journey through reflections on the recently canonized John Henry Newman’s life, to the whole of the Christian community St Paul greets and commends at the end of Romans 16 for their friendship and service to others.

St John’s and Shirley Methodists have a long-standing friendship and commitment to work together in faith and mission in Shirley, and it was a pleasure and privilege to share in this exploration together. The series of talks runs throughout November (Fridays at 8pm), and everyone is welcome.

The Revd. Griffiths had that morning led the BBC Daily Service on the same theme, and you can listen to his thoughts and prayers here: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0009td5

Tomorrow, Sunday 3rd November, St John’s will celebrate All Saints’ Day with a Eucharist at 10am. We will give thanks for the women, children and men in whose lives we have seen the grace of God powerfully at work; and we will pray that we may all grow together in the love and maturity of Christ in both the ordinary and extraordinary ways of our human living.

At 5pm tomorrow, everyone is also welcome at St John’s for our Commemoration of the Faithful Departed for All Souls’ Day. Here we will remember before God those we have known and loved, who have been with us along our spiritual journey, and who have now departed this life to rest in our Father’s eternal arms.

One family, we dwell in him,
one Church, above, beneath;
though now divided by the stream,
the narrow stream of death.
(Charles Wesley)

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