Dear All
Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes so you will find a theme of healing in our reflections this week. So many of us need healing of one kind or another: it may be physical, but it may be healing of so many different wounds. Healing of memories is something many people long for.
The blessing this week is ‘Deep Peace’ from Sacred Pathways. As we pray it let’s pray for anyone we know who is sick or has any need of healing.
With love
Some information about our Lent programme. We hope you will join us for one or more parts of the programme – more info to follow as we go through Lent.
ASH WEDNESDAY
A reflective moment to start Lent
22 February – 7.30pm for 20-30 minutes – ZOOM
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86540176014?pwd=WkJpWjdjUThlOTVuWnJpdGxEd0M1UT09
Meeting ID: 865 4017 6014
Passcode: 586752
LENT COURSE – Faith Through The Senses: A Lenten Journey
Mondays in Lent: 6.45 – 7.45pm – ZOOM
27 February, 6 March, 13 March, 20 March, 27 March, 3 April
ZOOM LINK FOR THE SERIES WILL BE SENT ON 25 FEBRUARY TO THOSE WHO HAVE REGISTERED
The Why of Suffering
by Sheila Cassidy
I have long since given up asking the ‘why’ of suffering. It gets me nowhere, & I know when I’m beat. I live quite peaceably in the eye of this theological storm, moving about in the accustomed darkness like a mole in its burrow or a blind woman in the safety of her home. I know less & less, but that which I do know, I know evermore deeply, down in my guts, where true faith lives. What, then, is the message from this dark, still point? I believe it is this: suffering IS, in the same way as life IS. It is a fact: denying or ignoring it will not make it go away.
Again & again we are caught up in the paradox, the mystery of the indwelling of God in our lives. He is the stranger lying in the gutter, the deranged Eastern European toddler bashing its head against the bars of its cot: but he is also the Samaritan lifting up our broken bodies, & the gentle paediatrician clasping us, weeping & soiled, in his arms. What more need we know? He is there, in it, with us, in us, over & under, inside & out, a cloud of unknowing, a shield to defend us.
A Hymn for Healing
Jim Cotter
Living God, like a mother you gather your people to you,
as a mother hen gathers her brood to protect them.
Gentle with us, you weep over our pride,
tenderly you draw the sting of our hatreds.
You comfort us in sorrow & bind up our wounds:
in sickness you nurse us, with milk you nourish us.
Despair turns to hope through your goodness:
through your courage we face all our fears.
Your warmth gives life to the gloomy & deadened,
your touch calms our throbbing pain.
In your compassion you heal us,
in your love you restore us.
In your grace you forgive us,
in your beauty you draw us.
We yearn with gratitude & awe,
made strong in your presence forever.
IN TIME
Joyce Rupp
Love pours out
but the broken cup
cannot receive.
Love waits to strengthen
Love waits to nourish
Love waits to be received
Love waits to heal.
in time
the cup will be mended
in time
the cup will be raised
in time
the cup will receive again.