Clergy Letter

The fixed points in any year, such as birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter (yes I know it moves but it is one we have an eye on after Christmas!) and if you have school age children, the dates for half terms etc. are all good anchors to work out what we are going to do next. This year we have a whole new set of dates to work with; March 28th and April 12th have been and gone and our social life has relaxed slightly. Oh, the joy of shopping and having your hair done!

We still have some dates to go – this month, on 17th May, we see ourselves in groups of up to 30, such crowds! And then to eat inside at a restaurant or café! Put away the thermal vests and fingerless gloves. If we all behave ourselves, we will see some sense of normality (a new normal?) return next month on 21st June. We can but hope! By next year, all these dates will hopefully be relegated to history, to end up on the history syllabus of our great grandchildren. In our ‘normal’ times we have a strong thread of dates running through our lives, based on something much more enduring than a pandemic. We, as a Christian country are steered through our year by dates from the life of Christ and the birth and times of the Church. So far this year we have rejoiced at the revelation of the baby Jesus to the gentiles at Epiphany, we have shared the wilderness days through Lent and watched with the disciples through Holy Week, to share in the utter joy of the Resurrection on Easter day. This month of May sees the marking of Ascension Day and after that we celebrate the birth of the Christian Church with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. From that day we join with all the disciples of the risen Christ and through the Holy Spirit we are able to tell of the good news of forgiveness and love given to us through God our Father. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Health encouraged us to follow their pathway through this pandemic and asked us to, temporarily, change our way of living. The promised outcome was being able to return to normality sometime soon.

Jesus asks us to follow his way of living, to love God and our neighbour as ourselves, and make this our normal and everyday way of living. The more people who follow this way the more likely we are to achieve a peaceful existence. Our job is to tell others how to follow this way, to encourage others to find the peace of Christ through following the annual calendar of the Church and walking with Christ every day. Keep safe and keep walking with Christ.