Christmas Wishes

The other week we went walking in the grounds of a beautiful abbey. Well I say "WE", my husband and children went walking, me and my bad knee had hot chocolate in the cafe. After they had come back from searching high and low for the clues in the Advent trail. They joined me for a drink.  Each of them had been given a little tag. On this tag they were expected to write their wish and tie it to the wish tree.  Ours duly made their wishes, and we tied on them on the tree. Hidden among the plentiful wishes for toys and snow, were wishes for things that moved me to tears. Wishes that were not superficial, wishes that deserved to be granted. Wishes for fathers, brothers, sisters to come back. Wishes for people to get better. These children bypassing the the mass media hype for possessions, have a far more genuine need to wish for this Christmas.

At Christmas you are bombarded with images of happiness, joy and perfect families. It is easy to get caught up and forget that many people need and want only "hope".  Hope that life we will be better, families mended, that sickness will be cured, that relatives are safe in heaven and of somewhere safe and warm to sleep and eat.  Many more still mask their internal pain and struggles behind their false smiles of "joy", praying that someone might notice their conflict and help.

Walking many miles to a town they barely knew there was a couple and a donkey. The lady heavily pregnant. They walked the path in the hope of compassion, food and lodgings. All alone, this young couple had no idea if their prayers would be answered. They knocked in hope and were turned away. They did not give in, they persisted in knocking until someone answered. It was not much this person gave them that night but it was enough.

How many people will be knocking on the doors around us this Christmas and will we notice them, will we answer them?

Christmas is about joy, happiness and rejoicing. This young couple were overjoyed with the gift they had that night. The gift of a small baby boy that gave again with the gift of a family. This wonderful icon of Christian life given to us that night, gave more than joy. It gave us hope.

This little tiny boy who lights up the darkest of lives, gave us hope. Hope for a future, no matter how we despair or suffer. This Christmas I wish for hope. Hoping I might be a better person, that I may be the inn that opens it's door and says "YES". Hoping that I might touch the lives of others in a positive way. Hoping that I find a stronger faith in the gift that is given this year. Hope that I will not forget to remember among all the happiness that others suffer.

We should open our hearts to hopeful happiness when we receive Christ on Thursday morning. That we start with welcoming this infant child and grow with him throughout this year.

To all of you who read this blog, may you have a very Happy Christmas, may your day be filled with blessings.

A little unexpected

Earlier in the week my attention was drawn back to Our Blessed Mother as we celebrated the Immaculate Conception. This is the first year when my youngest understood what we were celebrating at any level, and I was faced with a superfluous flow of questions. All of which I deflected in the hope that the sermon would answer them for me, fortunately this was the case.

All though this is an important celebration and there is lots to be said, it is not the Immaculate Conception that has been holding my thoughts all week. It is a combination of this and this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W2UrAoh76o ) that has got me thinking. Christmas starts with a little baby. This little baby was not expected, planned or convenient, yet here he was not just a life on miraculous human scale but a divine miracle too.

As much then as now, unplanned children were a challenge, more so when out of wedlock. It is a daunting thought when you discover you are to be a Mother. You have a life growing inside of you, even more of a shock when the timing is not great. A whole ream of thoughts go through your head, am I good enough, can I do this even when others think I can't, can I provide, can I love.  Despite all of these challenges and questions, God has chosen you for this life. To grow it and nurture it, he maybe understands more of you, than you do.  It is a lot easier now to decide the time is not right for you, than it was back then. In the loneliness of making a choice that affects not just her, but her husband to be Mary said "I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word."

I have been through three pregnancies, each time I have had doubts as to whether now is right. However, one thing I have always been sure of is that little life is a miracle, A miracle that will challenge, frustrate and  fatigue me, but will also bring me so many blessings too.

Life has it's curve balls, it has a habit of stopping us in our tracks with inconvenient little miracles. It might be hard to take on the challenges God throws in our footpaths sometimes, but I guarantee that not only will he guide you and hold you through them, he will reward you with many blessings. Christ came to us in so many unexpected ways and  grew up to be crowned a humble King of peace. He came not with the power and planning we value so much, but came to challenge that. Faith is a challenge, it is not planned but it is the greatest gift you will get this Christmas. It is love, hope, grace and life everlasting.

The waiting game.

Here we are roughly half way through advent. We are waiting for the coming new life that brings God down to earth to live among us. Our blessed mother seems to take this wait much more graciously than me. I am impatient and by the time I was as pregnant as her, I was chewing at the bit. I wanted to meet this exciting new life I had created. Ahead of the arrival my growing new life was the adventurous unknown, being a beached whale not so much.

Here we are on the cusp of a new life, exciting and unknown. We might know the story of by heart, we might think we know what is coming. However as we wait, reflect and listen each year to the coming Christ child we are different. A whole new years worth of life and experience that affects how we listen and respond to the coming new life. When I was a child I was eager for the arrival of Christ, for the advent calender to end, for the feast to come and ultimately the presents to be opened (one year I even managed a 2am stocking opening after going to midnight Mass). Patience really never has been my strong point. However I have got better at it. While the child deep inside me is still desperate to celebrate, decorate and feast, the adult in me wants the time to go a little slower. I know that the expanse of waiting gives us time to prepare for the coming, for it is never as we expect it. 

We expect the story, the food, the family, the tree and the presents. We now expect God to arrive as a vulnerable child. What we do not expect and sometimes do not even listen to is how this vulnerable child arrives in our lives this Christmas. We need to prepare not just our houses, but our hearts. This time is a blessing, because receiving new life into your life is not always easy. Those of us that have had children know that as amazing and miraculous as this baby in our arms is, it is hard work over the rest of our lifetime to nurture that life. Christ comes to us as a new life, a small child. His arrival in our lives and hearts, is not just that instantaneous moment of joy, it is that hard slog of commitment and work for the rest of our lives. 

There is much vulnerability in the lives around us. There is pain, fear, depression, poverty and wars. How we prepare and listen this advent, effects how we respond to these and how we see Christ in our lives. The Christ child came to give us the most miraculous of gifts and all gifts are best shared. Now in this time, prepare to listen, prepare to respond and be prepared to share the rest of your life with Christ. 

Lightening bolts on Black Friday

There are events in our lives that change us forever. Small moments, that mean we can not go back or even step sideways, we have to go with the flow. They are often events that are unplanned and strike us much like a bolt of lightening. We are left stunned for a moment, then we move into acceptance.
We find the people we will spend our lives with, we will give life to a new human being, we will find something new to do with our lives. Seconds or minutes of our lives that give us a blessing we are thankful for for the rest of our lives. They are not possessions and they can not be bought, yet they have more value than anything you can buy.

Today we have seen stories of fighting for Black Friday deals. People brought down to animal levels to save a few pounds off of a possession.  What makes us willing to scrap over a tv, a computer and toys and yet give up so easily when it comes to fighting for what is right. There is nothing right about fighting another human being for a possession, when there are people who are starving, when people live in fear and can not go home.

Somewhere along the line we decided that owning lots of possessions was what made us someone. We turned ourselves into our computers and stopped talking. We started to believe that self was more important than community.

When Jesus came, he did not come to one but to all. All who wanted to stop and listen. Maybe we should stop and listen. Listen to the disaster that is coming because we can not see beyond ourselves and our needs. Lightening strikes, it changes lives. Maybe we can be a lightening strike in someone's life and make a difference.

On finding the reason not to hide beneath the duvet.

When you know that the minute you even so much as twitch your leg, you will experience pain, lying still under the duvet becomes so much more than "I don't want to get out of bed". I am not particularly good at bearing the burden of pain. All I can say is I have a great admiration for those who suffer pain daily, with no chance of it ever stopping. The pain I am experiencing will be (hopefully and thankfully) temporary. Nevertheless in me, it does rather bring out the temptation to hide and withdraw.
It has made me reflect first of all on the suffering of Christ. When beaten, tortured and tormented, he did not go and curl up in the corner and give in. He stood in defiance of the suffering and carried on until it killed him. So, therefore throughout history and into the present day we see references to those who will suffer pain, torture and even death rather than relent their faith. Day to day there are many who endure pain not just in one place but throughout their bodies, often smiling and embracing the world. I wish I knew their secret. I can take most things and smile easily, but pain seems to take an extra effort and an awful lot of prayer. I am apt to feel sorry for myself and as ashamed as I am to admit more than just a little willing to hide beneath that duvet.
Yet, when one chides oneself out from the beneath the duvet the suffering often has it's rewards. I have tried my best not to retreat, complain or withdraw. God's grace is an amazing thing and I am glad that I have made the effort to receive it over the weekend.
God's grace helps us to carry the most extraordinary of challenges. As humans we are fragile and weak, but when we open our hearts to God's grace we become capable of so much more. Alone we can torture ourselves without anyone else helping it along. We give up on fights and struggles and retreat. When we open our hearts to God he gives us the strength to go the extra mile. He can calm our private tortures, forgive us our many wrongs and restore us to wholeness to carry on. He gives us a grace that eases our burdens and gives us the capability to love others and ease theirs too. His grace is free and over flowing. He gives us enough for ourselves and enough for us to share, so that others might see his love through us. We should respect the gift of grace we are given, we should always be ready to receive it. Always be ready to listen and learn. Most importantly of all we should be willing to show others the way to God's grace. Like the wine vessels at the Wedding in Cana, there is more than enough for everybody. Let us show others God's love not in spite of our suffering, but because we have suffered  we understand the value of God's grace and love all the more.

Frozen by fear

Over the Summer it was deemed necessary to buy a now exceptionally popular Christmas film for my birthday. This was entirely so I could have a treat you understand. The film was, of course, Frozen. Now before you run away and hide in the corner of insanity as "let it go" takes lodge in your head and will not leave. I want to look at the theme of the film, fear. Elsa, desperate to love and reach out, is paralysed and changed by fear. Fear does strange things to us all. It can turn us into irrational beings and in some extreme cases like Elsa it makes us dangerous.

Small fears, paralyse our minds, our bodies and cause us to behave in ways we would not normally do. For instance one teeny spider on the other side of the room catching me by surprise, will make me jump (scream) and run away. I will not then return until said arachnid has been removed. This is daft and irrational, I know it is. I am prepared to have other insects and animals around me, even dangerous ones. Yet this small and defenceless creature, sends me quaking.

More medium fears change who we are. For those who know me well, I am a chatty and out going person. For those meeting me for the first time, you would be lucky to drag a word out of me and you will have to work at starting the conversation. Afraid of slipping up, not knowing what you think and who you are, I would sooner say nothing and avoid people at all costs. It takes a while for me to trust people and even longer for me to trust that a plane will not just fall out of the sky while I am in it.

More extreme fears are more often based in a small bit of reality, but taken out of all proportion. When we fear for our families, our countries and our faiths. When we fear where our next meal comes from or when we will be loved. We change completely. We shut down rational thought, we do not stop long enough to think. We use fight or flight. For those that use fight, the consequences can be catastrophic. There are many evil events in our world right now, how many of them are driven by the constant pressure of fear. Living in constant extreme fear, can do much to permanently alter the psychological reactions of a person. Like Elsa, one tiny mistake not done out of evil but fear. Can change us and drive us to do things we would never dream of doing before.One small act, then meditated on and feared can quickly escalate our actions. Then we can hurt and destroy. You can see it all around us. Fear has a lot to answer for.

Fear has an answer though, as Elsa found. Time, patience and love, build a trust. Step by very slow step as trust builds we begin to let go of our paralysis and then we can truly begin to move on. Facing fears takes a lot of courage and this is why you need someone to demonstrate love to break to bonds of fear that hold you still. For the small fears and even the slightly bigger ones, this is easier. Someone to take your hand, to hold it as you tremble while they show you it is is safe. For entire countries so radicalised by fear, their psyche of their entire cultures so changed by constant barrages of threat. It is much harder to gain trust, to show love and to learn patience.

All of us fear something, all of us need someone to help us through. For us, this Sunday marked Holy Cross Sunday. It is where we look at the symbol of Christ's cross in our lives. The night before he was crucified, in the darkness Christ himself felt this most human of feelings. He feared what he had to do, he struggled to trust in his Father. But he did trust him, he faced his fear and in doing so he broke the bonds of fear for us all. We no longer need to fear, for trust in the Lord, means love from the Lord, means forgiveness and victory over death. We may not see that which loves us most. We may not feel that which carries us through our darkest times. We do however see him reflected in our friends and families. In the stranger that changes your life in some small way. Beyond that, when we look back through our lives, we can see the footprints he has left on our journey. We can see how our trust in him pays off. Christ died that we may have victory over death, that there might be nothing we should fear. For when we stand before God trusting him in humble penitence for all our wrongs, we do not need to fear for his love transcends all.

We just need to learn to stop, take a deep breath, and place our fear at the foot of the cross. For there is no greater forgiveness than his and there is no greater love in which you can place your trust

When did death and divorce become a game?

On a day when we mark the deaths of so many who died that we be free, I am slightly baffled by my children's attitude to death. Not just death either but suicide, divorce and care homes. At the ages of 9 and 6, I am fairly sure I had not even heard of suicide or care homes, yet all of the above are so normal to my children they form part of their role play games with alarming frequency.

I am not going to attack single parents, they are not to blame. I myself was the only child to s single parent for 7 years, until my Mother remarried. It is part of the reason I know it is no game. I know that suicide, care homes and death are not games too. I have been touched by them and the reality of what they mean. Not all of them personally, but certainly I have witnessed friends close to me go through the pain they involve. Yet to my children, these things are normal and something to joke about. I used to believe CBBC was a good thing. It had no adverts and I considered it to deal with issues and educate children. Then I encountered Tracy Beaker and the Dumping ground. It is a follow on from an emerging trend of author's such as Judy Blume when I was younger. They start to deal with the reality of teenage life and struggles there in. Judy Blume did it well, it was portrayed in a much more realistic way and was aimed at a higher age group. Though it has to be said my interests lay in other areas, primarily at the time Gerald Durrell and the Bronte sisters and therefore these books only made a passing impact on my life and identity. However Jacquline Wilson's books have made it into tv adaptations on CBBC. Now, they do deal with important issues and I think this is necessary. The trouble is CBBC viewers are not limited to late primary school and teenage children. It's viewers range official from 7/8 upwards and in reality if they have siblings they start watching it from younger if you only have one television in the house. Now we only have an hours tv watching a day in this house, when I am preparing dinner. On a Saturday and in holidays first thing in the morning. Yet encountering these tv programmes on such a brief time span has still effected the way they see the world, to the extent that we have banned the watching of some of them. It is not that I disagree with them attempting to deal with these problems, it is that they do not just normalise them but make them seem fun. The introduction of cartoon images in between scenes means that through the eyes of a younger child they must be fun and therefore become a game. Before you even know it your child is marrying, divorcing, and sending children to care homes several times in a morning. Yes role play helps children to deal with the world around them. But when such ideas become entrenched and acceptable when they are so young, it is not hard to see why they become easy to do when you are older.

We are a Christian country, we are supposed to believe in a Christian morality. We are supposed to promote the ideas that a stable family is the best way forward. We are meant to demonstrate the sanctity of life, so as that when we come to mark days of remembrance and Christ's crucifixion, the enormity of the sacrifice makes an impact on the children. So as that they can understand it's value, pass it on to the next generation. Such an understanding is required to stop such atrocities ever happening again. If it all becomes normal, even in games at the age of 6, what hope have we for preserving the sanctity of life and family models.

I know many issues in society frighten children and we need to talk to and deal with them with our children. But when they seem so much fun on television, you are not dealing with it. You are going to bring a whole generation of children down with a bump when they realise that what they had thought of as a bit of cartoon fun, actually is far more serious and is full of pain. They will find that death is permanent and people do not come back when you switch the telly on for repeats. That divorce tares families apart. That the many and varied reasons why a child ends up in a care home are anything but glossy and fun. If we want to deal with the issues, we should deal with them a)in guaranteed age range that understand what is trying to be dealt with and b)in a realistic manner, that does not frighten but does ultimately portray what really does happen.

Whilst these things are normal and do happen, they are not meant to be the ideal. If we make them seem more fun than the alternatives, it is no surprise that the next generation will part from their lives and families with such ease. It will not just become a disposable consumer society, but our families and maybe even our lives will become disposable with much more ease. I do not think that all those men went to war and sacrificed their lives, so that we could dispose of ours quite that freely.

The cost of War

MAY 1915

Let us remember, Spring will come again,

To the scorched, blackened woods, where the wounded trees

Wait,with their old wise patience for the heavenly rain,

Sure of the sky: sure of the sea to send its healing breeze,

Sure of the sun. And even as to these

Surely the Spring, when God shall please,

Will come again like a divine surprise

To those who sit today with their great Dead, hands in their hands

eyes in their eyes,

At one with love, at one with Grief: blind to the scattered things

and changing skies.
Charlotte Mew 1869-1928

It has been a very long time since we as a country have experienced the violence of war on our doorsteps. The utter devastation surrounding you, as you live constantly in fear for your life and the lives of your loved ones. So long in fact that a fair few us could not claim to imagine, let alone know how it would feel. What feelings of dread and desolation must have surfaced to open your door, knowing you were safe but many more were dead. Buildings collapsed, bombs dropping, seeking shelter often in vain. What must it have felt like. I have seen the photos from the past and the bombardment of media images of wars present in my time. My heart goes out to those back then and those now. But I can not, no matter how hard I, try understand the true feelings that they must  have experienced everyday as they open their eyes. As they gingerly wake up in the sunlight perhaps momentarily forgetting the destruction being enforced around them, only to come plummeting down to the reality that today might be their last.

I have always had a reticence about whether war is ever justified, it seems to me that it is just an inevitability of human nature. One of our great flaws. Sometimes we wade in with the greatest of intentions, sometimes their is no rhyme nor reason other than to destroy others in the search for overwhelming power. The consequences are never as we planned and always far higher then ever we had intended. 

Every memorial day we stand and remember those that have given their lives,a poignant reminder of the costs people have paid. So many names, to many to list and some will never be known. A great silence and void of death. How can we stare into this void, acknowledge its' existence and still sleep walk so blindly into the devastation that surrounds us. We will destroy lives for our supply of oil, yet ignore the genocide that takes place as a consequence of our actions. We stare down a nation that is slowly edging its' way to challenging us to war. We watch and do nothing as Gaza and Israel, seek to eradicate each other in an unbalanced power struggle. What lesson did we learn precisely from the flattened cities and lives lost in this country in wars gone past. What precisely do we mean, when we say "Never, never again" I have heard those words so many times and yet I have watched genocides occur in other countries and wars raged in our name, then the consequences left to fight for themselves.  From the minute we have learnt how to kill each other, it seems we have not been able to stop.

To me, who will cry over the names of soldiers who died long before I lived. Who has images of violence and death imprinted on her mind by the media, and cries for those she can not help. Such pointless violence, seems just that pointless. But I have never lived in fear of my life of losing all I have to someone who just wants to take it all away. I am however an idealist, I would love to believe that world peace is possible. Certainly as a young child I honestly believed all I would have to do was collect every gun in the world and it would all stop. Of course this is a fantasy, born of a child's desire for peace. Life is more complicated than that. Politics and power, will always find a way to kill because for some not having their own way is worth destroying everything it is that they want. The lessons from history will not be and are not ever learnt, because at the end of the day some people, do not feel compassion or are driven to such levels of despair they feel that they have no choice. Does not make it right, does not make it easy and we should try and stop it. All I can do is hope, pray and help where I can.  

Amidst the flattened Churches and buildings walks Christ, his crown of thorns pressing on his head blood running down his face, his hands and feet shed blood too. He feels their pain and suffering, more than we ever could.   He holds the hands of the dying and guides them towards his Father. He does not abandon them and neither must we. Pain and suffering will exist in our world until the kingdom of heaven comes down to earth. Our job in the meantime is to meet Christ in his suffering and ease it as much as we can.

Accepting who we are.

"You have heard that you shall conceive and bear a son; you have hears that you shall conceive , not of man, but of the Holy Spirit. The angel is waiting for your answer:it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady, for the word of pity, even we who are overwhelmed in wretchedness by the sentence of damnation"

St Bernard of Clairvaux

The whole world for one brief moment was still waiting on the answer of one young woman. As much as God might have predestined her for this role, he required her submission. She was free to refuse. She could have chosen a comfortable life, but she did not she chose to submit to God. She became a living tabernacle carrying "the word" inside her. Once the Son of Man was born, it was her job to nurture, support and guide this young human male to become our redeemer. 

 We all have a free choice as to whether we listen to what God says to us, and grow  into that knowledge and bring others to Christ. Or, we can chose to ignore what God is asking and seek to serve ourselves.  

Feminism, is self serving. It started out as something quite reasonable, an effort to level the playing field some what. It has taken on a whole new life though. It is in danger of and in some cases already is doing to men, what women have objected to having happen to them. Justified purely and simply with "We deserve to have this now".  The trouble is we do not deserve to trample on others, even if they trample on us. We should not be seeking "tit for tat".

In reality we are not actually all that down trodden. Men are not out to destroy us, undermine us and exploit us. In fact they are actually quite nice. Most men I have met are there to affirm us and want to see us grow. However, we ourselves have to accept that we are different. We are not men and we never can be. Qualifications and ability, are not the only things that make us ideal candidates for a job. We can not always be the right candidate and there are some things we are fundamentally not meant to be. We are not just physically different, we are emotionally and mentally different too. Not deficient, not not as good, just different. Often Mothers expect it all, a good job and a happy family. It is a pipe dream, somewhere along the lines we compromise, either our jobs or our families. Then we turn round and blame men for standing in our way. We stand in our own way, because we are not designed to have it all. God created Man and Woman, together they are in his image.  We are designed to compliment each other and not to be each other. If we learnt to be more confident in who we are, accept who we are and be proud of who we are. We might find that this constant struggle internally might cease.  What we can not keep doing is trying to undermine men, squash them and trample on them in order to prove we are just as good. We have always been equal in the eyes of God. We do not need to prove it, we need to accept it.

We all have a choice, we can listen to God and follow him or we can follow ourselves. Ask yourself in everything you do, "Am I doing this for me, to make me look good, to affirm myself and get noticed or am I doing this out of genuine love and concern for others? Is this God's will?" It is a far harder path to accept that we can not always have what we want and we are certainly not entitled to all that we do want.  

So much more than just words.

When I say think of what it means to pray, for many of us that image of  an innocent child kneeling at their bedside comes to mind. In reality very few of us are young sweet and innocent anymore, nor do we kneel beside our beds in order to pray. Prayer can mean many different things to all of us. I went from being at school where offices were available, to making my way to Church for the Divine Office to having three children! Those of you who have children will know, making time, let alone the practicalities of going to church at least once a day becomes impossible. For many years (in a very guilty manner) prayers became grasped moments of thoughts to God, thankful ones, pleading ones and on occasion fairly desperate ones. But for a considerable time the discipline of the offices was consumed by my children. I believe that God looked no less on my prayers then, than now. Having returned to my daily discipline.  Even still despite this I catch myself in a fleeting thought of a prayer during the day. Old habits die hard I guess.

But reflecting on a lot of what has happened, has made me realise prayer is more than just words or thoughts. Prayer like God infiltrates our lives and our very beings. How we go about our lives can be a prayer. If we offer our lives and work ,  happily and joyfully with others put before ourselves. It becomes a prayful offering. Time spent thinking on and reflecting on our lives becomes prayful discernment.  Time spent admiring and being grateful for our lives becomes a prayer of thanks. Time spent in concern for others becomes a prayful request for God's help.

Prayer can be given in every thought, word and deed that we do. It can even be through the way we dress. Our choice to not wear make up can be a thankful offering of God's beautiful creation. Wearing a crucifix  a prayful reminder of sacrifices made for our salvation. Now for a priest the very act of dressing for Mass is a prayer. Each item has it's own prayer that removes the identity if "me" and replaces it with "Priest".  It is about praying that when  they stand in that altar they are no longer an individual but "in persona Christi" .  A glorious and humbling prayer.  A remberance that the Mass  is not about us as individuals but about giving thanks to God for his almighty gift of sacrifice and redeeming grace. The Priest in his actions during the consecration again emphasises , that this is an act directed at God not us. By facing a wall, as I have heard it said, he is turning with us to face God .  The offering of The gifts is not being made to us, it is made to God that  it might receive his Holy miracle transforming  this bread  and wine into the body and blood of his dear Son.  Then at the end of this  the Priest turns to us knelt in humble gratitude and respect and says "Behold the Lamb of God." Then we approach in a prayful way to receive this wonderful gift.

Each and every action in our lives can be a prayful gift to God.  Without  hesitation we should be willing to offer our lives as such.  Prayer is so much more than  just using words.  The divine office  and Mass  are good starting points to find and listen to God, but should be used as a spring board that catapults  our entire existence as an offering  of  prayer  to our Father.

The peace of God

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. "  John 14:27

From the very beginning of a Christian, to the very end of a Christian's life, we have God's peace. It touches our lives without us even realising it. This week, my niece was touched and blessed with God's peace. May she hold it close to her every day of her life. It is easy on days like an infants Baptism, watching a small vulnerable infant anointed with God's grace, to feel this peace inside our hearts. Surrounded by friends and family, for this short while the abundance of God's grace and peace is flowing around us. Much like the wine at Cana, the gifts of the Holy Spirit shine. At the end of the day, we all part, the warm glow begins to dissipate and so does the shining radiance of God's grace. This has not really gone, it is still flowing with the same abundance as earlier, we have just stopped focussing on it.

So then we go out into our lives and face it's challenges. Some days, when God's creation shines in all it's almighty beauty, we focus on God's gifts of peace. It almost warms our hearts and we can sit back and bask in this wonderful gift. Other days, the weather is bleak our lives fall apart and we go looking desperately for something we can not find. We all have days of dark doubts, when we question where is God's peace among all this pain. All seems lost. For me those days were most abundant when I was a teenager. I wrangled with deep pain and questions. Many of which took many years to answer. I never lost my faith, in fact I did the opposite, I grabbed onto it with both hands hoping it would save me. It did.  Though I questioned at many times point of it all. 

When things are going well, it is easy to bend that ear to listening to God. The quiet tune of peace is obviously dancing in front of us and hope in the future comes easily. When it is dark, claustrophobic and daunting, listening to God is the last thing we want to do. We turn in on ourselves, listening to our own desires. Through the fog of despair, it is hard to see the light of hope. I am lucky that I saw the value of my faith, without it and the guiding patient hand of my husband to be, I am not sure I would have found that peace again. Regularly attending Church even when I did not want to, regularly praying when I felt no hope, is what eventually led me to find the overflowing gifts of God. 

We face challenging questions at the moment, questions of life and truths. Questions about the end of peoples lives, questions about when life starts and when we afford it such recognition, are just a couple of those. It is easy when we look at these, to revel in the depths of despair. How bleak our future will be.  They are hard questions. I very much hope that my niece will grow up in a world that values her uniqueness. Where life is valued and preserved and peace reigns across all the earth. But then I hoped that when my own children were born, I could lose hope.

But I have not. I have learned that even when things seem beyond hope, they are not. I have learnt not only to grab onto my faith with blind faith. My eyes are open, my ears are pricked and I will listen to what God has to say. It may not be easy and it may not always be what I want, but it is the gracious gift of peace. With it, all inner turmoil is stilled from the very moment I choose to listen. 

A valued place

Not for the first time in the last few months, yesterday I was informed through people speaking on the behalf of the CofE, that although this is not perfect it is the right thing to do for us all. I knew it would happen, in some ways it should happen, we got ourselves onto a path that had to be completed the minute we accepted women into Holy orders. Being prepared does not ultimately stop the shock, disbelief and pain. It does not stop the tears.

I am encouraged and indeed have been encouraging myself to have trust in my Church and hope. Every time I have said it, it has felt more like I am trying to convince myself rather than you. Where a year ago, fresh out of college I was totally able to trust the Church. Over the last year, I have seen that even with laws in place, trust is eroded and people bullied. Christ demanded of us sacrifice, pain and suffering that we might be born again. I have a very small amount of very fragile trust and for the last time I will leap into the darkness, in the hope of new life in the Church. One of respect for all.

All I have in my mind,however, is the crowds scattered in front of Pontius Pilot being whipped up to speak against Christ clamouring for his death. From one issue to the next the press clamoured for change last night. Not change based on theology but on modern non- Christian values. All I keep hearing is "Forgive them Father,they know not what they do"

I do not write to you with big long academic words, that has never been my style. I write with honesty as to how I see the Church and our place inside it. I am sad that today I have to look at my daughter and say the majority of our Church no longer value the wonderful unique creation God made in her. It no longer respects the calling of women to be as God designed and desired. That in order to be something great she must emulate man and seek to have glory, recognition and live in the limelight.  That is not what she has been brought up to value, yet to anyone who knows her, you will know she is not shy and has not had her wings clipped by a paternalistic community. On the contrary she is confident in her identity and who she is and she is content. Likewise I have not had my wings clipped and my identity eroded by the friends I have. They are the very people who have taught me not to be ashamed.

So I tentatively look to the future and in the hope Christ brings but it no longer feels as easy as it did.

Dying to get to the end.

Not that many years ago I had a discussion with my husband in which I asked him if he would help me die if I was mentally alert inside a paralyzed body. I was very much a different person then and although suicide was to me a mortal sin, the fear of being trapped out trumped it. I still am terrified of this eventuality and it does indeed scare me more  than the dying bit itself. But my concept and understanding of my faith has developed. Part of the steep learning curve of the last few years has been learning to trust in God. That whatever suffering or pain I might have in my life has a purpose and that in turn he gives me the grace and friendships to get through.

Ending my life would be an easy option, it would end my suffering and that of those around me. However, this is not the Christian way. The road to discovering who we are comes from the birthing pangs of pain and suffering through which the revelation of our salvation is born. We support each other with compassion, but this does not mean ending the suffering. It means that like Mary and Veronica encountering Christ on the roadway to his Crucifixion, we share in the burden of suffering in order to make the end bareable.

Though we might be dying to get to the end, to get passed the suffering and fear to meet our maker. Much like a good book it spoils the ending if you get there to quickly and you miss out on a lot of experiences on the way that will ultimately shape who you are.  It may seem an insurmountable mountain from where we are now, but God and the Church has something to say about assisted suicide for a reason. We must first experience life with all it's feelings first, just like Christ himself. For through his cross and his suffering comes our salvation. Through our suffering and death will come the revelation of our salvation.

Apples and snakes

Amidst God's stunning creation stood a truly awesome tree. It stood taller and more beautiful than all the others in the garden. The fruits on it large, sweet looking and tempting. Along came a snake.......

The rest of the story I am sure you know. For poor Adam and Eve the future was bleak, a revelation of God's knowledge was not the wonderful utopia they had been led to believe.

We are promised so much by the world today. We can live longer if we eat certain things. We can have money and expensive lifestyles, if we put our minds to it. We can work all hours and still give our families everything they need. These are false promises, they can not be kept. Much like the temptation of those beautiful and sweet apples, all is not what we are led to believe.

We are going to die, when? Who knows. We can work all hours, but we are unlikely to achieve an expensive lifestyle. Even if we do have a comfortable lifestyle, if you scratch beneath the surface you realise it has come at a consequence to someone else. We can give all our time to work and pay others to give our children all they need, but they are missing out on something far more crucial. Our love!

Rather like eating the apple, we find a life which embraces temptation an empty one. We can never find fulfilment in satisfying only our immediate desires. It comes from something far deeper. We need love and we hunger for God. It is tempting to believe the promise that eternal happiness and long life will come from superficial self gratification, however true lasting happiness and eternal life comes from finding and keeping God in our lives. 

We can project the 'I wants' and 'I needs' and manipulate the rules according to what makes our lives easier. However it will nibble away at your spirit. Your conscience will start to feel naked and you will seek to cover up all your wrong doings. In a downwards spiral you will become more and more embroiled in a never ending cycle of desire, want and guilt. That will never stop. Unless you put God back in the centre of your lives. It might be a harder road to walk, but it is a far happier one.

It is hard to seek forgiveness of others and of God. But forgiveness is essential, to building a new life built on trust. As general synod meets this week, I hope we can all look past our own desires and meet together in forgiveness of all that is past, that we may build a future in a new found trust. This will not be easy, trust has been broken for both sides and there is much pain and suffering. But there was pain and suffering on the cross too. I pray that we move forward as one body in Christ.

I believe or maybe not..........

For all the fear, questions and doubt our Holy Mother must have had when that angel appeared, she opened her heart and mind and said "Be it unto me according to thy word" A lesson to us all. We all have our doubts and questions about the Church and it's teachings. Maybe some of us question it's past and seek to change it's future, and for others (including myself) we look a the direction the Church is going and question it's wisdom. As Anglican's, questioning and enquiring minds are almost required but certainly desired. To discern and question our teachings and ecclesiology is fine, it is good to look again and again as to how we apply our faith in our current culture. However questioning is one thing, blatantly raging against them and disobeying them is another.

We have our doctrines , they are there in black and white. We as a Church have a stance, we as members of the Church have a duty to follow, obey and uphold these teachings. In the space of a few weeks some of the very people who should be seeking to lead us in these lessons, have sought to publicly bring them down. Whatever your views on Gay marriage within the clergy or beyond, the Church has a stance and it's Bishop's have spoken. If you disagree with the Church's teaching, patience, humility and obedience is required, until your questions change the teaching from the inside. You do not blatantly and overtly flout the rules and expect to go unpunished, you have chosen your life and your Church and you should live within it's rules.

Secondly, we have a teaching and a most valuable one on the sanctity of life. Once we decide it is acceptable to allow people to take their own lives with the blessing of the law of the land and the Church it will be a sorry state of affairs. It will become a consumable and the barrier will fall ever backwards and taking lives will become easier and easier. This has been a trend that has been apparent since we allowed abortions. They have become more routine and easier to acquire, and more lives are ended as a consequence. For a Bishop and a Canon of the Church to stand up and directly intervene in favour of  this course of action is deeply disturbing. What is more disturbing is for them then to turn round and call someone who up holds the Church's teaching "A troll".

It is saddening to see these issues played out in public, further reinforcing that we are a Church lost in it's own pathway. We can not agree upon or  uphold it's teachings. We are focussed on in fighting and disobedience of our hierarchy instead of knuckling down and doing what we should do best loving one another and loving and helping the world.

Our Blessed Mother, must have many doubts and concerns as to her future. She may have felt that what was happening to her was gravely wrong and she would be judged. But she turned to that angel and said "Be it unto me according to thy word". Humility that she was God's servant. Obedience to God's word and teaching. Faith that God's will would be encountered in the end. Trust that God knew what he was doing and the journey would be a joyous one. Seek to question, maybe even seek to change the Church. But do so with humility that you may be wrong. Acceptance that not all feel the same as you, and they have that right. But above all, do so with obedience to the rules. If the Holy spirit moves with you, all will change with time. Do not make the Church about your personal agenda and desires, listen to God and his will and make it about him.

The greatest and most humbling gift.

This morning I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock, my children were safe in their beds and the sun shone through the windows and life could not have been better. Yet yesterday some one stood in our Church and told us of life in their country. They came from the Sudan, a country torn by fighting, poverty and lack of education. Can I stop and imagine how it would feel to wake up to the sound of fighting, a day filled with fear and the uncertainty that mine or my families lives may be there at the end of the day.For me they are horrors beyond my imagination. But, today, I am encouraged to and have received cake, presents and cards. Yet when asked "What can we do to help?" the Bishop from the Sudan replied "Prayer, pray for peace and education".

So simple an answer, prayer. In our lives surrounded by cosy comfort and pleasure, our solutions are often much more material. I have been thinking for weeks about what I could do and have for my birthday.  What would make my life easier and happier. I was stopped in my tracks by what the Bishop said. I know that nothing I buy is actually going to make my life better, happier or easier, but I will still do it. We all do, we are encouraged to, our lives are full of colour, peace, food and comfort. We are complacent about what really matters, what will really make us happy and what can really change our lives. We are complacent because discomfort and fear is hidden behind our satisfied and easy lives. We do not live in fear, we do not hunger and therefore we do not see the need to seek comfort in prayer and answers in God. We  think we already have it all.

My eldest son often complains that I recite prayers slowly, as he puts it "like an audio book". I can understand that my slow and careful pronunciation of prayers I know by heart could be annoying. However, I am determined that though I might be able to rattle those words of ten to the dozen. I do not ever want them to become habit, something I do not mean or think about when I say them. They should be as important the last time we say them, as the first time we struggle to get our mind around them. We would not rush a conversation with a friend, why should we rush one with God? It is a small gesture and I can not pretend I find prayer easy either. It is like much else in my life, something I set about to do with all the right intentions but very rarely succeed in doing properly. I have lists of people and things to pray for then, I sit down to pray and my mind goes blank. Some times I am to tired or just decide there is something better to do. Sometimes like the disciples, I just fall asleep.  

I wear my crucifix day and night. It is a reminder to me that God is there and I need to make time for him. It reminds me that there is suffering in the world and I should pray for them. It reminds me I am a Christian and I should behave a certain way. When I take it off, for special occasions it often feels like I am consciously deciding to put God in a drawer in preference of something pretty. Sometimes I feel I do this in my life too. I put God and my beliefs in the drawer in favour of something easier and more pleasant.  Then afterwards, when I have had my guilty moments, I value the power of prayer and forgiveness even more.

Prayer is a powerful thing, we should never underestimate it's value. It is worth far more than anything we can own in our lifetimes. Faith in God may have it's responsibilities and they may be easy to forget or overlook in the have it all your own way culture we have here. Living responsibly is never easy, it is a challenge and we will fail, we are human. However God listens and answers our prayers, for forgiveness, healing, peace and help. Because of this they are the greatest gift we can give and the most humbling gift to receive.

The end of a busy week....

A week in which I have seen my husband Ordained into the Sacred Priesthood, offer Mass for the 1st,2nd and 3rd time, concelebrate at Mass and lay hands at the birth of another Priest, has left me slightly overawed. I feel a bit like a child in a sweetshop, completely overwhelmed.  I remember being like this when I was confirmed, when we got married and at the births of our children. These amazing gifts, such amazing offerings that you hardly dare to hope they are real. The hesitation to accept  it is all real is partly born from the sheer length of time, worry and anxieties that have got us to those places. Can they really be meant for us? Therefore I keep looking at the multitude of photos just to check that it has really happened (if you are daft enough to be my facebook friend, I apologize for the constantly changing pictures).

 It is quite a sobering thought that I have been left with after the whirlwind of this week. The dawning realisation that I have given him to the Church. Yes, he is still my husband and my children's father but he is also now the Church's, the whole Church's. He is their gift from God, from my children, from me and his parents. We must stand back and as was stated in a sermon earlier this week, let the Church unwrap him. So they can find the Priestly gifts he has and that he in getting to know them to may learn how best to use them. 

This will take time and it can not be rushed. But you can not rush the works of God, after all it has taken us a couple of thousand of years to get here. It will take all his life time, he will always be formed and changed by what goes on around him. It is truly humbling to think about the enormity of it all, he is a small drop in the ocean of Christianity. Yet he stands at the altar "in persona Christi", he stands before us in Christ's place and literally brings Christ to us in the body and blood of Christ. He can administer all the sacraments and has the cure of peoples souls in his hand. That takes quite some thinking to get my head around and may be I never will. But I am enormously proud (if that is permitted) and completely awestruck and humbled.

 I have been fortunate enough to be a part of the beginnings of several new Priests ministries in the last two weeks. Each and every one of them will be great gifts and I only hope their Churches and communities have fun unwrapping them. We have a duty as a community to help and support them in their Ministry. We should hold them in our prayers, as they will only get through the years of holding us in their care with God's grace, love and wisdom. We should pray for the intercession of Our Blessed Lady, to pray for them to her son and that she may take a Motherly interest in their ministry. But most of all we should give thanks to God, that these Priests are willing to give themselves to God and his Church. 

Who is welcome?

I started forming this blog post in my mind with the analogy of the Anglican Church being one bread and therefore one body. But (I have to confess) with regret I realised that in order to include the whole Anglican Church, some of whom may never attend a Mass/Eucharist, I would have to scrap it. So instead we are working with ribbons, in the hope that I may include us all. So we take for the Conservative Evangelicals a length of white ribbon and lay it on the table. For the Traditional Anglo Catholics we will take a red one and place it at the other end of the table. Here you have two lines with a gap in the middle, this is not the whole Church. So here I will bring in a pink ribbon and super glue it, overlapping one end with the white, and the other end on the red. Here we have a continuum, from one end of the Anglican Church to the other. We are indelibly joined together, we are one. But we are also different, as the colours suggest. One end has a very particular set of thoughts on theology, doctrine and ecclesiology and the other end has not quite polar opposite but certainly very different ones. The pinks in the middle and overlapping the whites and reds, represent everything in between. But when you join us together under the title Anglican Church we are one, it is no mean feat to to hold that all together and I rather suspect if we were to tug rather too hard, the ribbons may split, despite the glue holding them together.

You may think that this is all rather obvious and it should be and on the face of it, it is. We are one broad Church, who loves one another. Scratch beneath a veneer and you have a reality, lots and lots of layers not really integrating.

The last few months have for me, involved a great deal of compromise so as that these layers might just stay together. I have let go of many hopes and prayers, that I might not offend. So that all may be welcome. Only to find that in return those I agree with no longer felt welcome, not because of anything I had said or done. Merely because of the situation we found our selves to be in. It genuinely breaks my heart that we are in a situation that splits the Church so sorely that we all no longer all feel comfortable gathering at Christ's table.

There are so many differences between us all. They can and never will be reconciled to an agreement. But we should at least all feel welcome enough to gather at Christ's table. We may not chose to accept what is going on, but we should at least feel welcomed enough that we can sit in the same building. Where is the warmth of Christian welcome and love. Jesus did not just surround himself with those he loved, but sought out those whom he thought were sinners in order to teach them his love. I have sought to offer my hand in friendship, to find my friends turned away. This has in recent weeks torn me apart. I believe whole heartedly in Church unity, but my experiences recently have pitched me against this. I was for a long time angry and resentful. It is not something I am happy to see in myself or admit, but it is none the less true. We should seek to love one another in our differences, to show what it means to us by showing Christ's love and not anger and hatred.

Who is welcome? We all should be. Who would Christ love? Us all. We all have our faith and our faults, Our beliefs and our non beliefs. None of us know for definite if we are right or wrong, we will find out on the day of judgement. We have to live with integrity according to what we believe, on that I believe there is no compromise and I never would do so. However we will also be judged on how we treated others who do the same, even if we believe them to be heretical. God's love is for all and we are not to sit in judgement of others, this is not our job. Our job is to show others through a loving example what we believe God's truth is and how to abide by it. If we do not show love and compassion, we will only find it harder to show people these truths, for they will rebel against intolerance.

I am not sure how much longer we will sustain the one Church model, we have set ourselves on a path to conflict. There is no overriding theology one way or another and therefore as a Church we can only now proceed protecting both integrities. We must do this, however, in an equal balanced view, because neither overrides the other. One  integrity may not offer you popularity, but Christianity is not a popularity or political exercise, it is much more than that. It is about our salvation, our salvation was won by Christ losing the popularity contest and being crucified. Sometimes I think as a Church we lose sight of this.  So as difficult as it maybe for us all, I believe we are better together but we must be together as equals. If we are not we leave the festering wounds for hatred to take a hold, that will eat away at our hearts and our Church.
 

Three steps back and One Giant leap Forward.

When I was in Yr 9/10 or thereabouts I remember my geography teacher saying to me "You are going to be one of two things, a Nun or a Mother". Two vocations that on paper seem too black and white to mix, however I think I might just have found the grey area. I am a Mother, of that there is no doubt. But a Nun, not quite. The reality is that I am married to a newly Priested Priest, my life is centred around the Church and Prayer. The grey area.

It was said to me by someone on Saturday evening, the big change was the one last year this one will be nothing. I simply replied that on the contrary this year is everything! For my husband it is a journey travelled for at least fifteen years, quite possibly longer. It is a search for who you are and what God's purpose for you is. For some the purpose is complete at the Diaconate, for others it takes this step further. To take the extra step, is not a non-step. It is the big giant step to the rest of your life and beyond. You are a Priest, ontologically changed forever, your identity invisibly altered by the sacrament of Ordination by the grace of God. It is no small step.

So on Saturday night we gathered friends, family and parish, to witness this wonderful and moving occasion. For those of you who read this blog regularly, I am sure the question on your lips is did you cry? Yes, of course I did. It was truly moving, to watch my husband be zappped (my children's description not mine) by a Bishop and have important Priests from his journey lay their hands on him. He has become part of an apostolic line of succession. From the time of St Peter through to today and on into the future. A truly humbling thought when you consider the vastness of what he has taken on.  If anyone says ontological change is not real,  they should have seen my husband this weekend. There is a transformation within him, that can only be described as the Grace of God at work. He seems more himself than he ever has, so completely at home bringing Christ into our lives.

To kick start this fantastic journey of ministry, we invited friends to partake in his first Mass. Friends from the three major back steps in this journey, some from Chelmsford, some from Durham and finally from Oxford to. These three elements combined are what have produced the Priest the Church has now. I may be more than slightly biased but I believe he is gift to the Church and a good gift at that. I would like to gratefully thank all who have had a part in forming who he is today. You are part of that gift, you have given him the skills, the knowledge and the doctrine to enable him to minister in the Church.

Vocations to the Priesthood are a rare and should be a most valued gift not just by the Parish to which they serve but to the wider Church. Without them we would be but lost sheep with no Shepherd. So I would like to thank all those who are prepared to sacrifice so much, that are souls may not wander down the path to damnation. For all those ordained Deacon and for those Priested, you have my prayers. They are long days ahead, but they are days full of Christ and his work.

As for me and my Geography teachers assessment of my vocation, he was right in a way. I am called to a life in service to God, but that of being in service to a Priest and my children. My life centred on prayer, inspired and guided by prayer, that I may be all these four people need in order to go out and fulfil their vocations to. This is who I am, and this is what I am most happiest doing.

So for all that is past and all that is yet to come, Deo Gratias.

One year in

On this weekend last year I watched my husband ordained into the Diaconate. In a weekend that was filled with chaos and joy. The good news is we have survived the first year and this evening he will be ordained into the Sacred Priesthood.

I have learnt several things this year:-

1: Never ever think that your children will not embarrass you in Church. Over the course of the year they have informed the Sunday School teacher the Holy Spirit is vodka, told a parishioner that I put Rum in his water bottle, run out of school shouting "I will murder in Church tonight" and various other incidents that are amusing so long as they are not your children. I must also point out that I do not put Rum in his water bottle and we are a virtually teetotal household.

2:The kindness of people in our Parish is amazing.

3: Being married to a Deacon you get to be part of some truly enlightening and fulfilling events, some of which are joyful and some are not but you see a difference being made.

4: You find God really does know you better than you know you.

I feel tremendously blessed to have been supporting my husband in his ministry and to have been part of this fantastic community. Like all journey's the road has not always been smooth and there have been many twist and turns. The most important reminder I have had this year is "trust". Learning to trust in God, I am beginning to think is a life long journey for me. But I suppose every journey into faith is a life long one, we can never know it all and nor should we. 

To serve God humbly, faithfully, obediently and sacrificially. This is what my husband is called to do tonight. He will tonight be blessed by God and tomorrow he will go out into the community and bring Christ's body and presence into our lives and the lives of many others. I only hope I can be the support he needs as he goes into all his tomorrows. 

But for now all I have to say is "Deo Gratias"

Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie!

Those of you old enough and/or Abba inclined enough can at this point rest easy. I am not about to write a blog post about my having a man after midnight. I am, however going off in a completely different tangent to talk about prayer.

We are all more than used to walking into a shop and in essence saying "Give me", though I am sure we are all much to polite to use those precise words. Having requested our product, we expect to be given exactly what we have asked for. Then should we get home and find that our product is broken, the wrong colour or just not what we expected. We go back and expect the shop to provide us with what we wanted or give us our money back.

Then we come to sit, kneel, lie, curl up or however you particularly like to pray. Much like when we are in the shop, we come with a lists of requests for God. Our list of demands, fix this, do this, I want my life to go this way and not that etc. I sit and kneel, often ( more often than is perhaps acceptable ) forgetting the giving thanks and asking for forgiveness and just demanding what I want in my life. Very often these are not request for me specifically, but those for family, friends and parishioners.  It is very easy to fall into the trap of expecting our prayers to be answered in just the way we would want.

It is very rarely the case that our prayers (or indeed much that is concerned with our Christian lives) ever really goes just the way we want. Now here comes the crux of the problem. We have no shop to take our grievances too.Therefore we have no way of changing the thing we want changed. It amazes me, just how quickly I can get frustrated when things do not go my way. I get angry with God, the people involved and then turn in on myself for being so selfish in the first place.  I have often wondered whether this tendency in me has been harboured by the modern expectation culture or whether this is a conflict that many have had throughout Christianity.

Now I could end this post there and it would sound dreadfully negative. It would feel as though prayer and faith, did not work and were essentially useless. But being me, I am not going to end it here. Prayers may not be answered in the way we want them to be. They are answered though.

Sometimes what we think we need, is very different from the experiences we actually need to learn and develop in our Faith.  Sometimes we need to experience disappointment and doing so can lead to some miraculous discoveries about yourself, your faith and others. Yes, I get angry. Sometimes over the most petty and selfish of things, sometimes over things that are really significant. Yes I throw my toys out of the pram, I am who I am. I believe passionately and when I am seemingly let down I am similarly passionately angry at life, God and all. However I have grown to value the points at which my prayers have not been answered in the way I wanted. Those times have taught me much about sides of me of which I am less than proud. They have forced me to stop and think about what is really important and what I can do to change that. They have led to my eyes being opened and discoveries in my spiritual life. They have also taught me, how invaluable my friends and family are. There are different ones for different situations, each of them a sounding board  that calms me down enough to show me or help me to see the way through.

Disappointment, helps us value the times we get what we want. Without it we would be smug and comfortable and never be inspired to help others in their sufferings too. Prayer works, just not always in the way we would like it to. But I can assure you your life is much richer because of that. So next time we have a list of demands, let's be thankful to God whichever way it turns out. Because (to steal a line from The Great Exotic Marigold Hotel ) "It will be all right in the end. If it is not all right, then it is not yet the end".

That is what faith and prayer is, an acceptance that at the end all will be well. We will be born again into new life, through the sufferings of Christ. We to must suffer, for only then we will truly understand the greatness of the gift that we will get when we reach the end.

Corpus Christi

" And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”  And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.  And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many."  Mark 22-24

From this last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples to the Eucharistic sacrifice at our Altars today, bread and wine have been declared to be the body and blood of Christ. They like us, gathered round a table and shared a meal. A meal that has been repeated among the faithful for centuries. 

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi (Christ's body), but what is Christ's body and where does it fit into our lives? First and foremost Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament, this is Christ's body. So today we go to Mass, we gather round the table facing East  gazing towards God and break the bread. The body broken for us, is distributed among us. Then having partaken of Christ, we will be given a chance to spend some time with Blessed Sacrament held out in procession. Christ's body showing us the way.

Then having spent this time in Christ's presence, we as a community are broken and distributed among the places from whence we came. We become a symbol of Christ's body in the lives of others. For those who have no faith we are the closest they will get to seeing Christ in their lives. Every thought, word and action we take into their lives, is an example of what we think Christ to be. 

We are one body because we all share in one bread. We are part of a body that has been in existence since the sacrifice of Christ for us. We are part of a body that will continue into the future as every Mass is offered. We are but a heartbeat in the history and the future of Christ's Body. When we go out into the world, this is what should be on our hearts. When we have this in our hearts, hopefully it will make it onto our lips in all we say and all we do.

I would like to leave you with a final quote, from Mahatma Ghandi

"To believe something and not to live it, is dishonest"

Behold the Lamb of God

As Mass concluded last night, I had three children captivated and entranced by what had happened. No, not every service has quite such a welcome reception but a friends first Mass, did. My daughter moved to the end of the pew within the first few minutes to watch avidly, the proceedings of the many people whom she has shared various parts of our life in Oxford. At the end eager to receive her first ever first blessing she wanted to bypass the whole church.

When we as adults talk about Mass, it is often referred to in a very non committal way and without any real enthusiasm. Then we ask ourselves, "Why does the younger generation have no interest in the Mass?"  My children are different I know they are. They live in a family where Mass is not a boring requirement, but something that is talked about enthusiastically. All the sacraments are talked about in this house, they are discussed alongside all the other day to day topics that we care about such as Doctor Who. We talk about them in discussions about modern everyday things that we all enjoy and look at how our faith and the sacraments relate to them. Therefore, they are no longer irrelevant but relevant and applied to life.

The sacraments may mean we have to sacrifice our time. However, we sacrifice our time to watch television, read books, play golf and go to a concert. Why? Because we believe that the are beautiful and worth it. The sacraments are not just magnificent to behold, they are contact with the divine. They are where we and God interact. In the Mass there is glorious music to worship God and a chance to be in the presence of Christ. In confession while we may come with heavy hearts, we leave free of our sinful chains. In Baptism we are welcomed into a family and in Confirmation we strengthen our bonds and commitments to this family. It seems to me that they are as captivating and time worthy as any book or concert.

Another thing to consider when we talk about the Sacraments. When we partake in the Sacraments, or indeed come to Church or just praying at home, we are making time for Our Lord in our lives. We are all to willing to disrupt our lives for the most menial and trivial of things and yet, when it comes to making time for God. God is our father, if we do not make time for him how can we expect our relationship to become something exciting and relevant. God is our saviour, our leader, our comforter. God is in everything we do and say. We should be willing to get to know him better, to share our lives with him. For someone who was once prepared to give up his son for us and our salvation, we should at least be willing to give time to receive the sacraments.

Next time you as a family come to discuss going to Church, approach your discussion from a sense of wonder and respect for the awesome gift that is given for you. Enthuse about the miraculous presence of Christ before you. Then maybe you and your children will feel more like coming to Church and it will seem less of a chore.

Last Sunday when it was time to approach the altar for communion my daughter grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the Blessed Sacrament. What a difference it would make to your life and to mine, if we could all approach God with such simple enthusiasm and desire to experience God and to know him more.

I believe in order to understand

"I yearn to understand some measure of your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand"

Anselm of Canterbury

I have heard many times at debates over when a child should first receive Communion, "But they are not ready, they do not understand". It is true many children may not understand, but how many of us can say  as adults we truly understand the mysteries of the Eucharist. A child in their innocence will believe whole heartedly in the sacrament. Just as Anselm said in the quote above, they believe in order that in the fullness of time they might understand. If only as adults we could quite so freely say "I believe" and mean it without any second thoughts.

One of the main differences between the East and the West churches, is that over the centuries the West has developed it's theologies through philosophy and the East through tradition and ritual. One seeks to find the answers by finding meaning through applying modern thoughts, the other through finding meaning in what it already believes. There are benefits and flaws to them both and has lead to two very different styles of Church with the same teaching at the centre.

One way or another we will seek to answer our questions as we get older. The ability to just simply accept what is, diminishes with more we learn. There is a caution in the Bible about this though, Eve sought more than she should. We can take the analysis of our Faith too far. We can seek to impose our own desires on God's words. We can make the teachings of Faith fit into our lives, rather than our lives fit into the teachings of our faith. Put another way, we seek to apply our understanding in order to believe, rather than believe to understand. 

Faith is a powerful and emotive subject. For us all it means something different, mainly because we are all different. It does at times seem remarkable that we can all agree on anything at all. However we do all have a creed on which we do all agree. It starts with those magic words "I believe". 

They really are fantastic words, at many points in our journey we say "I believe", in God, in Jesus, in the teachings of my Church.  Do we really honestly mean "I believe" or do we mean "I believe in God so far as this is what I would like my faith to mean" Tomorrow maybe we could try waking up and saying take the "understanding" and the "me" out and replacing it simply with "I believe". Take each encounter of the day in this frame of mind. So that when we meet the challenges of life, instead of thinking what is the minimum of what we can do within the realms of my faith, let us do the most our faith demands of us. We do not need to understand why, that will come with time. We do need to believe that is the right thing to do. If we believe with our whole hearts, then others will see Jesus in our hearts and in our lives and maybe just maybe take him out into theirs.

How do I know God is real, Mummy?

At my daughter's bedtime the other night, she turned and asked me "How do we know God is real?"
I had to answer "We don't". I can not prove to her he is there, I can not show her he is there. There was no other answer to give. I went on though "That is why we have faith. Faith means we believe in something even though we can not prove it. That is why it is such a special relationship." She went on,  "How then do I know he is there?" .
"You do not know he is there, you believe he is there. You trust that he is there. That he is always there. He never leaves you, never changes, he just is."

I treasure these moments with my children. They are moments among the chaos that is my family life that remind me just how special our children are. They look to us to show them the way, but more importantly than anything else they trust us to show them the way. Trust comes so easily to a child, from the moment of birth they trust and depend on you to do all that they need. They grow up and slowly the cycle changes and they start to become the leaders and others start to trust in them. Sometimes along the line through this cycle of trust, is sometimes damaged. Trust becomes something we only give upon evidence that it will be upheld. We lose the innocence of unconditional trust. It is true that along our lives we receive bumps and bruises, the unconditional part of us becomes reticent, not just in trusting, but in love, hope and faith too. For example it is becoming more common for people to draw up a set of pre-nuptial agreements. Not only pre-empting the ending of this love, but also showing how little we have learned to trust. A relationship that should be based on love, trust and hope in the future, has already on paper ended all of those in advance.

Why do we become so cynical as we grow up? Why do we find it harder to accept what can not be written in black and white. When we become cynical, we become defensive, try to shut out all that might just hurt us. In doing so we shut out life.

Faith in God is a huge leap by modern faith standards. So little black and white proof and so much of it based on the fantastical and divine. If one can not totally trust the human standing opposite them ready to dedicate their lives to them, how can we expect them to believe that God is real. The task of convincing them that God is real, that faith and the Church are good things are hampered like much else by the Churches unreliability. The Church like, most other things is run by humans. Humans make mistakes, in doing so they damage the trust that is given to them. But the Church is still here because God's message is greater and better than us.

Finding faith, is hard. When you have a faith it is often because you have dug very deep inside yourself to find the confidence to take a leap. Yes the jump is a long way down, yes we may get hurt along the way but we decide to give it a good go. To find it we have to spend time listening to God's words, listening to God's actions in the world, spending time in the presence of the sacraments, spending time in prayer and discerning our own path through what is set out in front of us.

To have a faith centred life, we must have a God centred life. To find a way to a God centred life, we must have a prayer centred life. It is hard to fit it in, for many years prayer for me was grabbed in thoughts, wishes and thanks sent up to God as I tried to make sense of three small children. Now they are not so small and I have more time. My prayer life has more structure and I have more time to discern what is ahead of me. The one thing I do know though is if you have a faith in God, you learn how to trust again and when you learn how to trust, you have hope for the future both in our earthly lifetime and beyond.

Just one of those special places.

Walking in through the gateway, down the tree lined avenue, my breath was taken away. The sun shining down through the abbey ruins onto crowds of people, all here for the same reason as I.

Walsingham Shrine has been a place I have intermittently visited since I was eight years old. Sometimes regularly, sometimes with years in between. As a place it  has never ceased to be a place I have felt welcome in. It has always something new to reveal and yet retains a reassuring peaceful atmosphere every single time.

 Yesterday was however my first visit to the abbey and also my first attendance at the National Pilgrimage. 

On arrival this quiet little village in Norfolk was bustling and busy. The streets were awash with a sea of colours, as Bishops, Priests, Deacons, people of the religious life and laity alike flooded in from all directions. The atmosphere was full to bursting with a joyful welcome and anticipation. We were there early and wandered the streets and shops, then as my other half went of to take his part in the proceedings the children and I walked into the abbey grounds.  Walking down the avenue darkened by the trees, into the sunbathed grounds of the ruins. People everywhere finding their spot for Mass and the numbers just kept growing. In the shade on periphery of the grounds I spotted a friend from college. The children already hyped up with excitement at being in Walsingham went into hyper drive at this point. Still the people amassed. Then the noise quietened and round the corner came the procession. A moving sight to see, especially as the image of Our lady turned the corner and at the front carrying this honoured cargo was my husband and our friend. I must confess at this moment to allowing myself to indulge in a small bout of  pride in my husband. But this was soon replaced by one of those overwhelming moments when it strikes you that you are part of a wider history.

Here I was witnessing something I had only seen and described in the books I have read. It struck me how small a part we are in history, yet here in this point in time we are part of history itself. Not just an insignificant little ant, but part of the heartbeat of existence. We are connecting in this one moment the history, the present and the future. A truly humbling moment.

The day went on, with a beautiful Mass, a picnic lunch, a procession, culminating in Benediction. The beauty and peace of the Catholic liturgy was as it's very best, and the presence of Christ felt so clearly and by so many. 

A day of celebration of Our Lady, through whose maternal intercession for us we can come closer to her son Our Lord. A day filled with friendship, both old and new. A day in which we encountered love, hope and faith through prayer and worship. Drawing to a close in the presence of Christ himself, both humbled and inspired by his blessing. So that though exhausted by the proceedings of a long day, we left refreshed and renewed in our faith. 

Not long after leaving the overtired children slept and we had a long drive home. Having spent every bit of energy on the day we slept the longest we have all slept in years. Now the day after, we are looking back on a day that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. 

Walsingham is, I think, just one of those special places where you can not fail to find both Christ (embodied by the Priest's in their ministry and physically in the sacrament) and also the comfort of the intercession of his Mother. The the shrine chapel candles flicker and glow with the prayers of the people all year round. It is a rare place that is so filled with the overpowering sense of hope in the power of prayer. 

I very much hope that this is just one more of many journeys to this place of sanctuary and refreshment. To all who read this, no matter what your churchmanship is, please visit. You will not be disappointed, it is a place filled with the presence of God. It will humble and enrich you all in one breath.