I hope that you are all enjoying the long weekend, and that any who are visitors to Christchurch are seeing us at our best. This is a very good time of the year for Canterbury to celebrate its Anniversary Day and to hold its Agricultural and Pastoral Show. After this we head into the end-of-year rush.
Two years ago exactly, at a special meeting of parishioners, we gave the go-ahead to proceed with the plans for a new nave sanctuary and altar in S. Michael’s Church, to replace the present 1965 arrangement. Everything is at last in place for this to happen, except that the builder will wait until the new carpet arrives from South Africa. This is not likely to be until January. It appears then that this work will coincide with the finishing of the external restoration work on the church.
Last Tuesday, a roomful of us gathered at S. Michael’s to hear Forrest Johnson introduce and read from his newly-published book, Unfinished Business—Dialogues with Thomas Merton. It was a most enjoyable occasion. After immersing himself in Merton’s copious journals during a number of visits to the Gethsemane Trappist Monastery in Kentucky, Forrest has produced some imaginary but very believable dialogues between Merton and people Merton was known to have contact with. The book is available through Amazon.com. We are glad that Forrest and Cynthia are visiting Christchurch and S. Michael’s once more from their home in Tennessee, and that Forrest has been willing to share this writing with us.
There will be a service at Christ’s College Chapel on 10 December at 7:00 pm to celebrate the centenary of Thomas Merton’s birth. His father was born and brought up in Christchurch, and an uncle was a former Principal of S. Michael’s School.
Next Sunday is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, and we celebrate the Reign of Christ. It is traditional at the Solemn Mass for the Blessed Sacrament to be carried in procession. At this Mass we shall conclude our reading of the Gospel of Matthew, and on the next Sunday, the First of Advent, we shall begin reading weekly from the Gospel of Mark. I hope you have enjoyed reading Matthew this year, as I have. He presents Jesus as Emmanuel (God with us) from the beginning to the end of the Gospel, where Jesus promises, “I am with you to the end of the age.” He leaves a clear message that the best way to ensure a welcome into the Kingdom is to act mercifully toward the afflicted in the present. He seems to try to create in us that merciful vision, to know Jesus as the One through whom I am enveloped and liberated by God’s mercy, and through whose example and teaching I can myself become an instrument of mercy.
May God bless you all.
Peter Williams
