Dear Friends,
This week the country comes to town for the Show and the Races. We can hope that the unseasonable weather is behind us and that Show Week will display Christchurch at its shining best. I hope we can all enjoy the Canterbury Anniversary holiday on Friday.
It is good at these times if we can have the church open for the visitors who are usually about. If any of you are at a loose end and could spend an hour or two on the holiday or at the weekend minding the church, please tell me. It can be a time to do some praying, as well as an opportunity to meet and give hospitality to visitors, local and foreign. Several of our congregation joined S. Michael’s because of the kindness and helpfulness of those minding the church on such days.
We are very aware of those labouring with or towards examinations at the moment. It took me years before I was able to disassociate the joys of Spring from the drudgery of final exam preparation. But for those who are still in that bind, whether as students or teachers, we pray that all may go well.
This afternoon at 2:00 pm our Director of Music, Paul Ellis, will give an organ recital in the Cathedral. This is said to be his ‘swansong’ there, but I doubt it. We are very fortunate to have Paul’s leadership at S. Michael’s now. I hope some of us can attend the recital.
Thank you to all who contributed to the lovely commemoration of All Saints last Sunday, and then All Souls on Monday. It was good to have some visitors from far and near. I leave with you a few thoughts about living and dying, that have come my way during this season.
A truly lived-in life can be happily died in. Michael Leunig
When we are ready to die at any moment, we are ready to live at any moment.
Henri Nouwen
When I am with people who seem like ‘saints’, they don’t make me feel how dead I am, but rather how alive I can become.
Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; God doesn’t fill it, but on the contrary, keeps it empty and so helps to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The presence of that absence is everywhere. Edna St Vincent Millay
May God bless you all.
Fr Peter Williams
