Dear Friends,
During Lent I have spent some time with Parish and School groups looking at the way various artists have portrayed the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. Using their chosen medium, painting, drawing, sculpture, movies, music or poetry, they express their response to the great events that are part of the Christian story of our salvation. It is amazing how personal and original each perception can be, and yet how strong and consistent the Gospel message continues to be. Lent is a time when we can all reflect again on the story of the cross of Christ and all that surrounds it, so that it becomes again a story with power for our lives, and for the actual world we live in.
Next Sunday is Mothering Sunday, and the Church and School communities will gather here together for the Sung Mass. This will include the blessing and distribution of flowers to mothers and care-givers. It would be appreciated if all who can would make and bring some small posies of flowers and greenery to add to the supply. The preacher is to be the Venerable John Day, Archdeacon for Mission in the Diocese, and until recently Vicar of Fendalton.
We welcome into our parish area the headquarters of ITIM, the ecumenical group that organises workplace chaplaincies. The new office is in the Age Concern building at 64 Cashel Street, across the river from S. Michael’s. The chaplaincies are carried out in businesses and organisations throughout the city.
We also welcome in the central city a new ecumenical colleague, the Revd Dr Mary Caygill, who comes from teaching pastoral theology in Auckland, to be Mission Superintendent at Durham Street Methodist Church.
I leave you with some words from Henri Nouwen:
We often wonder what we can do for others, especially for those in great need. It is not a sign of powerlessness when we say, “We must pray for one another.” To pray for one another is, first of all, to acknowledge, in the presence of God, that we belong to each other as children of the same God. Without this acknowledgement of human solidarity, what we do for one another does not flow from who we truly are. We are brothers and sisters, not competitors or rivals. We are children of one God, not partisans of different gods.
To pray, that is to listen to the voice of the One who calls us the ‘beloved’ is to learn that that voice excludes no one. Where I dwell, God dwells with me, and where God dwells with me I find all my sisters and brothers. And so intimacy with God and solidarity with all people are two aspects of dwelling in the present moment that can never be separated.
May God bless you all.
Fr Peter Williams
Lent Readings: Week Three
Monday 2 Kings 5: 1–15 Luke 4: 24–30
Tuesday Daniel 3: 25, 34–43 Matthew 18: 21–35
Wednesday Deuteronomy 4: 1, 5–9 Matthew 5: 17–19
Thursday Jeremiah 7: 23–28 Luke 11: 14–23
Friday Hosea 14: 2–10 Mark 12: 28–34
Saturday Hosea 5: 15–6: 6 Luke 18: 9–14
