Today is the sixth of nine days of prayer called by the Catholic Bishops of England & Wales and Scotland to seek wisdom to know how to restore our environment. The full post can be found here.
Bless the Lord, you whales and all creatures that move in the waters, sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever. Daniel 3.
Filed under Interruptions, Justice and Peace, Laudato si', Mission, Pentecost
Here is Christina Rossetti’s meditation on Good Friday. The reference to a stone and a rock being struck goes back to Exodus 17; see below.
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.
Christina Rossetti
So the people were thirsty there for want of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: Why didst thou make us go forth out of Egypt, to kill us and our children, and our beasts with thirst? And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: What shall I do to this people? Yet a little more and they will stone me.
And the Lord said to Moses: Go before the people, and take with thee of the ancients of Israel: and take in thy hand the rod wherewith thou didst strike the river, and go. Behold I will stand there before thee, upon the rock Horeb: and thou shalt strike the rock, and water shall come out of it that the people may drink.
Moses did so before the ancients of Israel: And he called the name of that place Temptation, because the chiding of the children of Israel, and for that they tempted the Lord, saying: Is the Lord amongst us or not?
Exodus 17: 3-7
Filed under Daily Reflections, Lent, poetry, Spring
I didn’t know about World Water Day until recently, but it falls on March 22 each year, and gives us a chance to reflect on how we use and abuse this precious element, and how some people do not have enough for drinking, washing, farming. What follows is from CAFOD, the English and Welsh Catholic church’s overseas aid arm. The full article with a video explanation of the filter is available here.
Here at CAFOD, we are trying to turn dirty water into clean water.
For many poor communities, the local water source is a dirty pond or stream. Diarrhoea kills a young child every 90 seconds.
CAFOD’s water filter campaign is helping people who face the risk of fatal disease every time they wash, cook or drink – by providing simple, low-cost water filters for them.
This water filter is a lifesaver. It transforms dirty water into clean, drinkable water in an hour. A lifeline for families without a clean water source. We’ve made sure that it is simple to put together and uses materials available even in remote communities.
Our water filters use just sand and charcoal. Effective, cheap and easy to maintain, they save lives.
By donating today, you can help more people in developing countries protect their health and their lives.
Filed under Daily Reflections, Lent, Mission
Good morning to you all on a rather cold and frosty morning; and I hope this finds you all well, as we are here. Yesterday I headed over to Ramsgate for my vaccination – what a well organised and slick operation it was- hats off to all those who organised it – arm feeling achy though which is to be expected! It was strange driving to Ramsgate as I realised it was the furthest I have been in the car for about six months!
Today, 8th March 2021 is International Women’s Day, and the Mother’s Union has asked that we pray for women around the world between today and Mothering Sunday (14th March), we remember today that around the world there are women who are marginalised and oppressed or abused for just being female. who don’t have the access to opportunities for education, a safe place to live, clean water, or some days don’t have enough food to feed their children. We give thanks for organisations such as the Mothers Union who support and encourage women both nationally and internationally.
Morning Prayer: https://youtu.be/ATUIE7sODHk
God Bless you all and have a good day
Jo
Rev Jo Richards, Rector of the Benefice of St Dunstan, St Mildred and St Peter, Canterbury
Another chance to feel smug and virtuous: both of us gardeners at St Mildred’s Glebe this morning were using metal flasks for our breaktime drinks, and no worries about water quality or quantity. Polish that halo before the cobwebs take over again!
Filed under Christian Unity, corona virus, Justice and Peace, L'Arche, Laudato si', Lent, Spring
If you are a pet owner, then you know how many plastic toys you go through. So, why not invest in some plastic-free ones? Also, having a ceramic bowl can be a better alternative to a flimsy plastic one.
https://www.dogbuddytoys.com/our-eco-toys
https://www.thenaturalpetstore.co.uk/product-category/dogs/natural-dog-toys/
Filed under Justice and Peace, Laudato si', Lent
Rorate Cœli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum.
Aperiatur Terra, et germinet Salvatorem. *
No sudden thing of glory and fear
Was the Lord’s coming; but the dear
Slow Nature’s days followed each other
To form the Saviour from his Mother
—One of the children of the year.
The earth, the rain, received the trust,
—The sun and dews, to frame the Just.
He drew his daily life from these,
According to his own decrees
Who makes man from the fertile dust.
Sweet summer and the winter wild,
These brought him forth, the Undefiled.
The happy Springs renewed again
His daily bread, the growing grain,
The food and raiment of the Child.
From “Poems” by Alice Meynell.
*Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour: Isaiah 45.8
Alice Meynell was a mother herself. I’m not sure what she meant by saying he was one of the children of the year, but it brings to mind school uniforms and new friendships between children and perhaps their parents and grandparents too. No longer shunned as the child conceived before marriage, since he is that nice John’s cousin or my Simon’s best friend. Get rid of prejudice and we can begin to see Jesus in each one of the people we find ourselves sharing time and space with.
Happy New Year!
Filed under Advent and Christmas, Daily Reflections, poetry
Not long ago, we read John Wesley on the argument that slavers were using to justify procuring and abusing slaves: If it is not quite right, yet it must be so; there is an absolute necessity for it. Something along the same lines seems to be put forward to justify almost any environmentally destructive activity. Sin’s arguments are ages old: the Serpent in Eden had Eve believing that the forbidden fruit was absolutely necessary for her future happiness.
I needed a new phone: poor people dig out the scarce ores that are used for the inner workings; others in the manufacturing process are poorly paid, overworked and live in heavily polluted neighbourhoods. It must be so, or must it be so? I have two old phones that should be recycled to reuse precious metals.
Clothes: cotton production diverts water from growing food: ‘it must be so.’ Synthetic fibres cause pollution at every stage of production, use and disposal, even, apparently, poisoning fish in the open ocean. But ‘it must be so’.
Forests are destroyed, ‘it must be so’. Rivers polluted, flood plains built over: it must be so.
Well, no. Money need not rule. Time for some New Year Resolutions! Use less, discard less, waste less: reuse or recycle more.
Filed under Daily Reflections, Laudato si'
On Friday Revd Jo Richards told us about Saint Dunstan’s Church being bathed in purple light the next day to feature the Rotary’s drive to ‘END POLIO NOW!
Here are two photographs of the event. Let us hope and pray that infections will continue to fall in the remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan where polio still exists, thanks to vaccines, clean water and safe sewage. And let’s also hope and pray that opponents of the vaccine come to trust the medical staff bringing this killer disease to an end, and not murder or harm them. May they complete their task in peace.
Filed under Interruptions, Justice and Peace
Saint Francis must have taken some looking after! His quest to live a more simple life must have worried his companions who, after all, had joined his company to be with him, among other motives.
Saint Francis sought how he might find a place wherein he might the more solitary keep the forty days’ fast of Saint Michael the Archangel, which beginneth with the feast of the Assumption. wherefore he called unto him Brother Leo; and said: “Go and stand in the doorway of the Oratory where the brothers lodge, and when I call thee, return to me again.”
So Broth Leo went and stood in the doorway; and Saint Francis withdrew himself a little space, and called aloud. Hearing him call, Brother Leo returned to him again, and Saint Francis said to him: “Son, let us seek for another more secret place, where thou canst not hear me when I call.” And as they searched, they found on the side of the mountain that looked towards the south, a lonely place and very proper for his purpose, but they could not win there because in front there was a horrible and fearful cleft in a huge rock. Therefore with great pains they laid a piece of wood over it as a bridge and got across to the other side.
Then Saint Francis sent for the other brothers and told them how he was minded to keep the forty days’ fast of Saint Michael in that lonely place, and therefore he besought them to make him a little cell there, so that no cry of his could be heard by them. And when the cell was made, Saint Francis said to them: ” Go ye to your own place, and leave me here alone, for, with the help of God, I am minded to keep the fast here, without disturbance or distraction, and therefore let none of you come unto me, nor suffer any lay folk to come to me. But, Brother Leo, thou alone shalt come to me, once a day, with a little bread and water, and at night once again at the hour of Matins, and then shalt thou come to me in silence, and when thou art at the bridge-head, thou shalt say; “Domine, labia mea aperies”1 ; and if I answer thee, cross over and come to the cell, and we will say Matins together, and if I answer thee not, then depart straightway.” And this Saint Francis said because at certain times he had been so rapt in God, that he nor heard nor felt aught with the bodily senses. And again Saint Francis gave them his blessing and they went back again to their own place.
1Lord, open my lips. The first words of the Divine Office.
Filed under Daily Reflections
Hibernation of birds was one area where Gilbert White’s instincts were wrong: unlike snakes and harvest mice, neither swallows nor any other birds hibernate; they migrate. I have seen a house martin or two, flying over Dumpton Park in Thanet, just a few metres from the coast, on 20th October one year. Is it likely that they fly south to Senegal? Conversely, is it likely that they hide in river mud, completely without trace?
About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton Court. In the autumn, I could not help being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of the aits of that river. Now, this resorting towards that element, at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that he talks, in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallows going under water in the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset.
An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he saw a house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying in and out of its nest in the Borough. And I myself, on the twenty-ninth of last October (as I was travelling through Oxford), saw four or five swallows hovering round and settling on the roof of the county hospital.
Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the equator?
Filed under Autumn, Daily Reflections, Laudato si'
