Email from Jesus

If you never felt pain, how would you know I am a Healer?
If you never had to pray, How would you know that I am a Deliverer?

If you never had a trial, How could you call yourself an overcomer?

If you never felt sadness, How would you know that I am a Comforter?

If you never made a mistake, How would you know that I am a forgiver?

If you knew all, How would you know that I will answer your questions?

If you never were in trouble, How would you know that I will come to your rescue ?

If you never were broken, Then how would you know that I can make you whole?

If you never had a problem,How would you know that I can solve them?

If you never had a problem,How would you know that I can solve them?

If you never went through the fire, Then how would you become pure?

If I gave you all things, How would you appreciate them?

If I never corrected you, How would you know that I love you?

If you had all power, Then how would you learn to depend on me?

If your life was perfect, Then what would you need me for?

Love,
Jesus

250 Years of Messiah

The Glorious History of Handel's Messiah

A musical rite of the holiday season, the Baroque-era oratorio still awes listeners 250 years after the composer's death

• By Jonathan Kandell
• George Frideric Handel'sMessiahwas originally an Easter offering. It burst onto the stage of Musick Hall in Dublin on April 13, 1742. The audience swelled to a record 700, as ladies had heeded pleas by management to wear dresses "without Hoops" in order to make "Room for more company." Handel's superstar status was not the only draw; many also came to glimpse the contralto, Susannah Cibber, then embroiled in a scandalous divorce.

The men and women in attendance sat mesmerized from the moment the tenor followed the mournful string overture with his piercing opening line: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." Soloists alternated with wave upon wave of chorus, until, near the midway point, Cibber intoned: "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." So moved was the Rev. Patrick Delany that he leapt to his feet and cried out: "Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!"

Now, of course, Messiah is a fixture of the Christmas season. Woe to the concert hall in the United States or Britain that fails to schedule the piece around the holiday, when, as well, CD sales and Web downloads of the oratorio soar. For many amateur choirs, the work is the heart of their repertoire and the high point of the year. In most of Handel's oratorios, the soloists dominate and the choir sings only brief choruses. But in Messiah, says Laurence Cummings, director of the London Handel Orchestra, "the chorus propels the work forward with great emotional impact and uplifting messages."

This year, the 250th anniversary of Handel's death, has been a boon to the Baroque composer and his best-known work. The commemoration has centered in London, where Handel lived for 49 years, until his death in 1759 at age 74. The BBC has broadcast all of his operas, more than 40 in total,  and every one of the composer's keyboard suites and cantatas was performed during the annual London Handel Festival, which included concerts at St. George's Hanover Square church, where Handel worshiped, and at the Handel House Museum ("See Handel Slept Here,"), longtime residence of the man that Ludwig van Beethoven himself, citing Messiah, said was the "greatest composer that ever lived."

He was born in Halle, Germany, into a religious, affluent household. His father, Georg Händel, a celebrated surgeon in northern Germany, wanted his son to study the law. But an acquaintance, the Duke of Weissenfels, heard the prodigy, then barely 11, playing the organ. The nobleman's recognition of the boy's genius likely influenced the doctor's decision to allow his son to become a musician. By 18, Handel had composed his first opera, Almira, initially performed in Hamburg in 1705. During the next five years, he was employed as a musician, composer and conductor at courts and churches in Rome, Florence, Naples and Venice, as well as in Germany, where the Elector of Hanover, the future King George I of England, was briefly his patron.

Handel's restless independence contrasted him with the other great composer of the age, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), whom he did not meet. "Bach never moved out of the cocoon of court patronage or church employment," says Harry Bicket, a conductor, harpsichordist and London-based director of The English Concert chamber orchestra. Handel, on the other hand, rarely attached himself to any benefactor for long, although he would compose court music when asked. He wroteThe Water Music(1717), one of the few of his pieces other thanMessiahrecognizable to the average concertgoer, for George I, to be performed for the monarch as His Majesty's barge navigated through a London canal on a summer evening. "But [Handel] didn't hang around palace antechambers waiting for his lordship or royal highness," says Jonathan Keates, author ofHandel: The Man and his Music.

Such free-spirited musical entrepreneurship was more than possible in London, to which Handel moved permanently in 1710. A commercial boom underpinned by overseas trade had created a thriving new merchant and professional class that broke the monopoly on cultural patronage by the nobility. Adding zest to the London music scene were rivalries that split the audience into two broad musical camps. On one side were defenders of the more conventional Italian opera style, who idolized the composer Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747) and brought him to London. Enthusiasts of Handel's new Italian operas cast their lot with the German-born composer. The partisanship was captured in a 1725 verse by poet John Byrom:

Some say compared to Bononcini,
That Mynheer Handel's but a Ninny;
Others aver, that he to Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a Candle

Poem of the Man-God

(Discovered whilst in Poustinia)

1897-1961

Maria Valtorta was born in 1897 in Caserta, Italy. In 1916 the lord attracted her to Himself by means of a dream which was to remain vivid throughout her life. In an evangelical vision, which seemed to anticipate the waking visions of her literary work, Jesus aided Maria with words of admonishment and piety.

In her early 20's and in the spring of 1920, while walking along the street, she was struck in the back by a young delinquent. With an iron bar stripped from a bed, he came from behind and struck her with all his might. She remained confined to bed for three months, just a sample of what was to be her future complete infirmity. January 4th, 1933 was the last day Maria was able to leave her house and after April 1, 1934, she was no longer able to leave her bed.

Her activity as writer reached intensity from 1943 to 1947, and continued, diminishing progressively, until 1953. The notebooks written by Maria included almost fifteen thousand pages. Little less than two-thirds of this outstanding literay production concerns the monumental work on the Life of Jesus (The Poem of the Man-God). The minor works include extensive commentaries on biblical texts, doctrinal lessons, histories of the first Christians and martyrs and pious compositions. "I can affirm" - one of Valtorta's declarations reads - "that I have had no human source to be able to know what I write, and what, even while writing, I often do not undersatand."

The Poem of the Man God (Italian title: Il Poema dell'Uomo-Dio) is a multi volume book of about four thousand pages on the life of Jesus Christ written by the Italian mystic Maria Valtorta. The latest editions of the book, bear the title: The Gospel As It Was Revealed to Me.

The book was first published in Italian in 1956 and has since been translated into 10 languages and is available worldwide. The book is based on over 15,000 handwritten pages produced by Maria Valtorta between 1943 and 1947. During these years she reported visions of Jesus and Mary and claimed personal conversations with Jesus.

The book has received the imprimatur and approval of some Catholic Bishops but the official position of the Holy See with respect to the book is currently less than clear. Since 1993 the Vatican has decided to remain silent on the work. Given the endorsements provided for the book in the visions of the Virgin Mary reported at Medjugorje in 1981, if and when the Holy See selects a position on Medjugorje, it may also be viewed as having selected a position on the work of Maria Valtorta.

Pass it on 60

Light of My World

by a Madonna House Staff Worker

“All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.” (John 1:4-5)

Jesus Christ is the shining bright light of the world. Jesus is the maker of history, the freer of slaves, the healer, the great lover of man. Jesus is as personal as he is cosmic.

These words may mean little or nothing to us unless, like St. Paul, we are assailed by the light of the living, risen Son of God, unless our hearts are stung and burned by the touch of God’s life. There is life which is far more than life. There is joy beyond all imagining. There is, right now, this minute, hope and light and healing for us who are flat on our faces in the muck and mire of our broken humanness.

To all of us who are unhinged in a world which seems utterly dark and without any anchor in reality; to us who are sick, tired, disgusted, assailed by anxiety and fear; to us who long and thirst after goodness and truth; to us on the verge of despair from the emptiness of our search—to us are addressed the living words of Jesus: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavily burdened and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Then you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matthew 11:28-30). “I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; he will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Jesus knows how confused, tired, and cynical we are. He says exactly what he means and he does just what he says he will do. God is not glib; he is active. He makes himself absolutely available. He tells us who he is and promises that by knowing him we will know light, truth, freedom and abundant life.

Some of us feel that these are wonderful words—but for others—for holy people. Not for us! Yes, what about us who are afraid of death, afraid of our neighbors, afraid of darkness? What about us who are fat and ugly, ashamed and embarrassed? What about us who are mad and hostile and hateful? What about us who are never sober? What about us who have needle scratches up and down our arms? What about us who have our faces in the gutters and our bodies in pain? Yes, what about us hypocrites and phonies, us liars and thieves, us deceivers? Is there hope for the likes of us? How can anyone so without hope and life think that good things could come to him?

In the eyes and minds and hearts of men it is not possible. But God is God and not man, and his love is poured forth on all men without exception or discrimination. It is precisely to us who think little or nothing of ourselves that he is most especially addressing himself. It is precisely to us who suffer the most hideous, embarrassing, and neurotic maladies that the living Gospel of Jesus is proclaimed. “I have not come to call the just, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)

I am one of those sufferers. I am one of those who have come right up against the wall of despair but who, in that position, have come to know the embrace of the resurrected, alive, powerful Jesus Christ. Being so identified with trouble and negative attitudes, I can state with conviction to the point of folly that God comes to the poor, the afflicted, and the lowly, to heal, to re-fashion, and to console. Out of my personal bondage the Lord called me, and slowly, with his words, he cracked open my heart and there came forth his own love. Having known the touch of mercy and the healing God gives, I know to whom he speaks. I can testify that his word is always love, and his promise is always life. My response is to cleave to his word and his promise so tenaciously that my identity is found only in God’s life, in my relationship to him.

When we have known God’s life, we desire, as he desires, to speak about it, to proclaim it, to bear his message of love to the ends of the earth. God has swooped down upon us, the afflicted, the sinners, and the lowly, only to set us back into the world so that we can help set his world on fire with love.

I am thoroughly convinced that the Kingdom of God is being established here and now. The Kingdom of God is the Light of the world shining in and through the hearts of those touched by his love.

Jesus on pebbles

Mystery artist scatters 'Jesus' 

pebbles in town 

ahead of Christmas

A mystery artist has scattered 300 pebbles painted

 with the image of Jesus in a town

in attempt to put "meaning back into Christmas"

 

By Richard Savill 

The Jesus pebbles have been left around Newquay, Cornwall by a local artist 

who wishes to remain anonymous Photo: APEX

The pebbles, featuring Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, have been placed on bollards, in phone boxes, at cash points, and on window ledges.

Each pebble has been painstakingly painted by a local artist who wishes to remain anonymous.

He said he thought of the idea a few months ago and merely wanted to bring joy and the real message of Christmas to people.

Since September the artist has spent nearly 90 hours painting about 300 pebbles, which he scatters around the Cornish resort of Newquay on certain days.

He leaves the pebbles on top of a little pile of hay, to resemble the stable surroundings.

The pebbles first started appearing across the town on Nov 29.

"It is just to spread the real meaning of Christmas and touch people's hearts," said the artist.

"I actually started off painting them as gifts for people and thought how lovely.

"I thought I would go about it mysteriously."

The artist said Christmas was now "very commercialized."

"People just rush around buying this, that and the other, forgetting about the real message of Christmas, and Christ to me (as a Christian) is the real meaning.

"Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. And there is nothing else in history that has ever been as big as that to me."

Bel Wilkins, 24, a shop worker, found one of the pebbles when she was at work.

She said: "We just kept it because we thought it was really sweet and we realised, from chatting to other people, that they have got them as well."

Emma Rogers, 19, who works in a coffee shop in the town, said "One was left on the counter for us. I think it's lovely."

The Passion

During Holy Week 2008 BBC1 will broadcast The Passion, a dramatic re-telling of the last days of Jesus. The series will be shown in peak time and will be seen by many millions of people.

Episode 1
Palm Sunday 16th March, BBC ONE, 8pm (One hour)
It's Passover in Jerusalem, and the city is bursting with pilgrims. It's a tense time for those charged with keeping order - like Pilate the Roman Prefect and Caiaphas the High Priest. The arrival of a preacher from Galilee called Jesus causes great excitement when he enters through the East Gate on a donkey's colt, fulfilling prophecies of the coming of the Messiah. For Jesus's band of disciples, hardened by several years on the road, this is the moment they've been waiting for, but none of them suspects how momentous this week will be.

Episode 2
Monday 17th March, BBC ONE, 8.30pm (30 minutes)
Caiaphas is growing increasingly anxious that Jesus's preaching will provoke unrest and bring in the Romans, and when Jesus appears to threaten the Temple it's the final straw. As Jesus tries to explain his destiny to the disciples, Caiaphas calls a council and presents it with a stark choice. With Passover approaching, a fateful decision is taken, and Judas finds himself placed in an impossible position.

Episode 3
Good Friday 21st March, BBC ONE, 9pm (One hour)
Jesus shares his Last Supper with the disciples, and teaches them their last and most important lesson. Whilst Judas slips away to fetch the Temple guards, Jesus leads the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane and tries to prepare himself for what is to come. The next few hours will bring him face to face with Caiaphas, with Pilate and with his own destiny.

Episode 4
Easter Sunday 23rd March, BBC ONE, Time TBC (30 minutes)
As Jesus is taken from the cross and buried, his disciples cower in hiding. Caiaphas, fearful that the body will be stolen, orders the tomb to be guarded. But when Mary Magdalene discovers it empty, a chain of events is about to begin that will transform the lives of the disciples and reverberate throughout the world for the next two thousand years.

Guidance from the Churches' Media Council

These notes have been prepared by a group representing many of the major Christian denominations, brought together by the Churches' Media Council. They are intended to help churches and others to prepare for the series.

These are the principles we would like to commend to the Christian community in approaching the series.

We welcome this production
There's no need to debate whether or not the Christian community should welcome this production or not. We celebrate the fact that the story of Jesus is being retold for an audience of millions. We should resist the temptation to focus on details. Instead we welcome this production.

This is a BBC series
We don't wish to “claim“ The Passion in any way as ”our“ series. We have not had any editorial input into the series, nor would we wish to. The story of Jesus is central to the Christian community – but it belongs to the world.

This is a work of drama
That may seem obvious – but it's important. This series wasn't conceived as an exercise in evangelism. It wasn't intended as a dramatisation of the gospel text. It springs from the story of the gospels, and the producers have used the gospels as their source. But this is a work of drama. So we need to judge it as a work of drama and not as a piece of theology.

Let's talk about Jesus
This is the story of the last few days of the life of Jesus. It will prompt believers and unbelievers alike to think about Jesus. This is probably not the moment to discuss the state of the church or the finer points of theology. Instead we should aim to keep the focus of our discussions on the person of Jesus.

Holy Week

Holy Week is the most intense time of the Church's year. During a week rich with signs, symbols, liturgies and readings we celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. We relive the paschal mystery in the liturgies of the Church and in our lives, passing with Jesus from death to the great feast of the resurrection:Easter.

Holy Week begins with the Mass of Passion Sunday, also known as Palm Sunday. We begin with a procession with palms, solemnly commemorating Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, happy to begin the week when Jesus was to complete his work as our Messiah.

In Holy Week we listen to the entire gospel account of Christ's passion twice: from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark or Luke according to the year (this year Matthew) on Passion Sunday, and from the Gospel of John every year on Good Friday.

Today the Sunday Telegraph gave away a copy of the Passion according to St Mark with every copy sold and this evening the BBC began a new dramatic presentation called simply 'The Passion'.

Holy Name of Jesus

Optional memorial for first free day after 1st January.

Veneration of the Holy Name

The veneration of the Holy Name was encouraged by the example of St.

Bernard of Clairvaux, who apostrophized it in many sermons. But the greatest promoters of this devotion were St. Bernardino of Siena and his follower St. John Capistrano. "They carried with them on their missions in the turbulent cities of Italy a copy of the monogram of the Holy Name, surrounded by rays, painted on a wooden tablet, wherewith they blessed the sick and wrought great miracles. At the close of their sermons they exhibited this emblem to the faithful and asked them to prostrate themselves, to adore the Redeemer of mankind." (Catholic Encyclopedia) The practice of showing the monogram of Jesus over gates and above doors largely begins with their exhortations, which had an unorthodox air that brought Bernardino before the tribunal of Pope Martin V. But St. John Capistrano defended his master so successfully that the pope not only permitted the veneration of the Holy Name, but also assisted at a procession in which the holy monogram was carried. The tablet used by St. Bernardino is venerated at the basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli at Rome.

Man born to be King

50th anniversary of death today.

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was born at Oxford on 13th June 1893, the only child of the Rev. Henry Sayers, of Anglo-Irish descent. Her father was at the time headmaster of Christ Church Cathedral School, and she was born in the headmaster's house. She was brought up at Bluntisham Rectory, Cambridgeshire, and went to the Godolphin School, Salisbury, where she won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford. In 1915 she graduated with first class honours in modern languages. Disliking the routine and seclusion of academic life she joined Blackwell's, the Oxford publishers, worked with her Oxford friend Eric Whelpton at L'École des Roches in Normandy, and from 1922 until 1931 served as copywriter at the London advertising firm of Bensons.

In 1923 she published her first novel, Whose Body, which introduced Lord Peter Wimsey, her hero for fourteen volumes of novels and short stories. She also wrote four other novels in collaboration and two serial stories for broadcasting. Writing full time she rose to be the doyen of crime writers and in due course president of the Detection Club. Her work, carefully researched and widely varied, included poetry, the editing of collections with her erudite introductions on the genre, and the translating of the Tristan of Thomas from mediaeval French. She admired E C Bentley and G K Chesterton and numbered among her friends T S Eliot, Charles Williams and C S Lewis.

She married Arthur Fleming in 1926. In 1928 her father died at Christchurch in the Fens, his last parish, and she bought a cottage at Witham, Essex, to accommodate her mother. On the latter's death a year later she moved in herself and bought the house next door, No 22 Newland Street, to throw the two houses into one. There she worked until her death in 1957.

Gaudy Night was to be the culmination of the Wimsey saga, but her friend Muriel St Clare Byrne persuaded her to collaborate in putting Lord Peter on the stage in Busman's Honeymoon. The play was successfully launched in December 1936, and she gave up crime writing except for the book of the play and three short stories. With her new financial security she turned thankfully to the work for which she had been trained.

The stage fascinated her. She had already been asked to write a play, The Zeal of Thy House, for the Canturbury Festival. She followed this with six more, up to the Colchester Festival play, The Emperor Constantine in 1951. The most momentous was The Man Born to be King, written for broadcasting in children's hour at the request of the BBC. Her presentation of Christ's voice speaking modern English raised a storm of protest and revolutionised religious play-writing. Opposition stimulated her. She would never compromise where her art was concerned.

Her theology was traditionally Anglican with emphasis on doctrine. Every available moment of her time was spent writing, to the small hours of the morning. Letters, articles and essays streamed from her pen. The war led her to write Begin Here, followed by The Mind of the Maker, in which she compares the human with the Divine creator. She explored by-ways of knowledge, delighted in puzzles and enjoyed many a fight which she conducted with wit and good humour. Her formidable presence, magnificent brain and logical presentation put her in great demand as a lecturer. She worked with the Rev. Patrick McLaughlin at the St Anne's centre for Christian discourse and became in 1952 churchwarden of her London parish, St Thomas-cum-St Annes.

She found her culminating role after the war. Dante's writings had long intrigued her. Now she taught herself old Italian and made a translation in terza rima of The Divine Comedy unmatched for its popularity and the clarity of its notes. She also found time to finish her translation of the Song of Roland from the old French. But she unexpectedly died from heart failure on 17 December 1957 while engaged on Dante's third volume, Paradiso, and her friend Dr Barbara Reynolds completed her work. To the end she drove herself hard, living the philosophy she expressed in these words:
"The only Christian work is good work, well done"

The Man Born to be King is a radio drama based on the life of Jesus, produced and broadcast by the BBC during the Second World War. It is a play cycle consisting of twelve plays depicting specific periods in Jesus' life, from the events surrounding his birth to his death and resurrection. It was first broadcast by the BBC Home Service on Sunday evenings, beginning on December 21, 1941, with new episodes broadcast at 4-week intervals, ending on October 18, 1942. The series was written by novelist and dramatist Dorothy L. Sayers, and produced by Val Gielgud.

The twelve plays in the cycle are:
Kings in Judea
The King's Herald
A Certain Nobleman
The Heirs to the Kingdom
The Bread of Heaven
The Feast of Tabernacles
The Light and the Life
Royal Progress
The King's Supper
The Princes of This World
King of Sorrows
The King Comes to His Own

The project aroused a storm of controversy, even before it was broadcast. Objections arose to the very idea - atheists complained of Christian propaganda, while devout Christians declared that the BBC would be committing blasphemy by allowing the Christ to be impersonated by a human actor - and also to Sayers' approach to the material. Sayers, who felt that the inherent drama of the Gospel story had become muffled by familiarity and a general failure to think of its characters as real people, was determined to give the plays dramatic immediacy, featuring realistic, identifiable characters with human emotions and motivations. (And speech-patterns. The decision to have the characters speak in modern colloquial English was, by itself, the cause of much disquiet among those more used to hearing Jesus and his followers speaking in the polished and formal words of the King James Bible.)

In the event, although it continued to be criticised by conservative Christians - one group going so far as to proclaim the fall of Singapore in February 1942 to be a sign of God's displeasure with the series - The Man Born to be King was generally considered a great success, both as drama and as biblical representation.

The scripts of the series were first published in 1943[1], accompanied by a commentary by the author illuminating her attitude to the work and the reasoning behind particular aspects of her dramatisation. There have been many subsequent issues and editions.

(Serialised on BBC7 this week 9.15 -10.00 p.m.)

Feast of Title

St Saviour, Scarborough

The Feast of Title(rather than Patronal Festival) for a church dedicated St Saviour i.e. Jesus Himself is the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6th.

At our St Saviour's the feast was kept yesterday when Rt Rev Noel Jones, former Bishop in the Isle of Man, visited to celebrate and preach. He and his wife are now retired and living just outside Scarborough. He is a member of SSC like the incumbent priest, Fr Tony Mills.

When I began my ministry 50 years ago this summer it was in the Parish of St Saviour, Splott, cardiff. My only incumbency lasting 17 years was in the Parish of St Saviour, Fairweather Green, Bradford.

Who was St Saviour anyway? At a church named after Jesus Christ the Holy Saviour, Saint means Holy. The dedication of a church to Jesus in this way is more familiar in latinate forms: San Salvador, St Salvator etc.

The History of St Saviour's Church

The history of S. Saviour’s Church has its origins in a tiny mission church which was opened by the Rt Revd Brown-Borthwick in 1878. As the first vicar of All Saints Church in the Falsgrave he was keen to see that residents in the new housing being built on the northern side of his parish, had a place of worship within easy reach. A year later, the mission had been named S. Aidan’s and a remarkable man had been appointed to oversee its development. The Revd. William Frecheville Ramsden had come from S. Saviour’s Church in Leeds at the request of the Archbishop of York Rt Revd. William Maclagan. He refused to accept the stipend for his work as curate of All Saints and missioner to S. Aidan’s. Fr. Ramsden during his ten year curacy at Leeds had been powerfully influenced by the catholic worship and priestly ministry he had seen there. Dr Pusey (Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University) who had built the church in Leeds, had been at the forefront of the Tractanan Movement.

So successful was Fr Ramsden’s work that by 1898 the mission room situated in what is now known as Lower Prospect Road, was proving inadequate. In March of 1898 the Additional Curates Society gave a grant to appoint another curate to share in the work That same year funds were raised to purchase a site on Gladstone Road on which an iron church was built, which became affectionately known as “the tin tabernacle”. In 1901 the adjacent piece of land was purchased and the foundation to a permanent church laid in the December of that year. The new church was not dedicated to S. Aidan, but to S. Saviour, a tangible reminder of Fr Ramsden’s formative years in Leeds.

The building was designed by J. T. Micklethwaite, surveyor to Westminster Abbey and S. George’s Chapel, Windsor. The following year it became obvious that insufficient funds were available to allow the completion of the building. With the completion of the north aisle in 1902 the building was consecrated with a view to its being completed when funds allowed. However the building of the adjacent church of S. Columba’s, and the intervention of two World Wars, made the completion of S. Saviour’s Church impracticable.

Fr Ramsden was to remain vicar for 39 years. The church became a separate ecclesiastical parish from All Saints in 1904. In the 1970’s All Saints Church was closed and eventually demolished. The parish was once again united, this time under S. Saviour’s Church, hence its current designation: The Parish of S. Saviour with All Saints.

Jesus Our Friend

Col 1:24-28

Brothers and sisters:Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church,of which I am a minister in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God,the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.But now it has been manifested to his holy ones,to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles;it is Christ in you, the hope for glory. It is he whom we proclaim,admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom,that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.

Lk 10:38-42

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply,“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

Dulverton Sermon

In May 1944 there was a massive air raid on Trent in Italy during which a 24 year old Christian teacher, Chiara Lubich, sheltered with a few young girls in a dark cellar lit only by a candle. She had a New Testament and opened it at Jesus' prayer "Father, may they all be one". As they talked around this gospel word the group came to understand that it was for this very page of the gospel that they had been born. This prayer of our Lord became the ideal of their young lives and a new spiritual movement, Focolare, came into existence.

Chiara is now an old lady in her late 80s, one of the most remarkable women of her generation. I have had the privilege of meeting her at her home on the outskirts of Rome some years ago. The Focolare Movement is today numerically huge and located in every part of the world. Focolare means "hearth" or "fireside" and is a reflection of the fellowship of that first group in the bomb shelter gathered around a candle and a gospel word of unity. With Jesus in their midst they discovered a deep love for one another through his presence and a desire to replicate the experience in a myriad diverse communities where they, and their successors, were destined to live.

"The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory".

In today's gospel we find Mary and Martha welcoming Jesus into their home as a friend. His presence unites their complimentary expressions of love for him. Service and prayer are not in conflict but complimentary. We choose how best to serve when we pray about it first. Service is most effective when we pray about it afterwards. Mary did choose the better, the essential priority, in loving and serving the Lord.

I got up early one morning and rushed out into the day,
I had so much to accomplish that I didn't have time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me, and heavier came each task.
"Why doesn't God help me?" I wondered. He answered, "You didn't ask".

I wanted to see joy and beauty, but the day toiled on grey and bleak,
I wondered why God didn't show me, he said "But you didn't seek".
I tried to come into God's presence; I used all my keys in the lock.
God gently and lovingly chided, "My child, you didn't knock".

I woke up early this morning, and paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish, that I had to take time to pray.

Here in our chapel this morning we have candles and we have gospel but the mystery of Christ in our midst is even more evident as we come to the Lord's real presence in the eucharist.

"The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory".

Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ in His most Holy Sacrament:
Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ who comes to us in His most Holy Sacrament:
Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ who is in us through His most Holy Sacrament.

May God grant each of us today and through the coming week to know and to experience "the mystery of Christ" with us, in us, and through us.

Theotokos

St. Cyril of Alexandria
Feast day: June 27

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (June 27) Cyril was born at Alexandria, Egypt. He was nephew of the patriarch of that city, Theophilus. Cyril received a classical and theological education at Alexandria and was ordained by his uncle. He accompanied Theophilus to Constantinople in 403 and was present at the Synod of the Oak that deposed John Chrysostom, whom he believed guilty of the charges against him. He succeeded his uncle Theophilus as patriarch of Alexandria on Theophilus' death in 412, but only after a riot between Cyril's supporters and the followers of his rival Timotheus. Cyril at once began a series of attacks against the Novatians, whose churches he closed; the Jews, whom he drove from the city; and governor Orestes, with whom he disagreed about some of his actions. In 430 Cyril became embroiled with Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, who was preaching that Mary was not the Mother of God since Christ was Divine and not human, and consequently she should not have the word theotokos (God-bearer) applied to her. He persuaded Pope Celestine I to convoke a synod at Rome, which condemned Nestorius, and then did the same at his own synod in Alexandria. Celestine directed Cyril to depose Nestorius, and in 431, Cyril presided over the third General Council at Ephesus, attended by some two hundred bishops, which condemned all the tenets of Nestorius and his followers before the arrival of Archbishop John of Antioch and forty-two followers who believed Nestorius was innocent. When they found what had been done, they held a council of their own and deposed Cyril. Emperor Theodosius II arrested both Cyril and Nestorius but released Cyril on the arrival of Papal Legates who confirmed the council's actions against Nestorius and declared Cyril innocent of all charges. Two years later, Archbishop John, representing the moderate Antiochene bishops, and Cyril reached an agreement and joined in the condemnation, and Nestorius was forced into exile. During the rest of his life, Cyril wrote treatises that clarified the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation and that helped prevent Nestorianism and Pelagianism from taking long-term deep root in the Christian community. He was the most brilliant theologian of the Alexandrian tradition. His writings are characterized by accurate thinking, precise exposition, and great reasoning skills. Among his writings are commentaries on John, Luke, and the Pentateuch, treatises on dogmatic theology, and Apologia against Julian the Apostate, and letters and sermons. He was declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1882. His feast day is June 27th.

Collect

Father, the bishop Cyril courageously taught that Mary was the Mother of God. May we who cherish this belief receive salvation through the incarnation of Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

More from Clifford Longley

Tablet article extracts (see yesterday's blog conclusion)

A website exists where people are raising money to send a copy of Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" to every MP, so convinced are they that his arguments have only to be read to be accepted.

It is well known, though, that no one was ever persuaded that God existed or not by sheer rational argument. Or to put it the other way: if anyone was persuaded, it would not be God they had discovered the existence of, but something else. God is a person, not a thing. And that is the basic clue. A person is discovered in a relationship. The crucial test therefore is this: what impression would an honest and sincere seeker after truth form if they ventured into a relationship, no matter how tentative and with all options open, with, say, Jesus of Nazareth?

I would contend that after such an exercise most honest people would have to conclude that the story contained in the four gospels was weird, mysterious, profound and personally challenging. It defies all attempts to categorise, but it is impossible to dismiss as a fairy story. What other character in history or fiction has had such a story told about him?

And it is left open and uncertain, without a conventional ending. Is this man alive or dead? The story invites an intuitive encounter. Having encountered Jesus it may not be possible to live one's life without some sort of response.

Jesus points in the strongest possible way to the existence of God. Someone who did not know God, and read the Gospels, would no longer not know him. They may not welcome the knowledge. They may even stay atheists. But they will be changed atheists, even better atheists, never the same again.