Hello everyone

LENTEN REFLECTIONS WEEK 2

Last week Ash Wednesday heralded the beginning of the Season of Lent. Almost over a year ago we sent out our first prayer letter to our Churches Together. We have journeyed together praying for the world-wide pandemic Coronavirus and its effects on us all. On the journey we have had the opportunity to deepen our relationship with God through the many different avenues of prayer that we have been using. We have prayed, meditated, and reflected on God’s Word through the Scriptures and the thoughts of others.

Recently we have been using P.R.A.Y praying in the shape of LECTIO 365 a National & International Aid which exists to help us pray in groups or as individuals. The aim is that our prayers, wherever we are, at whatever time we pray, are being prayed to our Father in heaven 24-7 every day of the year.

Our opening Prayer will serve us for each week of Lent.

Christine and I are following the “Lenten Reflections on thirteen lesser reported followers of Jesus’ passion” By Rosemary Power’ A Wild Goose publication. www.ionabooks.com We invite you to join us each week for seven of these  Reflections as we lead up to Easter Day.

Opening Prayer

Lent is a time to learn to travel

Light, to clear the clutter

From our crowded lives and

Find a space, a desert.

Deserts are bleak; no creature

Comforts, only a vast expanse of

Stillness, sharpening awareness of

Ourselves and God

Uncomfortable places, deserts.

Most of the time we’re tempted to

Avoid them, finding good reason to

Live lives of ease; cushioned by

Noise from self-discovery.

Clutching at world’s success

To stave off fear.

But if we dare to trust the silence

To strip away our false security,

God can begin to grow his wholeness in us,

Fill up our emptiness, destroy our fears,

Give us new vision, courage for the journey,

And make our desert blossom like a rose.

From – ‘Waiting for the Kingfisher’ – Ann Lewin

WEEK TWO: A  SEEKER:  – MARTHA, PROPHET,

Martha (Luke 10:38–42; John 11:1–44,12:1–3)

I spread a table before him within reach of his foes. God called me to that.

I learnt at the hearth. God called me to that.

I witnessed his truth, I spoke the Word, Christ in the world, Resurrection and Life.

My sister surpassed me.

All time has remembered me.

When they retold the tale, they made Martha the fusspot, the irritant, interrupting the serious business with domestic detail. This was Martha, one of the few women Jesus called by her own name, dropping the usual formal title. ‘I have called you by your name, you are mine.’ ‘You are the Christ, who was to come into the world.’ ‘Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.’ Against all convention her name comes before her brother’s.

Martha the homemaker witnessed before them, that Jesus is the Christ. Who could bring the dead to life. Simon Peter witnessed in front of Jesus’ followers when he made his declaration of faith; Martha spoke it before the village and the visitors, some doubting, others hostile. When their enemies plotted to kill Jesus, and Lazarus too, Martha and her sister were in danger. She came to the party and served the meal, knowing of the plotting and what impact her words had had.

Jesus had once calmed Martha his host, brought her back to the central matters. Martha stood aside and let her younger sister surpass her. She cared for her brother, served Simon the Leper, saw Jesus for what he was,  and  risked repercussions.

We meet her in hospitals and churches, in the kitchen, in the meeting-place, in the wrong place, at the wrong moment, rustling the papers, keeping the church running, ordering the necessities, speaking the startling word of truth and generosity that comes from a lifetime of understated prayer. Martha is the necessary irritant, the reliable voice, the host with a heart for Christ. She hid Jews from Nazis, Tutsis from Hutus, Yazidis from Daesh, the trafficked from gangsters. The fusspot at the cooking served Christ in the world.

We give thanks …

For the people we underestimate, for those who appear to have no specific

talent but who make other work possible.

For those who have made the Word of God the study of a lifetime.

For those who take the call to hospitality to its fullness in welcoming the

needy and life-worn, the hurt and the homeless, the refugee and stranger.

We pray …

For the silent witness of courage and the public act. That we might have the

insight to speak of Christ in the right place, at the right time.

For the times when we see our work as undervalued by our fellow humans

and by God when it seems that the easy path is on the road of others.

For the people in our lives who have been scarred by sickness, isolation, and

neglect, that they may enjoy the fullness of life and may serve our society.

For the insight to understand and bear witness to God in the world, in the

light of the Resurrection.

We give thanks …

For the unsung witnesses who have passed to us the stories that make our

faith real.

For the steadfastness of friends who have stood by us in our times of trial.

For the joy that breaks through in unexpected ways.

We pray …

For those who follow, pray and pray and keep us practical.

For those who walk through the corridors of power and keep their eyes on

goodness.

For the strength of the marriage bond, that it may bring blessing on its partners

and on all whose lives it touches.

That we may be able to recognise the risen Christ in our daily lives and

among the people we meet.

Our own prayers …….. Lord’s Prayer ……

KEEP SAFE ….KEEP PRAYING……

Peter