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SIGNPOSTS
May
Dear Friends
I wonder what you are doing to celebrate the 50 days of Easter? I have to confess, I hadn’t considered this possibility before reading Mark Robert’s Blog# and it has got me thinking about patterns of fasting and feasting. It seems to me that as we in the Western world have become ‘more developed’; being able to get all manner of fruit and vegetables out of season, our increasing move toward a café culture with its opportunities for specialist cakes and pastries, the relaxation on opening hours, it isn’t easy to know which is a fast day and which is a feast day. In fact, in many parts of our Cities it feels as though everyday is a feast day and while this might enable us to eat a healthier diet, having access to our 5 a day, it can also leave us feeling full and sated everyday and in doing so we can lose the contrast between these two F words, so that our fasting is undisciplined and our feasting lacks a depth of joy that comes from keeping these disciplines.
Well, as Dr. Robert’s muses, surely celebrating 50 days of Easter doesn’t mean more Easter egg hunts, or new clothes or gorging ourselves on chocolate, no matter how much the latter might appeal to the chocoholics among us. Indeed, he suggests that we might contemplate various aspects of the resurrection; such as:
- Meditating upon what the resurrection says about the character of Jesus Christ as the Righteous One of God (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:25-28).
- Pondering the fact that death has been swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54-56).
- Reflecting upon the fact that the very power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to you today (Ephesians 1:15-23).
- Thinking about how the resurrection of Jesus is a precursor to your own resurrection (1 Corinthians 15).
- Considering how the resurrection gives us “new birth into a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3).
For myself, I find I am ruminating on the subtle and seductive power of resignation as opposed to the liberating and transformative power of resurrection life and reflecting on those areas of my life and our corporate life where we have chosen or found ourselves sleep walking into resignation, rather than embracing the promise of ‘life in all its fullness’ that Jesus resurrection offers to the whole of creation.
In practical terms, this means making time and space to be in the presence of the ‘Divine’. To practice attending to those activities or places that allow a taste of the Ascension, which for me dove tails with the Celtic notion of a ‘thin place’ where the boundaries between earth and heaven seem thin and therefore, where God’s presence or the presence of the divine, feels particularly close, physically. Places where our distress is quietened, loved and delighted over, in the presence of the beloved. A place where we experience the words of Zephaniah (3:17) as our own: ‘God in our midst, the Mighty One, will save; will rejoice over you with gladness, will quiet you with love and will rejoice over you with singing’.
From this place we can rise as Easter people, singing resurrection life and blessing wherever we travel and to whomever we meet. Alleluia, Alleluia!
May 6th. Easter 5 (LA on holiday)
EOD 9.30am
St. James 11am
Llanlleonfel 11.15am
Llanganten 11.15am Morning Prayer
May 13th Rogation Sunday, Christian Aid Week begins
EOD 9.30am Congregational
St. Cadmarch 9.30am
St. James 11am
Thursday May 17th. Ascension Day
Please join us for this Deanery Communion Service at St. Cadmarch’s , Llangammarch at 7.30pm. Guest Preacher: Rev Helen Rees of Holy Trinity, Llandrindod.
May 20th. Ministry and Calling Sunday
Joint benefice service at EOD 11am
Confirmation service with the Right Reverend Bishop John Davies, followed by blessing of the new annexe.
Monday 21st May. A week of prayer begins for Wales
May 27th. Pentecost
EOD 9.30am
St.Cadmarch 9.30am
St. James 11am
NB: Unless stated, services will include Holy Communion.
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