St Richard, Haywards Heath Iraq 29.3.23

If Israel is the nation most mentioned in the Bible Iraq is second.

Is it so surprising, then, that the destiny of both nations continues to draw our prayers not least as we mark this month the 20th anniversary of our ill fated invasion of that land.

If the Garden of Eden was in Iraq it is the first place where God walked among us and Satan put his oar in!

Daniel’s lions’ den was in Iraq and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walked there in the fiery furnace, as described in today’s first reading from the book of Daniel Chapter 3. They were protected by a fourth man in that fire, one who ‘had the appearance of a son of god’.

Can we say that Jesus visited Iraq – and in a fiery furnace?

As we pray for that troubled land we can be sure the same Lord who suffered for us remains close to those who endure the ongoing furnace of conflict, not least Ukraine, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Yemen alongside Iraq and Israel-Palestine.

When we pray for anything, scripture says, Jesus prays with us and in us as he did for Shadrach, Meshach an Abednego.

Surely the Lord’s heart continues to be one with our hearts in being burdened  for lands dear to him since the foundation of the world?

No other nation, except Israel, has more biblical history and prophecy associated with it than Iraq the venue for the miracle in the first reading.

The Lord give us faith to see his hand working through history in this our day and recognise his call for us to pray for his possibilities to break in to make so many troubled lands lands of his favour.

As we prepare to pray for the wear zones of the world let’s keep silence reflecting on the word of God in the Gospel from St John Chapter 8: ‘if you make my word your home, you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free’ - you and many you pray for!

Gracious God, we pray for all persons suffering from war.

Transform the hearts and minds of all those who perpetuate violence and oppression. Grant wisdom to world leaders in advancing efforts toward world peace; may they not be compromised by self-interest and blind indifference.

Lord hear us

We lift to you the people of Ukraine, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Yemen alongside Iraq and Israel-Palestine. At the prayer of this Mass may your kingdom of justice, love and peace grow in those lands.

Lord hear us

We pray wisdom for Justin our chief Bishop, Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew, Martin our Bishop and all Christian leaders as they speak and work for well being in the world and the good of all who live in its troubled regions.

Lord hear us

Lord bless Charles our King and his ministers as they work for the common good in our own land, especially those sorely afflicted by the rise in the cost of living.

Lord hear us

 

St John, Burgess Hill & St Mary, Balcombe Lent 5(A) Resurrection of the Dead 26.3.23

We’re going really big picture this morning with readings that point to ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’. They’re a scene setter for the dramatic events of next week when we recall the death and resurrection of Our Lord which establishes our future and that of the cosmos. At the heart of Christianity is no theory or doctrine but a happening – Christ’s resurrection. This happening connects with us individually and corporately and has been spoken of by the prophets.

Our first reading takes us to the aftermath of a battle, a valley of dry bones and the prophecy of Ezekiel that these will rise. ‘Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people’. It links to the beginning of faith in the general resurrection of the dead on the last day which our Creed affirms in its last sentence.

In the second reading from the letter to the Romans St Paul presents Christ’s resurrection in relation to the raising up of individual believers by the Holy Spirit, who through baptism gives life to our spirits, but in anticipation of the corporate resurrection to glory of believers on the last day. ‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you’ (Romans 8:11). Even if our bodies remain subject to sickness and decay our sense of the Spirit indwelling us as believers renewed today in Holy Communion hints at an inner life that’s immortal. Healings and answers to prayer we experience in our lives over the course of earthly life are further manifestations of that resurrection life

The Gospel from John 11 is read today because it immediately precedes the events of Palm Sunday. Indeed the very sensation of the raising of Lazarus in St John’s account sets in train events which lead to his crucifixion. The story shows us both God’s compassion and power with Jesus weeping over his friend’s passing and raising him from the dead. It is Our Lord’s greatest miracle going beyond two other similar miracles with Jairus’ daughter and the widow of Naim’s son. The daughter had just died. The widow’s son had died probably earlier in the day as Jewish laws require interment within 24 hours. Lazarus had been dead for four days. Before raising his friend Jesus says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die’. (John 11:25-26) This statement is one of intent. Jesus acts upon it in three ways, praying effectively for Lazarus to be raised, going to his own death and then opening up a permanent resurrection in soul and body for all who live believing in him, individually and corporately. The whole point of Christian faith is this opening of humanity to a dimension of life beyond this world that will be finally revealed in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. 

Anne and I acted on this big picture of things when we made our funeral arrangements recently, agreeing our bodies be laid to rest after death in St Giles’ Churchyard in Horsted Keynes to await that general resurrection alongside the mortal remains of many friends in that community. Easter could be a time to revisit our funeral arrangements in thoughtfulness to those who will have to act for us after our death. ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to awaken him’ Today’s Gospel shows God’s viewpoint on the grave as a place of sleep, a sleep from which he can and will awaken us. The quietness of our cemeteries continues in anticipation of that awakening.   

When we see crops growing in the fields for harvest it inspires a larger thought.  What of all the goodness, truthfulness and beauty in human beings?  How will that end up?  Or the evil and deceitfulness?  The valleys of bones in Ukraine? Christian faith sees human history as part of the purpose of God that will climax in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  This climax is the separation promised by Jesus of the righteous and unrighteous to populate heaven and hell.     

In Christian tradition there are two resurrections for human beings. There is an individual resurrection of the soul at the moment of death and a general resurrection of the body that is part of the completion of God’s plan at the Lord’s return when the destinies of individuals finally become part of the corporate resurrection when, as Paul puts it again, God will become ‘everything to everyone’ (1 Corinthians 15:28). Scripture witnesses two ultimate destinies, heaven and hell, populated by people in body as well as soul. The catholic tradition affirms an antechamber to heaven where unrepented sins are dealt with called variously purgatory or paradise.

Christianity centres on the body of Christ. Believers are part of that body. They are incorporated by baptism and in an ongoing manner through holy communion. The resurrection body is a fulfilment of this incorporation. Jesus promises that ‘those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day’ (John 6v54). In the same way Paul teaches in today’s passage that ‘the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you… giv[ing] life to your mortal bodies (Romans 8v11). The joy the Lord gives to our spirit is destined to expand and fill the universe in the resurrection of the dead at his return.

Surely heaven is automatic when you die?  Some say.  No.  Life is short.  Death is certain and there are two destinies beyond it of joy and of misery.  Christ made this clear. He also spoke of joy in heaven over every soul that opens itself to him.  ‘There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8v1).  If we live life apart from Christ we miss out in this world and the next. Scripture is plain that this life is preparation for the next and has eternal consequences. At the last it will be a case of my will be done or God’s will be done.     

As we prepare for Easter and the renewal of our baptismal promises we seek a fuller surrender of our lives to the God and Father of Jesus who has prepared for us good things that pass our understanding. Our priests are available for counsel and confession to serve that surrender. With Martha in today’s Gospel let us make an act of faith: ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are … the Son of God’. May the devout celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection bring death to more of our sins, fresh life in the Holy Spirit and a more confident looking forward to ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’. 

St Richard, Haywards Heath Annunciation Feast 25th March 2023

 

As a beautiful hymn summarises the last verses of the Gospel we just heard: ‘Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head. ‘To me be as it pleaseth God.’ She said.’ 

‘To me be as it pleases God’. This morning God wants our Yes, our Amen to the Body of Christ - a Yes from the depth of our heart of allegiance to Christ on his Mother’s Feast Day.

We say Yes as Mary did because God has said Yes to us through his stated plan to establish and gather together all things in Christ.

He needs our Yes as he did Mary’s for that to be accomplished. Yes to the unification of the cosmos which Christianity is set to achieve.

Let’s look at how your Yes or my Yes might be voiced this morning.

As we get close to Holy Week maybe a decision to attend services as we are able expressing obedience to God and his Church.

There may be something more specific and personal, a scheme ahead that’s very right for you and yours but requires a decision, a calculated risk, a leap of faith, a costly Yes. Say it maybe this morning at this eucharist.

Or it might be some circumstance begging from you a more profound surrender to your state of life. So often the answer to our problems lies in changing the way we look at them. In particular adopting positive resignation to the will of God in our circumstances. Sometimes we lack joy and gladness and that deficit traces to a fighting of harsh circumstances that need acceptance, so we do well to pray with Mary, ‘Yes, Lord, be it unto me according to your will’. 

God sought Mary’s Yes and he seeks ours so he can anoint us as he anointed her with his Holy Spirit. He seeks our gifts to be employed for his praise and service. In the frustrations we bear it is good to be reminded that God seeks our Yes before he seeks our success both as individuals and as a church. ‘To me be as it pleaseth God.’ So be it!

St Richard, Haywards Heath Mount Sinai & Mount Calvary 15.3.23

In 2020 I visited the William Blake exhibition at Tate Britain in London and among the exhibitions was this sketch of Moses receiving the Law made around 1780. 

Blake, famous as author of the poem Jerusalem our unofficial English anthem, captures the contrast between Christ and Moses in his poem ‘The Everlasting Gospel’:

"Jesus was sitting in Moses Chair/They brought the trembling Woman There 

Moses commands she be stoned to Death/What was the sound of Jesus breath/

He laid his hand on Moses Law/The Ancient Heavens in Silent Awe/

Writ with Curses from Pole to Pole/All away began to roll"/

In today’s eucharistic readings we focus on the gift of God’s Law through Moses fulfilled in Christ. In Deuteronomy 4 we heard how keeping the Law among Jews would lead to other nations applauding them as a godly people. Our Lord in the Gospel passage from Matthew 5 insists he has not come ‘to abolish but to complete’ the Law and the Prophets. He goes on to say the one ‘who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven’. 

It is important to see the severity of this Gospel passage in context. It follows the key teaching of the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount which summarises the Law of Moses in the commandment to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself. St Matthew’s Gospel is addressed to Jewish Christians so it emphasises the continuity between Moses and Christ with both going up a mountain to teach. Blake’s impressive figure of Moses receiving the Law up in the clouds of Mount Sinai is fulfilled by Christ both on the Mount of Beatitudes and Mount Calvary. ‘The curses roll from pole to pole’ on account of Our Lord’s conquest upon the Cross of the power of sin which defeated the Law of Moses again and again in the experience of God’s people. When they brought a woman caught in adultery Jesus in Blake’s words ‘laid his hand on Moses Law’ as he breathed in the Spirit and asked who would cast the first stone. Such a radical challenge to the religious authorities condemning sin but loving the sinner prepared the way for Our Lord’s execution. His death and resurrection overcame sin through the power of God as well as useless condemnation of powerless sinners. We are saved by that gracious power not by dutiful allegiance to Law.

The good news of Christianity does not abolish the Ten Commandments but goes to the heart of what it means to obey them. When we see our obedience to what is right as a response to God’s love shown to us in Christ it flows in a new way empowered by the Holy Spirit. That tenth commandment - you shall not covet - is against a transgression of the heart impossible to counter without the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the Sermon on the Mount Our Lord reveals the heart of human disobedience rests in the human heart with its envy, greed and lust. After teaching this Our Lord released the grace for us to cleanse and mould our hearts so as to more perfectly love God and neighbour. This grace comes at immense cost to himself, dying in our place as sinners so as to live in our place by the Holy Spirit. This is the centre of Lenten devotion.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

 

St Mary, Balcombe Lent 3 Gaining the Holy Spirit 12th March 2023

A good question for Lent raised vividly by today’s scripture readings is ‘How can we gain more of the Holy Spirit?’

In the reading from Exodus Moses sorted the grumbling of the Israelites by asking God’s intervention, striking the rock to gain water, symbol of the Holy Spirit. Mid-Lent is a grumbly time I find, sticking at your resolutions, yet a time to seek more of the Spirit.

The Romans reading reminds us how the death of Our Lord reconciles us to God through the Holy Spirit poured into hearts once they open to him. That gift, like Lent, is a character builder linked to cheerful bearing of hardship and building hope. To quote Chapter 5 verses 4 to 6: ‘Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for us’.

The holy Gospel from Saint John Chapter 4 has several themes including: Our Lord’s declaration that he is the promised Messiah, the way Jesus exposes our sin as we get into relationship with him, the transcending of religious divides through Christ as between Jews and Samaritans and the nature of worship as something offered in spirit and truth. The major component of the Gospel though, which I am picking up on this morning, is Our Lord’s request for water leading into his own offer of the water of life, the Spirit of God, to believers.

My wife Anne is an artist and sometimes produces sermon illustrations for me. With the tighter spatial arrangement in St Mary’s I thought it worth bringing four of these to underline the invitation to gain the Holy Spirit. The first one represents Our Lord’s invitation in John 4 verses 13 and 14

 ‘Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”.

Our Lord repeats his invitation later on in his Gospel, John 7 verse 37: ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit’.

In Lent we get a grand reminder of the grace of God, how Jesus came ‘that we might have life and have it to the full’ John 10v10. 

How can we gain more of that life, more of the Holy Spirit? 

We can do so because it's God’s desire for us to have that life within us, immortal life, preserving us body and soul for everlasting life. God’s desire is plain but it needs complementing by our own. We can only gain more of the Holy Spirit by building thirst for God to come more fully into our lives. 

Which brings me to a second biblical image, that of spiritual thirst.

It depicts Psalm 42 verse 1: ‘As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God’.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord presents the satisfying of physical thirst as a pointer to his desire to satisfy our needs, top of which is to live not so much in our own power as in partnership with the loving power of the Holy Spirit.

As we heard in today’s second reading ‘God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’

How can we gain more of the Holy Spirit? In Lent many of us are taking time out to attend extra services, pray, study the Bible together, serve others and to reflect more profoundly upon the love of God for us and the shortfall in the way we love him back as individuals. Our priests, by the way, are always available to provide spiritual guidance and you can fix meetings with them to talk through your pursuit of spiritual empowerment in the run up to Easter.

I myself have benefited from listening to The Message paraphrase of the Bible on audio. It took me five months but was so worthwhile. Two weeks ago I went to Crawley Down monastery for three days pondering how to gain more of the Holy Spirit. I was praying, among other things, about the struggle we have at home with a family member diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. A remarkable insight came to me linked to the Holy Spirit which I thought I’d share. 

When memory fades you live more in the present moment. This means being left behind somewhat by family and friends with busy diaries and work and recreational commitments. Santa Montefiore has published a best seller entitled ‘Here and now’ telling the tale of a family impacted by dementia and the book title says it all. Are we not meant to attend to every moment of life as best we can, to be present here and now? And God - this was my thought on retreat - God too is found in the here and now. Not by pondering the past or the future. I know we have to do that for all sorts of reasons. The Holy Spirit though has been defined as God in the present moment. Living with dementia is potentially living with God and others close to you and the joy of living in God’s presence is often manifest in those suffering this ailment.

As we deepen our thirst for the Spirit may we be guided to inhabit the present moment with less regret about the past or anxiety about the future. This brings me to Anne’s last drawing:

A drinking trough which has water coming into it and out of it. Would the water be safe for your dog? Yes because it has both inlet and outlet.  Water pools go stagnant when they lack either an inlet or an outlet. So it is with our souls. They go stagnant unless they receive from God and give to God. 

To gain more of the Holy Spirit this Lent mean’s our worshipping, praying, studying, serving and reflecting more, yes, but may Lent’s fruit be a fresh capacity to live in the present moment with God and whoever he puts in front of us. 

‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit’. 

So let’s attend to God ‘Here and Now’ in the present moment, for a minute or two, before we profess our faith, as the choir sings.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Lent 2 Interfaith issues 5 March 2023

If the eight billion inhabitants of the world were but 100 we’re told there’d be: 31 Christians, 25 Muslims, 15 Hindus, 5 Buddhists and 24 people of other religion or none. Given these statistics, we, as Christians, need discernment over how we share about Christ and engage in as positive a way as we can in a context where awareness of the variety of religions is widespread.

I want to get us thinking about all of this on a Sunday when the Lectionary centres helpfully on Abraham as father of faith. He is so for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the so-called Abrahamic faiths. In our first reading from Genesis God promises to Abram I will bless you and make your name great. So he has, as Paul says in his letter to the Romans, Abraham is the father of us all. His faith as a Jew is in the same God we put faith in who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4:17-18). 

Our worship at Mass reminds us of our Jewish roots, especially the offertory prayers over the bread and wine and the text and chant leading up to the Eucharistic prayer as well as the whole idea of ‘eucharist’ or berakah, thanksgiving.

Let’s go back though, thinking beyond the three Abrahamic religions, to list five approaches to the varieties of religion in the world today since we want to get our minds and hearts engaged with this key issue. It’s key if only because though in a sense religion is God-given it’s also heavily man-handled – even the Christian religion - and hence a source of division in the world. 

This morning’s teaching is important since, as Hans Kung once said, there’ll be no peace in the world without peace between religions and no peace between religions without understanding between religions. Put this morning down to our going for deeper understanding from a Christian vantage point.

There are five possible approaches to the existence of different religions:

• All religions are false

• One religion only is true, the others completely false

• One religion only is true, the others mere approximations or distortions

• All religions are true in what they agree about; and false wherever they disagree

• All religions are true and any contradictions are superficial.

‘All religions are false’ is the first approach and you hear it voiced from time to time especially after atrocities committed in the name of religion. Hardest hitting book is Brian Leiter’s Why Tolerate Religion

‘One religion only is true, the others completely false’ is a view we can quickly gauge from ‘door to door religion sales folk’, parish priests excepted – I mean Jehovah’s Witnesses and to some extent Mormons. Roman Catholics were said to hold ‘outside the church there is no salvation’ but  now clearly deny they do so, with recent teaching accepting in some degree the baptised of any Church and looking positively, from a salvation angle, on all who follow their conscience.

As you can guess as a good Anglican I’m aiming for the middle thesis that ‘one religion only is true, the others mere approximations or distortions’. I’ll come back to this.

‘All religions are true in what they agree about; and false wherever they disagree’ may have some truth about it in identifying a hierarchy of truth but it is over optimistic about the clash of truth claims there is between religions.

Lastly ‘All religions are true and any contradictions are superficial’.

Again too optimistic – some of you may have heard this very beguiling story along those lines from Sussex priest Kevin O’Donnell’s book ‘Inside World Religions’: ‘There were five blind Hindu holy men on the banks of the Ganges. A tame elephant wandered among them one day. One reached out and touched its body; he thought it was a wall of mud. One touched its tusks and thought these were two spears. One touched its trunk and thought it was a serpent. One touched its tail and thought it was a piece of rope. The last one laughed at them and held onto its leg. He said it was a tree after all. A child walked by and asked, ‘Why are you all holding the elephant?’

The story is quite seductive, a sort of ‘plague on all your houses’ that fits those who say ‘all religions lead to God’. The parable is used by Hindus to teach each faith has the truth but not the complete picture. 

So where does this lead us? As I said earlier to the third thesis that one religion only is true, the others mere approximations or distortions’ which is the consensus of most Christian churches.

In John chapter 14, verse 6 Christ said: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me’ and in Chapter 18 v38; ‘Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.’ 

If everyone believed that life would be simpler and I wouldn’t be speaking as I am this morning!   Putting it in a more challenging way to you and I, the existence of other religions is proof of our failure to meet with Jesus at a deep level and become the heart to heart draw we’re meant to be through his magnetic love. 

What though of those who’re drawn elsewhere? We see distortions of Christ’s truth in faiths and also approximations.  If you read my book Meet Jesus it has a section on how I see other faiths where I write: 

‘Saying yes to Jesus does not mean saying ‘no’ to everything about other faiths. It can mean saying ‘yes, but…’ or rather ‘yes, and…’ to other faiths, which is a far more engaging and reasonable attitude.

I say ‘yes’ to what Buddhists teach about detachment because Jesus teaches it and Christians often forget it. At the same time I must respectfully question Buddhists about the lack of a personal vision of God since I believe Jesus is God’s Son.  

I say ‘yes’ to what Muslims say about God’s majesty because sometimes Christians seem to domesticate God and forget his awesome nature. At the same time, I differ with Muslims about how we gain salvation, because I believe Jesus is God’s salvation gift and more than a prophet.’

Other faiths can wake us up to aspects of Christian truth that might otherwise get forgotten. What might happen if Christians were as serious in their spiritual discipline as many Buddhists are? What might happen if Christians knew their Bible as well as many Muslims know the Koran, and were as committed to seeing the values of their faith respected in wider society’.

In conclusion I invite you to reflect from your own experience asking yourself the question ‘What good do I see in people of other faith?’ Then, mindful that God so loved the world he gave us his only Son, think about the applicability of the question ‘Can religion lead you to God?’ Our faith sees religion as expressing love in return for love. In Christianity it is God who leads us to God.

So it is this morning in the eucharist – we can lift our hearts to God in the eucharist only because God so loved us as to give us Jesus whose word and body are the subject of this service.

St Richard, Haywards Heath St David’s Day 1.3.23

Introduction to Mass

March begins in the church calendar with St David’s Day. With the Welsh people we celebrate a bishop who was truly apostolic founding monasteries and churches from Wales across to Brittany. Born around the year 500 St David is acclaimed as patron saint of Wales where today he is honoured by a solemnity with both Creed and Gloria at Mass. In England we break Lent for his Feast with special readings and we recite the Gloria. Not long before he died David gave this advice: ‘Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do’. As we begin Mass we call to mind such little things in our life, our failure to do them to God’s praise and service let alone the times we do things to our own praise and service.

Homily 

I sometimes think of the forward progress of our Christian Faith as being like a relay race.  You know - the baton goes forward but is handed on again and again by a series of runners. The apostle Paul who talks in our Philippians reading of ‘running the race’ of faith speaks a couple of times about ‘handing on’ what he received from the Lord.  Through eighty generations the Gospel has been handed on, brought forward right up to this day.

In this process the apostolic succession of bishops has played a key role.  Christ sent his apostles and they sent the bishops, who in turn consecrated new bishops in succession over 2000 years. Even if the baton got dropped a few times, so to speak, many see in the episcopal government of the church a sign of the continuity of Christian Faith.

‘As the Father sent me, so I send you’ said the Lord – and still he sends apostles and missionaries to places of his choosing.  In the sixth century it was David to Wales, as earlier it was Patrick to Ireland and Peter to Rome.  Today there are missionary bishops in Nigeria and The Society has recently received a new missionary Bishop of Oswestry, Fr Paul Thomas. 

The handing forward of the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ may be a special responsibility for Christian leaders but it is the responsibility of all the baptised. So we heed Our Lord’s invitation in the Gospel to be salt and light in our circle, in Haywards Heath and its surrounds, and the invitation of Paul in the Philippians  reading to ‘strain ahead… for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus’. 

Lord, may the Feast of St David renew our zeal to spread the fragrance of Jesus all over this land.  Amen.