St Wilfrid & Presentation Church, Haywards Heath St Patrick 17.3.21

Today the Christian world honours St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. As we do so our prayers join his for peace with justice in the land he first evangelised back in the 5th century especially in the wake of the ongoing Brexit settlement.

We can have no better thought, on St Patrick's Day, than his own famous invocation: Christ be beside me, Christ be before me, Christ be behind me, King of my heart.  Christ be within me, Christ be below me, Christ be above me, never to part.

St Patrick's breastplate, so called, is dear to both Catholics and Protestants in the Emerald Isle. Today's Saint helps us rise above denominationalism and sectarianism to Christ who is above all and in all.  

Jesus Christ is more real than any other reality in the world.  By his resurrection he is all present and all powerful.  "He is before us and behind us", as Patrick affirmed, "below us and above us".  In Christ all things were made and hold together.  By his blood, that of "an eternal Covenant", he is become "the Great Shepherd of the sheep" (Hebrews 13:20), desiring to bring us all into one fold.

With St Patrick today we magnify Christ knowing that it is the very purpose of the universe to be brought together in Jesus.  Christ is the centre of all things and he is drawing humankind into that centre we call the Communion of Saints.  

There is through another force and with that comes a tendency to division and separation. One of many endearing features of this great missionary Saint is his awareness of his sins. We forget that saints are sinners. Their great grace is the awareness of their sin. In the case of Patrick the awareness of God’s mercy in covering his sin made him the saint he was. He was all the better able to tell people of the Lord’s goodness.

I wonder what Patrick would make of our situation today? He’d rejoice that Jesus Christ is still a reality to so many in our land. He’d lament the divisions of both church and society. Perhaps above all he’d want to remind people to seek the Lord’s mercy.

The God who covers our individual sins when we seek him can also cover the sins of his church. No church or Christian anywhere exists without the grace and mercy of God. We all need mercy for the ways we’ve failed the Lord. The level playing field we must find is the ground at the foot of the Cross. To take up Patrick's breastplate, to make his prayer, is to put faith in the power of Christ following from there which overcomes the evil of sin within us. 

Take Christ, then, on your right hand, Christ on your left hand, Christ all around you, shield in the strife … light of your life. So be it!

[Image from Missionaries of the Sacred Heart website]

Giggleswick School OG Day 29.6.19 Isaiah 40:21-31

Life is full of goodbyes and that’s no bad thing.

We’ve just said goodbye to the Upper Sixth who’ve finished exams and left Giggleswick. Goodbye’s been said also to Year 11 already on Summer break after GCSEs and there’ll be more goodbyes next week when term ends.

The influx of OG’s today, including myself, who’ve been saying hello and goodbye to one another for years, demonstrates the truth of my proposal - goodbyes aren’t the end of the world, though sometimes they feel like it.

The etymology of goodbye is a help as well - it’s a shortened form of ‘God be with you’. We’re none of us apart from God the fount of life and love so when we say goodbye we stay with one another in a bigger context.

In 1966 (3) I said goodbye to Blewitt, Haygarth, Miller and Ormerod. We went our separate ways to pathology, teaching, finance and, in my case, research into Teflon then the Church - I’m known as the non-stick Vicar! Those men - we were all men then alas - those men stayed on my heart and we keep in touch. Our lives are intertwined - I’m godfather to some of their children - since that day half a century back when we struggled up Chapel Hill for leavers’ service.

As we leave Chapel today my prayer for you is that Chapel - especially the Dome - will stay in your mind and heart as a symbol of that truth of goodbye - God be with you. As we heard Isaiah reflecting just now: Have you not known? …. It is he who sits above the circle of the earth… who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in… Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted… but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Giggleswick School is proud owner of William Morrison’s God symbol bequest in which we gather this morning under the angels in Thomas Jackson’s octagonal dome. The combination of squares and circles in a dome symbolise union of earth and heaven. In ancient understanding the skies were a dome. Domed tents were associated with earthly rulers representing God who sits above the circle of the earth… stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in.  Under Chapel dome this morning there’s connection with one another beyond that of pupils, teachers and OGs. Though we periodically say goodbye to one another we remain on one another’s hearts and our prayer for one another seals that union.

A priest associated with a dome more famous even than Giggleswick’s said No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As an aside I find it fascinating that post Reformation Dean of St Paul’s John Donne saw human solidarity crossing the English Channel seeing our land as one with Europe. If and when we say goodbye to membership of the European Union may that sentiment continue. More than that, as Morrison built Chapel to point us east, may our mother Church of England keep solidarity with the holy, catholic church east of Dover. In both Brexits, Reformation and current, we shouldn’t see goodbye as a bad thing.

No man is an island Donne wrote. All of us connect, women and men, through the centuries and across the world. That connection is built from God as fount of life and love whether we acknowledge it or not. Those who do capture the further truth stated by Isaiah: Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted… but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

The Chapel Dome has a symbolism rather lost in a materialistic culture, lost as much as the deep meaning hidden in our saying ‘goodbye’ to one another. Last month we were in Venice attending worship in its 5 domed Cathedral when naturally I got thinking about this morning’s worship. Like Francis Jackson the architect of San Marco brought east west in designing Venice’s Basilica. As Latin chant echoed in the main Dome there we sensed God with us, just as today’s Anglican chant rising into this Dome lifts our hearts. Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Life is full of goodbyes and that’s no bad thing.

It’s no bad thing to pray God be with you. Next month rather than looking forward from Venice to being in Chapel I’ll be looking back from our home in Haywards Heath at the experience of OG Day. As I do so Blewitt, Haygarth, Miller, Ormerod and all of you will be on my heart as I continue to pray God be with you for you all. I dare to hope you too look back and pray for me and for us all.

As we reflect back day by day on those we’ve said hello and goodbye to we get  reminded they’re on our hearts and that those on our hearts are on the heart of God in whom we live and move and have our being.

Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted… but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles. Goodbye for now - God be with you!