Clergy Notes — Harvest Thanksgiving, October 13, 2024

Thankfulness in a time of peril is perceived in many varied ways. It can seem like an absurd, sick joke. It can be regarded as an escape hatch into a deluded world of magical thinking. It can be held as a life preserver, the only object between you and annihilation.

Thanksgiving in a time of peril means avoiding the temptation that gripped the Hebrew people in the absence of Moses. Frightened by the seeming absence of God, they seek solace in an idol whose only worth is material. Jesus’ boundless love summed up in his simple forgiveness of his lynch mob, impels me to another way of seeing. A way of seeing that is not determined by the loss of the lights in my life which have blinked out; but by the daily abundance of love expressed in the many gifts grief might otherwise obscure from my view. Jesus warns us that we cannot serve two masters – the material and the spiritual. One is limited and stingy; while the other is an eternal fountain of plenty.

God’s creation implies an economy of sharing made possible when we experience, deep in our soul, the epiphany that we really possess nothing except the tokens of love we are privileged to steward for a while. In all the endless ages of existence, God has spared us this moment to experience its glories. Even in a time of peril – and, maybe especially in a time of peril – it becomes almost impossible to withhold our thanksgiving and gratitude.

Following your heart, being open to transformation, and then allowing yourself to enter into that journey requires us to perceive the world and our place in it in a new way. Jesus invites us to form one attachment through which all other attachments are defined and made possible. He invites us to be oriented to God, to celebrate gifts and blessings where we find them, as we have them now, as we hold them in memory, as we anticipate them in the eternity that lies ahead.

And beyond celebration, we are asked to steward and share these gifts, for all that we have comes from God, and is returned to God – whether we choose to believe that reality and participate in it, or not. This is the living embodiment of thanksgiving – a daily occurrence, rather than an annual observance.

Revd. Neil Fernyhough

Click here to find the Liturgy at Home for Sunday, October 13, 2024.

/by

Clergy Notes — Dedication of St. James’ Church, October 6, 2024

This week the church celebrated the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. He has become one of the most popular and best loved of all the saints. Statues of him adorn many garden bird baths and his name is invoked when a yearly blessing is offered to our cats and dogs, birds and rabbits and the occasional police horse!

However, there is much more about this remarkable man that we can admire and try to emulate. Francis was born in about 1181 to a family who had made a great deal of money in the silk trade. He was indulged by his parents – enjoying expensive clothes, rich food and the company of amusing friends. However, disillusionment with the world that surrounded him came fairly early in his life. The story goes that when he was selling cloth on behalf of his father in the marketplace, he was approached by a man in rags asking for help. The contrast between his own charmed life and that of this beggar moved him towards compassion. He gave everything that he had in the business cash box to the man. It did not matter to Francis that his father was livid and his friends mocked him. He had begun to understand something of the Gospel call to see Christ in the poor and powerless.

Like many young men, Francis was fascinated by things military and enlisted in the army. He was involved in a military expedition against Perugia, delighting in the romance of battle, the strategy of campaigning and the camaraderie of other bellicose men. However, the reality and horror of warfare came home to him when he was taken prisoner at Collestrada. He was held captive for over a year in appalling conditions, becoming extremely ill. During his recovery, he spoke about the insanity of resorting to armed conflict as a way of settling a dispute.

These two “conversions” led him to a point where he was ready and willing to change his life completely. He built himself a wooden hut in the hills behind Assisi and attended the little chapel of St Mary of the Angels. One day in February 1208 he was at mass and the Gospel for the day was the commissioning of the twelve from Matthew. Francis immediately saw this as a summons to devote his life to the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. He donned a coarse woollen tunic (the dress then worn by the poorest Umbrian peasants) and tied a knotted rope around himself. He went throughout the countryside exhorting the people to the two things that had become the foundation of his new life – reaching out to love and support those in need and accepting the vital importance of peace. He soon attracted others to his way of life and he built a small community based in the deserted leper colony of Rivo Torto near Assisi. This is now, of course, regarded as the origin of what we now call the Franciscan Order.

May this remarkable man inspire us and pray for us.

Fr. Neil G.

Click here to find the Liturgy at Home for Sunday, October 6, 2024.

/by