Author: stmelangell_l5nfea

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me.” Jesus, in Matthew 10:40-42.

‘The greatest natural broadcaster of them all.’ The Daily Telegraph’s tribute to radio commentator Brian Johnstone on his death in 1994. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus is giving his disciples their final instructions and encouraging them before they are sent out to take his message of God’s love to those who have not yet heard it. He says that those who welcome them are also welcoming God because they come in his name and Jesus also tells his disciples that even simple gestures such as giving water to those who need it will be rewarded. Then, entire communities were represented by the individual who arrived and so hospitality was much more widely significant. A mixed reception would await Jesus’ followers due to their controversial message but many would receive them well just as others would ignore them and, in doing so, block God too. 

I heard this Bible passage with very mixed feelings as BBC Radio Four can no longer be received on Long Wave now and the sometimes crackly programmes heard for so long are no longer being transmitted on this frequency. Here, 198 LW has always had much better reception than the alternative 92-95 FM, which is locally unobtainable for some unknown reason. Fortunately, my IPad will now provide the programmes of this network but I remember as a teenager listening to them on my little transistor radio under the bedclothes late at night when I was supposed to be asleep. The music before the shipping forecast, Sailing By composed by Ronald Binge, was better than any lullaby and the names of the sea areas it was being transmitted to with the thought of the sailors depending on it for their safety made the broadcasts a vivid experience. So did Test Match Special when the TV was turned down in favour of the radio commentary by Brian Johnston and others whose knowledge, fondness for cake and sometimes uncontrollable laughter was wonderful to hear. 

BBC radio long wave began in 1934 when the Droitwich, Burghead and Westerglen transmitter masts made it a national service. These powerful transmitters meant that the signal could be received far out to sea, hence the importance of the shipping forecast, and also the role played by the BBC in European communications during World War. However, the technology is now becoming obsolete and, after 92 years, the masts are showing their age so their operator Arqiva has closed them down – my radio is crackly no longer but its silence is worse! The digital service is much clearer and the range of programmes still available so, although this is the end of an era, a new one begins as the memories and connection created for people in remote places continues in this different way. 

In the remote location here at St Melangell’s, the floor in front of the altar is made of recycled slate slabs, some of which have the stonemason’s engravings on them. The central slab carries the initials E T and, as this work was done when the film about this Extra Terrestrial alien was popular, it may be that it was those relaying the slabs here who added them rather than the original masons! The slogan from the film was E T phone home and so it seems appropriate to have these initials in the chancel as prayer could be said to be, in a sense, calling home to God’s house and tuning in to the prayerful messages sent and received. 

The term ‘broadcasting’ originated in seed being cast widely as it was scattered by hand in the fields, which would have been a familiar sight for Jesus’ first disciples. With their face to face method of broadcasting their news, what would they have thought of today’s astounding technology where so many people can be reached anonymously? Ironically, there are now so many forms of media providing such a wide range of services that information can easily be drowned out and it can be hard to tune in to God’s call in life today. What messages are we transmitting and receiving today that will enable the Good News still to be heard?

With my prayers; pob bendith, 

Christine, Priest Guardian. 

‘When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless…’ From today’s Gospel, Matthew 9:35-10:8.

“Pain is the first proper step to real compassion; it can be a foundation for understanding all those who struggle with their existence.” David Whyte, poet.

In the Gospel today, Jesus is continuing his ministry of teaching, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing those who come to him. Matthew writes that he healed every disease and every sickness – this is a comprehensive and sustained outreach to all he meets. As he does this, Jesus realises how harassed and helpless the crowds are and he asks his disciples to pray for more workers as “the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few.” He then sends out twelve of them to begin to supply this need – in other words, they are to answer their own prayer through their own actions and responses to what he commands. They are not to seek payment and are to go first to those with whom they are familiar, Jews rather than Gentiles or Samaritans who were the traditional enemy of the Jews. However, by the end of Matthew’s gospel, women, Gentiles and Samaritans will have been included – a sign of Jesus’ widening understanding of what is being asked of him. As Jesus instructs his disciples, he again uses the imperative – this is another command, not an option. They are to do this and be part of the answer to what is needed in the face of so much need.

So many years later, there is still much need and so many people who feel harassed and helpless about what is happening in life today with others being disaffected or unable to discover how to overcome this. Amongst them are NEETs, those not in education, employment or training: in the UK, 1,012,000 young people aged 16 to 24 years were NEET in March 2026. That’s a shocking 13.5% of that whole age group and there are many suggestions why this is happening, yet being labelled as Not anything is unlikely to help. What Is the potential for change and healing? 

Nowadays, the work of healing is mainly undertaken by the NHS and health care professionals although the costs are huge, more resources are needed and waiting lists are lengthy. Here in Powys, the largest county in Wales, there is no major hospital and some patients have to travel to either Gobowen, near Oswestry, or Shrewsbury – both in England – to receive treatment, for which a wait of 104 weeks is sometimes imposed by the Welsh government. As the latest resident doctors’ strike has now been cancelled with hopes rising that a settlement may have been reached in the long-running dispute, waiting times may begin to improve. 

What prayers are we praying for those who are in need of healing or are harassed and helpless – and, like  those first disciples, how could we be part of a compassionate and active response to our own prayers?

With my prayers; pob bendith,

Christine, Priest Guardian.

“Go and learn what this means, ’I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” Jesus, quoting the prophet Hosea, in today’s Gospel Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26.

“What would you stop to bless and caress/ if you believed that blessing could address/ our painful illusions of brokenness?” Bernadette Millers, poet. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus calls a tax collector to follow him – and what if he had not? For that man, loathed as he was for working for the occupying power to implement taxation and doubtless creaming off some of the profits for himself, went on to become the saint whose Gospel bears his name, dying for the faith he proclaimed as one of the Apostles. Jesus must have seen something in Matthew that he didn’t yet discern in himself and when he calls him, it’s an imperative Jesus to uses: an order. Matthew had a choice, however, to follow him or to remain with his money and his familiar way of life, but it seems that he got up and left all this. Matthew didn’t choose Jesus – Jesus chose him. And so, in the ordinariness of working life, as for Peter and Andrew whilst casting nets at sea, or James and John whilst repairing their nets with their father, a new way of life and faith intervenes so unexpectedly. 

It’s the same for the other tax collectors and those ‘sinners’ who meet with Jesus as he eats at Matthew’s house where many shunned by the law gathered with him. The Pharisees see this and complain about it but Jesus tells them that it is the sick who need a doctor and gives them another imperative: “Go and learn…” Yet it is a leader of the synagogue, one abiding by the religious laws of the day, who allows his need of healing for his daughter to overcome all this as he asked for Jesus’ help. At this, now it’s Jesus who gets up and follows him just as a woman with gynaecological problems also comes to Jesus wanting to touch his cloak. Under the rules of the time, Jesus would be expected to avoid both a woman and the bleeding from which she had been suffering for twelve years but he responds immediately to her and tells her that her faith has made her well. The faith of the synagogue leader also makes his daughter well, although the professional mourners at her house laugh when Jesus says she is not dead. As with Matthew, there is no questioning or checking from Jesus about their status – both find healing because of their faith in him. It is the religious people of the day who doubt him.

What Jesus does reminds his followers that faith is not found in the regulations and rules drawn up by religious people but in the need, dirt and mess of human beings encountering Jesus’ healing and ministry as lives are changed and hope is answered. Just as he told the Pharisees to learn to show mercy rather than sacrifice, so the same is true today. Jesus isn’t saying that ritual and worship don’t matter but that love and mercy are more important as he reaches across boundaries and conditional treatment that isolates those in most need. In responding to the included and excluded alike, the outsider and those within, Jesus mixes up the traditional thinking of his day as the distressed and suffering people around him find a welcome and response that the synagogue – and some churches today? – would have withheld due to them being thought to be unclean. The leader and the woman are both unnamed – but they find the healing they seek through God’s love and care for all humanity, not just a religious few.

It’s clear from much happening nationally as well as internationally today that the rules and traditions of our time are being reinterpreted in ways that often bring isolation or sacrifice rather than healing and mercy. Who are those who have been merciful to us and are there perhaps ongoing situations in our own lives, families and communities where, like the Pharisees challenged by Jesus, we also need to go and learn the greater importance of showing mercy to others rather than sacrifice? 

With my prayers; pob bendith,

‘Jesus breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”’ From today’s Gospel, John 20:19-23.

This is not the usual account of Pentecost, that given in Acts chapter 1 where Luke tells of the coming of the Holy Spirit as tongues of flame and a rushing, mighty wind. This is St John’s account of Jesus appearing to his bewildered followers who have betrayed and deserted him and now locked themselves in the Upper Room in Jerusalem out of fear of what may happen next. They’re also endeavouring to come to terms with his terrible death and rumours that he may be alive. Amidst this turmoil, rather than giving up on the disciples, Jesus comes to them and says, “Peace be with you” as he shows them the marks of the wounds he suffered. Seeing his scars, the disciples realise that this really is Jesus and not only does he bring them peace, Jesus breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This gentle breath, rather than the mighty wind of Acts, is what those frightened disciples needed as their lives begin to be transformed by the love of Jesus and, despite their failings, they are then commissioned by him to forgive sins, just as they have been forgiven. That same spirit and transformation is still at work today as, despite the turmoil and uncertainty of our world and lives now, we too can find the peace and hope that Jesus still brings to his followers, even if we struggle to understand or accept what is happening, like those first disciples. 

This compassion and gentleness was also shown in the life of Melangell as she came to terms with profound change here in the valley after rescuing a hare and refusing to hand it over to Brochwel, Prince of Powys. As her feast day is marked today, thanks are given for Melangell’s life, example and church in the following prayer, found in the archives here:

We thank you, Lord God, for the life and prayer of your servant, Melangell. May her care and compassion for all your creatures inspire us in our day with the same concern for all that you have made. May we, with her learn, to find your glory in the world around us and in all that you give us. We ask this in the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

With my prayers,

Christine, Priest Guardian.

“I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had in your presence before the world began.” Jesus in today’s Gospel, John 17:1-11. 

‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive.’ BishopIrenaeus.

Today’s Gospel is taken from the High Priestly prayer of Jesus in St John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper he shares with the disciples before his crucifixion. In it, Jesus says that the hour has come and asks that God will glorify him so that God will be glorified. 

Giving glory to God is a fundamental part of worship, or worth-ship, as God is praised and honoured through the liturgy offered during services. The Gloria Patri, Glory be…is said at the end of every psalm, with the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the ancient Christian hymn of praise, echoing the song of the angels at the  birth of Jesus: Glory be to God on high. Psalm 19 proclaims the glory of the Creator as seen in creation: The heavens are telling the glory of God and the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer is that Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.’ And yet, Jesus speaks of glory knowing that betrayal, arrest, injustice and agony lie ahead. At the crucifixion, he is glorified – but his throne is a cross and his crown is of thorns although the Book of Common Prayer refers to Jesus’ later mighty resurrection and glorious ascension.For the disciples, this must have been a time of wondering and waiting for the coming Jesus has promised amidst uncertainty about the future now their leader has left them. Luke writes in Acts 1:14 that they gather with others and Jesus’ family in Jerusalem, turning to prayer and now finding the courage to wait hopefully rather than despairingly in this familiar place. 

In the Bible, the glory of God is often seen in physical events such as the burning bush found by Moses, the pillar of cloud and fire leading the Israelites in Exodus or his glory filling the Temple in 2 Chronicles 5 and 7, amongst other examples. This was frightening as well as glorious, God’s presence being hidden until he chose to reveal it in astounding ways. By contrast, the life of Jesus reveals God’s glory in the world, as St John writes: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  That glory was manifest in John 2:1:11at Jesus’ first miracle in Cana when water was turned into wine and his glory was revealed, as when Jesus declared at the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11: This sickness does not lead to death, rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

These occasions all came at significant times: Moses was afraid and uncertain; the Israelites were wandering and grumbling; the Ark of the Covenant placed in the Temple in 2 Chronicles 5 signified the presence of God which led to glory filling it; the wine at the wedding in Cana is of the best quality, underlining this new beginning; Lazarus is raised after a time of great distress for his family when the power of Jesus is manifest as divine glory is revealed through divine power. Glory both reveals the grandeur and purposes of God and heartens his followers as they try to discern what is unfolding.

Jesus spoke of glory in the dark times before his crucifixion and, in testing times in our own lives, perhaps there have also been occasions when glory has been glimpsed. Even as Judas leaves to betray him, Jesus is able to say Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him –John 13:31. At Easter and the ascension, the victory of love over hatred and life over death is celebrated but it begins in the desolation of what is happening during and after the Last Supper. If we are also to experience the glory of God in our world today, darkness and devastation are part of it, as well as wonder and praise. 

The glory and hope of the ascension is that the experience of humanity is taken into heaven by Jesus, just as he first commissions the disciples to be his spiritual body in the world, becoming witnesses to and continuing what he has begun. Rather than desert him, as in Gethsemane, or mourn his departure the disciples are now able to trust what Jesus tells them and at the end of his Gospel, St Luke writes that they were in the Temple praising God. Whereas they had previously often been afraid, they now await the spiritual power which will come to them and transform their hearts, minds and lives to enable them to find the courage to be witnesses in a sometimes hostile world. The same can be true for us, when we lift up our hearts in praise and trust as witnesses to the spiritual and earthly dimensions of divine love in our world today. In doing so, glory and glorious things can be experienced in familiar places, touching hearts with hope despite the uncertainty in life today and extending our vision to glimpse glory through even the every day things of life in simple as well as profound ways. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it in his poem ‘Pied Beauty’: Glory be to God for dappled things….. Praise him.

With my prayers; pob bendith,

Christine, Priest Guardian.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus in John 14:15 – 21

“We all live in this environment, we have the same struggles. We help each other in everything. It is very important, so that no one carries too much themselves.” Belinda in Dagoretti, Kenya, one of the communities supported by Christian Aid. 

In chapter 13 of John’s Gospel, Jesus gives his disciples ‘a new commandment’: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.” John 13:34-35.

This commandment comes just after Judas leaves the Last Supper to betray Jesus and it comes just before Jesus predicts that Simon Peter will deny knowing him. The commandment to love is surrounded by failure to show love in action. Yet love persists, even as the disciples fall short of what they are called to do.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says of Peter’s denial: ‘Peter stands for all the human characters whom Jesus confronts – the apostles, the witnesses, the Church, ourselves.’ His failure is our failure. And yet like him we are continually called afresh to try again in our service of the God of love. In ‘Meeting God in Mark’, 2014.

You may have heard the saying: ‘Love conquers all’. What Jesus offers is not a conquering love that pushes past and ignores what we get wrong. Instead, he gives us a love that endures. This love will be offered to us precisely in those moments when we feel we least deserve it.

In the Gospel today, Jesus expresses this unfailing care. He tells the disciples that they will never be alone, or ‘orphaned’. The Spirit is coming and they can be assured of God’s faithful, constant presence forever. And Jesus tells the disciples too that the love he has given to them is theirs to share.

If we love Jesus, then we will keep his command to love one another. This love does not have neat boundaries. We are not asked to love only those whom we like or only those who have never wronged us, or only those who offer us something in return. If we are to love Jesus by loving as he does, we must love abundantly and radically. We must love in action. We must transform the world with our love. This is what marks out the followers of Jesus.

We will make mistakes. We will fall short. But we will be called again and again to the work of love. Love in action can change the world…. You might be surprised by just how much of a difference you can make!

Thomas said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” From today’s Gospel, John 14:1-14. 

‘The Way before we know your name… the Truth they cannot yet discern… the Life within the life they love.’ Malcolm Guite, from his sonnet for St Thomas the Apostle, in Parable and Paradox, published by Canterbury Press. 

Once again, the Gospel reading today involves Thomas, who doubted the other disciples when they said they had seen Jesus on the day of resurrection but came to believe when Jesus reappeared to them all a week later. Still known as Doubting Thomas by many, this disciple nevertheless found the courage openly to wrestle with what he was being told, resulting in responses of great significance from Jesus. 

That’s so in today’s reading, which takes place at the Last Supper, as Thomas asks Jesus what he’s talking about when he tells them that they know where he is going. This is a confusing time for the disciples: Jesus is preparing them for what is going to happen and they are all still in the upper room before Jesus is arrested in Gethsemane. In response to Thomas’ honest and direct question, Jesus replies with the sixth of the I Am sayings, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” This passage is often used at funerals today, including my mum’s.

The I Am sayings refer to the divine name given to Moses at the burning bush: I am who I am. In using this, Jesus is telling his followers who he is – but, understandably, they don’t realise although each term is rooted in the scriptures. Moses tells the Israelites to “Follow the path that the Lord your God has commanded you,” and St John reminds his readers that, ‘The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’  In John 19:37, Jesus himself tells  Pilate, “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” “What is truth?” Pilate then asks – a question that echoes down the ages. Jesus also tells Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” in John 11, and in chapter 5, says that, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted  the Son also to have life in himself.” 

There are many more scriptures in which Christians see Jesus as the fulfilment of the scriptures and he becomes not the way, the truth and the life but ‘… our Life, our Truth, our Way.’ (Guite, above.) For those first disciples don’t seem to realise, until Jesus responds to Thomas’ question, that this is not just for the future. Jesus doesn’t say that he will be but that he IS the way – the way of faith is already being followed, bewildering as this may seem to them. Jesus IS the truth, hard as it may be for the disciples to understand this, and Jesus IS the life now as well as at the resurrection, overwhelming though this is. For these are not just principles or values on which to base life, but embodied in Jesus himself who declared to his followers that he IS these things – and this is still being declared today. 

With my prayers; pob bendith,

Christine, Priest Guardian. 

“I am the good shepherd.” Jesus, in today’s Gospel John 10: 1-11a.

“The Lord IS my shepherd. Not was, not may be, nor will be… IS my shepherd.” 

Hudson Taylor, Christian missionary to China. 

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, a time when prayers are said particularly for those exercising and considering ministry in the church as a pastor, the Latin word for a shepherd. Here at St Melangell’s, the crockets or ornamental parts at the front of the shrine have often been likened to the ears of sheep, which is so appropriate in this valley which is full of sheep and their lambs. 

Amongst them is the small flock of my neighbour, Mary, who owns a cade (bottle fed) sheep called Lambie. She was the second of twins, rejected by her mother after a painful birth, and had to be raised in the house with Mary’s dogs to survive. To this day, Lambie loves dog biscuits as well as sheep food!

This year, Mary thought there would be no lambs as she hadn’t put the sheep to the ram. However, to her very great surprise, her flock has grown from 10 sheep to 23 as 13 lambs have now been born with more still to come. Somehow, rams must have got in – although none were seen. 

So it is in the Gospel for today, where Jesus likens himself to being a gate protecting the sheep from furtive intruders and he goes on to call himself the Good Shepherd. In those days, the shepherd himself would lie down across the sheepfold to keep his flock safe from wild animals, bandits and thieves as sheep rustling was common – as it still is today with entire flocks sometimes being stolen or even killed and fleeced in the field for their meat. Then, the shepherd would know and name his sheep as they were usually kept for wool and milk rather than meat and so would be with him for a long time. The sheep would learn to trust the voice of their shepherd who tended his flock and kept them safe whereas hired hands would probably flee for their own safety if thieves came. 

The image of the shepherd is used throughout the Bible: Moses was tending sheep when he saw the burning bush; today’s psalm, the 23rd, was written by David, a shepherd boy before he became king; the prophet Ezekiel writes of the shepherds of Israel and their destructive leadership; and Isaiah 53:6 says that All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way. That’s reflected in the words of Cranmer’s General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer of 1552: We have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. 

Jesusdescribed the Temple as a den of thieves when he drove out the moneychangers  and one of his disciples, Judas, was also a thief who stole money from the common purse. Barabbas is described by John as a bandit and so the crowd has to choose between Jesus and a bandit at the crucifixion when the Good Shepherd becomes the sacrificial lamb as he lays down his life for the sake of the flock. 

This is at the heart of the Easter message of his resurrection, proclaimed by the church down the centuries. Recently, it’s become clear that some pastors have harmed their flocks through safeguarding issues that were not applied whereas churches are meant to be places of safety. But although shelter may be necessary, so is good, fresh food. That’s the point of the sheepfold: it’s a temporary overnight structure made by the shepherd from stones, branches and briars for the flock to shelter safely within. The sheep then have to leave it to find and share the good pasture they need. That’s true for congregations too, who are also sent out to share the good news of the resurrection and to follow in the footsteps of the Good Shepherd as they listen for his voice in a world so filled with confusing and distracting messages. Who and where are the thieves, bandits and shepherds  – good or otherwise – of our own day?

With my prayers; pob bendith,

Christine, Priest Guardian. 

Reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter

“But we had hoped…” From today’s Gospel, Luke 24:13-35. 

‘Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget…We can escape our troubles, at least for a while.  We can escape the job we did not get or the friend we hurt… But the one thing we cannot escape is life itself…’ Frederick Buechner, Presbyterian pastor and author. 

Today’s account of two bewildered people walking on the road to Emmaus is only found in the Gospel of Luke. The site of Emmaus itself is unknown although Luke says it was seven miles away from Jerusalem, which was much smaller then. One of the travellers has also never been identified, although the other is Cleopas – the only time he is named in the Bible. They tell the stranger who joins them everything that has happened and are astounded that he appears not to know of this. They don’t realise that it’s Jesus – how ironic it must have seemed to him to hear them talk of his own ministry, death and resurrection! 

Jesus doesn’t interrupt as they pour out their grief and disappointment that their leader had not been the liberator they anticipated but had died a criminal’s death. However, he challenges them for not believing what the scriptures had prophesied, calling them foolish and slow of heart. He then explains this to them, beginning with Moses who was himself called slow of speech and of tongue in Exodus 4:10. When invited to share a meal with them, Jesus is instantly recognised in the way he breaks bread as he had done at the Last Supper and which has become the basis of Holy Communion, through which his followers are still fed today. When he then leaves them, it seems that both travellers may have been part of a wider circle of Jesus’ followers as, despite it getting late, they decide to return to Jerusalem to tell ‘the eleven and their companions’ what has happened. Their hope is restored, they speak of their hearts burning and, instead of walking away from what had happened, they return, ready to share the overwhelming news that Jesus is alive. 

This is a story that some dispute – the site of Emmaus is not known, Jesus is not recognised, he vanishes from their sight – but it’s also an account familiar to anyone who has themselves been in the depths of despair and confusion. Those followers had known of the terrible death of Jesus and it’s understandable that they would find it hard to believe that he could be alive. In just the same way, people who have been through great suffering or witnessed this in others can also begin to despair or lose hope. Jesus’ teachings of love and compassion may be hard to practise when it seems that all is lost and this applies today, too, when such huge changes are happening the world over and so many people are suffering in so many places now. If there is doubt that this can be overcome or life has become too challenging, then we, too, are on a similar road to those two travellers. 

However, those followers did not meet Jesus because they didn’t recognise him – he met them. Love, crucified and resurrected, met those who grieved or despaired and transformed fearful, bewildered people into the messengers who took the Gospel to a doubting world. That can still happen today: just as those two travellers had hopes that had been dashed, so an initially unrecognised encounter with Jesus transformed their lives and sent them back to Jerusalem to return to what they were walking away from renewed and overwhelmed as hope was restored. What if they had ignored him?

“We had hoped,” said those two travellers then. Into hopelessness and broken lives or dreams, Jesus can still bring love and compassion – though that may not always be recognised or experienced. Perhaps, like Cleopas and his companion, hope has been lost or we can’t see the reality in those we meet – sometimes, it may seem easier to ignore the unexpected encounter or simply continue walking away. But, by having an honest conversation, those companions found that fresh understanding grew, failings were overcome and hearts burned with fresh hope – so it can be today as stories are shared and situations where we may also have been foolish or slow of heart are transformed by an encounter with Love itself through prayer, the scriptures and the breaking of bread: 

The pit of disappointment, the despair

The jolts and shudders of my letting go…

Now you reveal the meaning of my story

That I, who burn with shame, might blaze with glory.

From The first sonnet for the road to Emmaus in Parable to Paradox by Malcolm Guite, published by Canterbury Press.  

With my prayers; pob bendith,

Christine, Priest Guardian. 

“He is going ahead of you….” From today’s Gospel, Matthew 28:1-10.

 “Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of.” Jeremy Hanson, Canadian astronaut aboard Artemis II.

In the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John, the stone sealing Jesus’ tomb has already been moved when the two Marys arrive to anoint his dead body. But in today’s Gospel, Matthew gives some details that the others don’t and at first it must have seemed to the women that nothing had changed as the tomb is as they left it. But then there is a great earthquake; an angel arrives, rolls back the stone and sits on it; the guards are petrified with fear. After this, the women are told not to be afraid and invited to come and see for themselves that Jesus is not there and has been raised from the dead. 

Although the stone is still in place, when it’s then moved there is no body inside – the resurrection has happened and Jesus has already left his tomb. New life has overcome death although the Marys don’t realise this and the stone is now rolled away, not to let him out but to show the women that Jesus isn’t there. Everything had changed – and the two Marys change, too. Matthew writes that the women then left the tomb with fear and great joy – their fear is still present but is now transformed by what has happened and, as they run to tell the disciples, suddenly and astoundingly they meet Jesus himself. At first, they hold on to his feet and it’s clear that the Marys think they must be seeing a ghost as ghosts were then thought not to have feet. His feet prove to them it really is Jesus and despite all he has told them in preparation for what will happen to him, their difficulty in accepting his resurrection is understandable after so terrible a death and all he and they have been through.

The events of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion show humanity at its worst as well as at its best. Not only was Jesus judged but humanity, too, as corrupt state and religious leadership, betrayal, hatred, denial, and brutality mingled with love, sacrifice, trust, faith and hope. So many centuries later, it seems little has changed in our world today.

And yet, as for the two Marys, everything has changed. Just as the women were told that Jesus was going ahead of them, so the launch of Artemis II this week enables four human beings courageously to go ahead and rise above the rest of us, travelling where humanity has not been before: the dark side of the moon. As Jeremy Hanson said, it’s a reminder of humanity at its best, with bravery, co-operation and skill (as well as huge expense!) contrasting with the ongoing warfare, destruction and scarcity showing humanity at its worst. The astronauts have also taken with them the names of 5.5 million people who wanted to be included on a memory card in the weightlessness indicator on Artemis II. In that way, those people travel ahead with the crew just as, in the stunning image Hello, World, we are all represented as earth and its inhabitants are depicted from their space craft.

Jesus and the two Marys courageously faced the unknown and through it transformed the future for humanity. May that be so today at this time of new beginnings and profound change as the Easter message is proclaimed once more in and beyond a world so much needing fresh hope: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! 

With my prayers; pob bendith,

Christine, Priest Guardian.