Curate's Letter‘You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you.’ Isaiah 26.3
By the time you read this our Rector, Gordon will have started his well earned Sabbatical. Priests in the Church of England are encouraged to take an extended break (3 months) from regular ministry for a time of study, rest and refreshment. I don’t think that in nearly 40 years of ordained ministry Gordon has taken a sabbatical break. It’s no secret that Gordon hasn’t been in the best of health for quite a while now and we all pray that this time away from the Church will give him an opportunity to stabilize his health, to relax and to return to us in September both fitter, stronger and refreshed. In these next three months you should contact either the church office or me rather than contacting Gordon.
Sylvia and I have just returned from a short, intense, not very relaxing but very refreshing and tremendously inspiring, break of our own. We have spent six days ‘walking in the steps that Jesus walked’ – we have made our first pilgrimage to The Holy Land. I have been asked what were the highlights of the trip – I can’t really say because the six days were absolutely full of them, but after singing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ in the Church of the Nativity there, singing that carol will never be the same again, and sharing bread and wine on the shore of Lake Galilee where Jesus fed 5000 men (+ women and children) was a very moving occasion. The Garden Tomb site where Mike and Joan, Brian and Norma have worked in the past was found to be an oasis of calm and beauty in the hustle and bustle of a great Middle Eastern City. Was there a downside? Well, for me it was Bethany, a place that I’ve always imagined to be a really beautiful place just over the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem, was found to be cut off from the great city by a security screen. A 20 minute walk has been changed into a half hour coach journey and the main street was totally denuded of traffic. It’s difficult to say for certain that many of the sites that we visited were the places where the events of the New Testament actually took place, but, as the poet TS Eliot wrote to the pilgrim reader of “Little Gidding,” “You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel Where prayer has been validated.” Each and every place visited is a vivid reminder of what Christ has done for us, is doing for us and will continue to do in all of our lives. Sylvia and I are hoping to lead a pilgrimage there in October of next year. Please let us know if you would be interested in joining us.
Yours in Christ, Gordon Gordon Ripley, Curate, St Matthias' Church. Torquay. |