Dear Friends, Please pray for Rev.Cathy as she makes a pilgrimage on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela commencing the 17th June. We wish her all the best and look forward to hearing and reading all about it whan she is back.
May our Lord Jesus Christ go before Cathy to guide her;
Stand behind her to give her strength;
And watch over her to protect her as she travels. Amen.
Reverend Cathy writes - January 2019
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! As we move into a new calendar year we may
well find ourselves taking stock of our lives. A new year is usually considered
a time when we can make a fresh start – a time for looking forward with hope.
And so we wish each other a Happy New Year...
But some will be looking forward with sadness, concern or even despair. A loved one lost in 2018, fears about the world, or a chronic illness developed and now endured with little prospect of respite, means the onward march of time just seems depressing. For such people another year is not greeted with pleasure.
Is it co-incidence that early in the New Year we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany?
Also known as ‘Twelfth night’, traditionally all Christmas decorations are removed by the end of this day. Christmas is officially over and we face the New Year and all that it brings.
If you look up ‘epiphany’ in the dictionary, two definitions are given:
1. The manifestation of Christ to the gentiles as represented by the gospel of St Matthew
2. A moment of sudden and great revelation or realisation[1]
On the 6th January we celebrate the both these meanings and remember the arrival of the magi (‘wise men’) to worship the infant Jesus: firstly the obvious – and the second among all that goes on, the greatest epiphany being the realisation that in the gentile magi we can know that God who previously spoke to, and through, the Israelites is now coming for everyone.
And as our worldly calendar moves on as year, we remember the time when BC became AD - when time was reset to zero and a whole new reality dawned. Whatever 2019 has in store for us - we can know that eventually all will be joy!
We are all a year older, a year nearer to life.
With every blessing for 2019,
Cathy
Previous editions of Reverend Cathy Writes