Tag: Jesus

God rebuilds St Francis.

(*Saint Francis* – *from a poster in Santiago de Compostello*)

God rebuilds the spiritual heart of St Francis.
The start of a Saints journey to the Kingdom of heaven,
as we commorate the 800th anniversary of his pilgrimage this weekend.

When Francis gave up his life as a kind of lad about – when he turned away from drinking, fighting, leading a pack of rebels, it was because he had been brought up sharp by Jesus.
Not for the first time or the last, God had visited the soul of one whose life was going in entirely the wrong direction.
Francis’s soul was sick and needed healing.
So God drew him away to a derelict church of San. Damiano on the edge of Assisi. There he knelt in prayer and looked at the faded crucifix still hanging over the altar. Francis insists that the voice of Christ came to him at that moment. The words he heard were: Francis, rebuild my church, which you see is falling down.
The derelict Church certainly needed repairing, just as Francis’s soul needed rebuilding. Francis was about to begin his ministry and service for God. The words of Jesus to him from the cross where his ‘call’ ~ his response was to be his vocation, not just to physically rebuild the Church of San Damiano, but much more, a renewal of the Church in need of a deeper vision of God.

First, though, he had to get to know the One who called him to this service and to know the love of God flowing into him and through him to others.
As he knelt in that place of meeting with Jesus, he formed this prayer which was to remain with him throughout the rest of his life.

The Prayer before the Crucifix

Most High, glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me
true faith,
certain hope,
and perfect charity,
sense and knowledge,
Lord, that I may carry out
Your holy and true command

Another prayer which was to become food for his soul is one in which he prays that the love of the Lord Jesus should enter his heart and absorb him with its fire and sweetness. It is known as the Absorbeat because God’s loving Spirit possesses him.

May the power of your love, Lord Christ,
fiery and sweet as honey,
so absorb our hearts
as to withdraw them from all that is under heaven.
Grant that we may be ready
to die for love of your love,
as you died for love of our love. Amen

A simple, yet deeply profound prayer was one that he is said to have dictated as he lay dying. It was a prayer which he had used often and wasn’t original but it was so important to him that it was his deathbed prayer. Many will know it in some form.

We adore you, most holy Lord Jesus Christ,
here, and in all your churches throughout all the world;
and we bless you,
because, by your holy cross,
you have redeemed the world.

For Francis his spirituality was totally bound up with the Crucifixion. He is said to be responsible for encouraging the devotion known as The Stations of the Cross, the 14 meditations on our Lord’s journey to His Crucifixion. He himself was to be granted the gift of the stigmata when, after a vision of Christ crucified, the wounds of Jesus, in the form, of scars like nail wounds on his hands, feet and right side appeared on his body and remained with him until his death 2 years later.

[Mr G. 3rd October 2026]

Recognizing God in Creation

Photo of *The Ridge*, Lake District, by my friend, Gill Henwood.

The future of humanity depends on each person’s commitment to collaborate with God and with their brothers and sisters, in building up a more humane world (Pope Leo, September 2026)

POPE LEO’S Prayer of Creation.

Let us pray, that inspired by St Francis,
we might experience our interdependence
with all creatures who are loved by God
and worthy of love and respect.

Lord, you love everything you have created
and nothing exists outside the mystery of your tenderness;
every creature, no matter how small,
is the fruit of your love and has a place in this world.
Even the simplest life is surrounded by your care.

Like St Francis of Assisi,
today we want to say “Praise be to you My Lord!”
Through the beauty you reveal yourself as the source of goodness.

We ask you to open our eyes to recognize You,
learning from the mystery of Your closeness to all Creation,
that the world is infinitely more than a problem to solve.
It is a mystery to be contemplated with gratitude and hope.
Help us to discover Your presence in all creation,
so that, in fully recognizing it, we may feel and know ourselves to be
responsible for this common home
where You invite us to care for, respect, and protect
life in all its forms and possibilities.

Praised be You, Lord!
Amen.

~Pope Leo~

(On October 4^th the Christian Church celebrates the 800^th anniversary of the death of St. Francis.
The Roman Catholic Church is celebrating a special Jubilee Year until January 10^th 2027)

[Mr G. 20th September 2026]

9/11 Kintsugi

9/11 Kintsugi

The 11^th September 2001 is forever marked as one of the darkest days in the journey of humanity on this earth.
That day, I was bidden to turn on the television news and I witnessed the second of the planes flying directly into the second of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. The sense of horror was deep within me. This was an unbelievable act of demonic terrorism which destroyed not only many innocent lives but also changed forever our perception of what evil human beings are capable of. It brought back the atrocity of World War Two and Nazism. This time, the perpetrators were an Islamist extremist network called al-Qaeda who planned the attacks on both New York and Washington from Afghanistan.
The first thing that came to my mind was a line from the poem by W.B.Yeats, Easter 1916 – All changed,changed utterly.

And so it has turned out because so much has divided humanity since. The experience of the demonic and the hatred, hurt, prejudice and distrust between people are only part of the legacy of that day and event. What is happening in the Middle East today is only one example of an evil gripping our race.

But, as always, there is also an opposite reaction and view.

One of the sources of prayer and reflection that I turn to is one provided by the Jesuitresource.org which is part of Xavier University in Cincinnati. (It provides resources in Jesuit education and Ignatian Spirituality.)

On its prayer website, I came across a number of prayers and reflections relating to 9/11 and its aftermath.

I was particularly touched by this reflective prayer from a Hindu source which seems to me to put into words what many felt that day and since:

As glass shattered, cement crumbled and steel melted in the inferno of senseless cruelty, the heart of humanity screamed in anguish. September 11, 2001 — a day when the evil potential of misguided ego was again exposed. While our landmarks collapsed in a cloud of smoke and debris, beneath a surge of shock and rage, something awakened in our hearts: compassion. Suddenly, our worldly obsessions faded away as we cried for the plight of others and were deeply affected by our “remen’s sacrifice.” In memory of this tragic day, let us join hands and pray for God’s grace to heal, unite and empower us to serve with love.

– Radhanath Swami

This sense of moving beyond the destruction and brokenness into a new hope of love is strongly prayed in these words. It is also what drew me to the illustration I have used above. It is a piece of glass sculpture by my dear artist friend, Kay Gibbons.

It is a piece which began as an attempt to fuse blue and green glass together. In the process it broke into 3. So she “played around, had fun, and created something quite different.”

The process in doing this she describes as, “This panel has been produced in a ‘kintsugi’ fashion, after the Japanese art of bonding broken ceramics with gold.
Beauty in fracture..
Broken beauty..

It struck me that this resonates with the prayer above. The aftermath of 9/11 could be seen as a spiritually human ‘kintsugi’. Bonding broken people with the gold of repentance and love and with determination to work for a beauty which though broken is nevertheless bonded in hope and as the prayer says, filled with compassion and love.

I have no solutions to what we can do to heal our broken world but another prayer on the Xavier University resource site puts it so movingly and offers an amazing way forward if we would but take it.

One Loving Family

Loving God of Peace: On this anniversary of unbelievable sorrow, comfort those who mourn, and guide our hearts toward healing and hope. Remind us of the love of Christ, love which leapt over cultural and ethnic boundaries to feed the hungry, seek the lost and care for the least. Make of Your children, no matter how we name You, one human family, bound together in the work of justice and peace-making. Make us one with the Light that shines in the darkness and illumines a path toward understanding and reconciliation. Let love be our genuine call.

Amen.

– Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis

[Mr G. 13th September 2026]

Summer Evensong at High Easter

Photo, The East Window in St Mary the Virgin, High Easter, Essex

Summer Evensong in St Mary the Vitgin, High Easter
gazing at the East Window.

We gather to open ourselves to God
in this House of Prayer,
where, alight with early evening sun,
Incarnation beckons through refracted glass.

Here, blessed Mary and humble Joseph
are transfixed in golden beams
streaming towards them from the Christ-child,
deeply alive in cradle strewn with straw.

Ox peeps adoringly over shoulder of Ass
as the shepherd and his boy look on,
crozier, an icon of pastoral love to come,
carried proudly.
Star above all, shining in majestic glory,
a portal through which heaven comes to earth.

I see the telling of this in the left window
as Angel Gabriel, deep in converse with God’s chosen One,
seeks to draw from her a ‘Yes’
that comes from the heart,
And challenges us too.

The triptych of God’s love
is completed in the third window ,
that of Presentation
where The child of God touches the waiting Simeon,
as the old man tenderly takes, holds, and blesses Him
in gentle and awesome thanksgiving,
which releases his own soul into God’s arms,
slipping into a peace his heart longs for.

Three God moments dance in coloured glass
opening our hearts, our souls, our vision,
Calling us to glorify, presenting ourselves
to receive the light of our Salvation
and the grace of God’s Incarnate love.

For this we came.

[Mr G. 23rd July 2026]

I visited High Easter Church on July 19th to take part in Choral Evensong.
I was fascinated by the East Window and above is my reflection.
Choral Evensong was sung beautifully using the Book of Common Prayer
and accompanied by a fine organist. The congregation welcome was kind
and warm, and the after service coffee was splendid!
Should you ever find yourself in that part of Essex, the postcode is CM1 4QW.
It’s a fine church with Saxon roots, roman brick and bits from almost every age.
Unusually it has a window dedicated to St. Valentine!