Tag: Mr G

About Angels

This photo by my friend Helen Smith is of the centrepiece for a Festival of Angels at St. Michael’s Church, Grimsargh, on the outskirts of Preston. The Angel, which appeared throughout the Church, was designed by the Art Teacher at Grimsargh School, and made by the children.

A thing or two about Angels

Many years ago, I was told a story about the saintly Bishop King of Lincoln. He never forgot that Ordination laid upon him the ministry of pastoral care. Though, as a bishop he led a busy life, he would love to visit people. One such person, whom he visited every week was an old lady who lived in a remote part of a wood. He also visited prisoners in the local gaol and one day, he was talking to one of them who confessed that he once lay in wait in the woodland with the intention of robbing the bishop. “You normally travelled alone” said the man, “but on this occasion you had someone with you.” The bishop was perplexed for he had always gone alone but then he beamed, “Ah! that would be my guardian angel.”

And he meant it!

The role of angels as ‘guardians’ of human beings is rooted in Scripture. In Matthew 18: 10 Jesus speaks of the angels watching over God’s ‘little ones’. In Psalm 91 we are told “He will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways.” and in the beautiful service of Compline (the late night prayer service of the Church) is the invocation:

The angels of God guard us through the night, and quieten the powers of darkness.’

The role of angels taking care of us may seem fanciful to many  but I point sceptics to that moment when Jesus had been tempted by the devil. After a gruelling forty day fast, our Lord was weakened and it took all his strength to resist the devil. When the devil left him, St. Matthew tells us: suddenly angels came and waited on him. They were there all along!

Why that doesn’t surprise me is that I have experienced the ministry of angels often in my life.  For example, over the past two or so years I have spent a lot of time in hospital. On one occasion I was feeling scared and apprehensive about some treatment I was about to have. I was in a room on my own and as I tried to pray, I sensed an overwhelming presence of someone else there with me in a corner of the room. I just knew that an angelic presence was quietly but most definitely watching over me. This was not a product of my imagination. It made all the difference to how I was and how I faced things. I was not alone but more importantly, the angel’s  message was that I was being held and loved.

There is a sense that we never really walk alone in this world. God is always watching over us. Sometimes, when we are up against it and we feel that we really cannot carry on much longer, something happens that lifts the burden a little. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is  respite from the storm that rages around and within us. We are not on our own any more.

I know people love that  story about ‘Footprints’ in the sand where the two sets of prints become one and when the man meets Jesus he castigates him for leaving him. Jesus replies that he never left him. The single prints were when Jesus was carrying him.

We don’t always appreciate how much God ministers to us and we are prone to believe he is absent during some particularly difficult period of our life. I dare say Jesus felt that  sometimes —as we know from his cry on the Cross—my God, why have you forsaken me!  But Jesus knew the truth. The humanity of Jesus cried out but the divine heart knew that His Father was always near him.   I know that God never really abandons me though I am often conscious that I have often abandoned him!

So why do I need a Guardian Angel? I suppose the easy answer might be that I find it a comfort. The real answer is because God chooses this as a way to care for me (and you) and that’s what the Bible tells me.

I just know its true –  and my guardian angel agrees with me!

[Mr. G]

If you want to know what a Guardian Angel might look like, one of the children at Grimsargh School has helpfully provided you with a clue. (Photo by Helen )

Psalm 103: 21-22

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
   and his kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
   you mighty ones who do his bidding,
   obedient to his spoken word.
Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
   his ministers that do his will.
Bless the Lord, all his works,
   in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Version is that of the NRSV

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Be who you are.

It isn’t necessary to try and be something you are not.

It is enough to simply be who you are’.

God made you to become more you,

not someone different and false.

You are made in His likeness,

nurtured by His love and grace.

Why should you want to be someone else?

[Mr. G.]

All is Gift

My friend Joyce Smith has sent me another picture tweet of a Gannet in flight. The caption is by Henry David Thoreau. Joyce writes:
Dear Friends, This graceful gannet witnesses to beauty in our present lives as well as to our future hope.
With my love and prayers, God bless, Joyce

I was inspired by the photo to try and capture my feelings in a poem.

All is Gift.

Gannet soars,
taking a path between earth and heaven.
Grace in flight buoyed up by the whisper of God’s breath
A joyful beauty here.

She reminds us of God’s creative love fashioning the world
spreading signs and reflections of His heaven –
brooding under, over and within Creation.
Entrusting this message not to us but to a creature of His artistry.
The gentle flap of her wing carries her through clouds,
across an ever-moving  sky,
from time to time she drops to kiss an azure sea,
beak dipping
foaming wave forming, where love breaks.

Gannet carries a gift from God,
A message from His heart ;
“Enjoy the freedom of grace-filled life.
I glide around you revealing the beauty above, below and within you
for I am always there.”

Look up and see, look down and feel.
Look within and breathe.
Live for a while in true harmony with all that I have made.
But know,
(and here Gannet flies away to spread her wings of beauty),
that all is gift.

[Mr G]

St Edmund and the Wolf

St Edmund and the Wolf

St Edmund is closely connected with Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.

In 1095 an Abbey was built as the centre of worship and devotion and remained a primary  witness to God inspired by St. Edmund himself. Here his remains were venerated until Henry VIII dissolved the monastery, when Edmund’s remains were taken to France. They now rest in a chapel in Arundel Castle.

Edmund’s story, however, leads us to Hunstanton in Norfolk.
When King Aethelweard of East Anglia died in AD855 he was the last of the Royal House of East Anglia, so his subjects sent word to their homeland of Angeln for a successor. A distant cousin named Edmund arrived, at what is now known as St. Edmunds Point in Hunstanton, to claim his kingdom. Since then Hunstanton has had a long and close association with St Edmund.

The story goes that Edmund later entered into battle against the Vikings, led by Ivarr the Boneless. The two armies fought somewhere near Diss. Edmund’s forces were defeated. The Vikings demanded that Edmund renounce his faith in Jesus Christ. When he refused they were merciless with him. They tortured him and eventually tied him to a tree where the archers used him as target practice. Finally, they beheaded him.

This is where the wolf comes into the story.

It is said that the Vikings discarded his head in the woodlands. Edmund’s followers later recovered his body but the head was missing.
Eventually they found it, guarded by a wolf which attracted the followers with his cry. Edmund’s head lay between its paws safe and untouched by all the forest animals.

So the wolf entered into the folk lore of St. Edmund.

I discovered this on a recent visit to Hunstanton were I came across the vestiges of a ruined chapel dedicated to him. There is very little left of that chapel but nearby is a statue of a wolf  (see photo above), a reminder of the story and of how, quite often, the animal kingdom is kinder to holy men and women than humans are.

Eternal God,
whose servant Edmund kept faith to the end,
both with you and with his people,
and glorified you by his death:
grant us such steadfastness of faith
that, with the noble army of martyrs,
we may come to enjoy the fullness of the resurrection life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

[Mr. G]

photo: Mr. G