Spare Five Minutes
Can I spare just five minutes for Jesus every day? Just 5 minutes?
Or am I always in a rush? Well, I always was in too much of a rush even to spare my Saviour five minutes a day. I was a Sunday Christian - a part-timer.
Then, quite simply, I made up my mind that I mustn't pretend to be a Christian. It had to be a matter of priority. God must come first. The time had come to start the day with God.
Easier said, perhaps, than done but a decision to try was a commitment. Now where should I begin?
The alarm rang at 6.45am. I cheated another 10 minutes half awake, half asleep. Oh dear, couldn't I have given half of those precious minutes to God?
Maybe there was something in our house to look at, something to use as a focus. Then I noticed the grouting of the bathroom tiles made up Cross after Cross. Yes, I could focus on one such Cross and greet the Lord by crossing myself.
A quick splash of water on my face and a dozy walk down to the kitchen to drink an orange juice, open the blinds and make a cup of coffee.
More crosses in the tile grouting greeted me. He is present everywhere. Look at the floor and more Crosses. Start with a short grace to thank him for the refreshment. Then recite The Lord's Prayer. Look at that old wooden door to the pantry. See how its joinery displays a really fine Cross. Yes, I feel better for that communication with God. Now I was talking to him.
Ablutions over, breakfast and a brief grace again, then upstairs in one quiet room just time for a short prayer and a reading.
What to pray? A little thanksgiving in remembrance of Calvary, even a big one can never be enough, and then the stone being rolled away. Pray for forgiveness and give thanks for the gift of faith. Ask for blessings on our family and help with the problems of the day.
Five minutes for God but thankfully it brought me closer to Him, or a little further along my journey in faith.
Last but not least, as I get into bed, I notice that beautiful Cross, amidst a bluebell wood, in a painting my wife bought. It reminds me of Him. So another brief prayer, I cross myself and thank God for his blessings.
Contemplating the Face of Christ - A Personal Reflection
Contributor: Andrew Jones
At the time of the Gospel reading of the Transfiguration, Holy Innocents Parishioners were given pink sheets asking us to contemplate the Face of Christ, a subject that deserves particular attention in Lent. At the foot of the first page was a quotation from Pope John Paul II which read, "We cannot come to the fullness of contemplation of The Lord's face by our own efforts alone, but by allowing grace to take us by the hand. Only the experience of silence and prayer offer the proper setting…."
Contemplation means meditation or study and our contemplation is bound to be influenced by familiar images of Jesus' face derived from sources as diverse as the Turin Shroud, great religious works of art and maybe even certain Hollywood epics. Some of us are confused about the provenance of the Turin Shroud, whilst we remain in awe of its actual portrayal. Others may be bemused by the curious variety of the Christ child as presented by traditional artists, but find more consistency in the faces offered of Jesus the Rabbi and Messiah. Our choice of celluloid Saviour remains very much individual and ultimately not greatly relevant.
Neil MacGregor in that wonderful BBC2 series Seeing Salvation showed us many faces of Christ, whilst explaining that it was not until several centuries after the Crucifixion that any artist depicted the face of Our Lord. In other words no first hand witness painted a brushstroke or even sketched a line of the slightest feature that has been handed down to us. MacGregor, who was Director of the National Gallery at the time, also reminded us that neither does the text of the New Testament give us a hint as to the actual physical features of Our Lord's face.
So what can we surmise - whether considering His face on the mountain at the time of Transfiguration or anywhere else in the New Testament? We know Jesus was a Nazarene and that they were unshaven and did not cut their hair in any way. We realise that He was Jewish and that His skin would have been quite dark. We believe that He must have been strong and fit but we have little else to follow, that is unless we turn to the New Testament again and examine His behaviour. Surely we can see in His face the attributes of complete faith, eternal hope and never ending love - as well as a great deal of compassion.
Even for those of us with the poorest concentration, who regularly feel humbled by our more devout friends, it is possible to be silent, to close our eyes, look for Jesus and recognise His face.
Prayer for Peace in Iraq and the Middle East
We come to you, God Creator, You are the source of life and beauty and power.
Your son Jesus is the way of the faith and hope and love.
Your spirit is the fire of love, the font of wisdom, the bond of unity. You call us at all times to be people of the beatitudes, witnesses to the Gospel of peace and love and forgiveness.
You call us at this time, when war and rumours of war, weigh heavily on the people of Iraq and the Middle East: their lives are already broken by suffering and violence.
We renew our acceptance of your call and we promise to work to bring -
- the light of the Gospel to those living in darkness
- the hope of the Gospel to those living in despair
- the healing of the Gospel to the lonely, the disadvantaged, the marginalized and the peace of the Gospel to a divided world
Amen
Acknowledgements:
High Wire Faith
Early in the twentieth century, in the United States, there was a professional high wire (tight rope) artist, who had a sudden personal conversion to Christianity. His experience was so profound that he gave up his show business career and entered a non-conformist theological college. He studied there for several years before being placed in his first post as minister in a small town, a few miles up-stream from Niagara Falls.
He soon discovered that although his congregation was composed of pleasant, caring and successful people, few were prepared to bear individual witness for Jesus Christ by telling non-believers about their faith. For several weeks he tried preaching on the subject, telling his congregation they should have faith that God would give them the words they needed. Frustrated by the lack of response, he decided to resort to a more dramatic approach. He instructed the members of his congregation that on the following Sunday evening, just before six pm, they should meet him down by the river gorge. Instead of their usual form of worship, they were going to do something a little different.
The next Sunday, at the appointed time, the congregation met at the specified spot alongside the River Niagara, to find their minister wearing some baggy trousers and a pair of unusual shoes. Behind him they could see a tight wire stretching from one side of the gorge to the other. When everyone had arrived he called out to them, 'Do you have faith that I can walk from one side to the other and then come back?' Knowing of his previous career they did not hesitate to respond 'Yes!' So he walked across to the opposite side, arrived safely, waved to them and made the return journey. Then he produced a wheelbarrow and asked the same question, received the same reply and made the journey once again. His third move was to uncover a pile of bricks. 'Do you have faith that I can wheel these across and return safely?' he inquired.
After a few gasps, there were a number of cries of 'Yes!' For a third time he crossed the gorge. Addressing his congregation for a fourth time, he asked one of the most prominent members to come forward. This man was particularly successful in business but found it very difficult to witness for Jesus Christ.
'Now', the minister said, 'If you have faith in Our Lord you can empty the bricks out of that barrow, jump in and be wheeled across and back again.'
Puccini
In 1922, at the age of 64, the great Italian composer Puccini was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He had already begun work on his opera, Turandot (which many experts consider his finest) and, in spite of his suffering and the pleas of friends and supporters, he insisted on continuing with the project.
As he approached his final days, he wrote to his students, 'If I don't finish Turandot, I want you to finish it for me.' Shortly afterwards he died, and his obedient students immediately gathered together all the scores, studied them with great care and precision, and completed the opera.
The opening performance took place in 1926. It was conducted by a rising star amongst Puccini's students, the young Arturo Toscanini. He raised his baton and the performance began. When he reached the place where Puccini had stopped writing, Toscanini put down his baton and turned to the audience with the words, 'Thus far the master wrote and then he died.' Not a single person moved or spoke for several minutes.
Then Toscanini picked up his baton, looked straight at the audience, smiled through his tears and spoke again. 'But his disciples have finished his work.'
Wayside Pulpit
Seen at St Paul's Pentecostal Church, Carlisle
Serve The Lord.
The pay is not good but the retirement benefits are out of this world!