08/01/2021
You can read the full transcript of the reflection below.
Today we're continuing to think about how we can find hope not just for ourselves but for those we love and I want to read you a love poem by the great Australian poet Judith Wright. She was a great environmentalist, a great woman of faith and I'm not quite sure whether this is a love poem for someone she loved who's died, it might even be a love poem to God, but lots of things are woven together. It's called This Time Alone.
"Here still, the mountain that we climbed when hand in hand my love and I first looked through one another's eyes and found the world that does not die. Wild fuchsia flowered white and red, the mintbush opened to the bee. Stars circled round us where we lay and dawn came naked from the sea. Its holy ordinary light welled up and blessed us and was blessed. Nothing more simple, nor more strange, than earth itself was then our rest. I face the steep unyielding rock, I bleed against the cockspur's thorn, struggling the upward path again, this time alone. This time alone. I turn and set that world alight. Unfurling from its hidden bud it widens round me, past my sight, filled with my breath, fed with my blood; the sun that rises as I stand comes up within me gold and young; my hand is sheltered in your hand, the bread of silence on my tongue."
Oh many of us are separated from those we love at the moment. Many of us are isolated, many of us are frustrated. We can't do the things we want to do, we can't see the people we long to see. May we find hope in the presence of those we love even when they're not with us, and cherish them and pray for them and love them. We can be together even when we are not together.
And if you'd like me to pray for someone, someone you love, someone in your family, someone in your neighbourhood, please, please feel free to write in and we'll pray for you here at Bishopthorpe and as you know the Sisters of Whitby are praying with us.
Anyone who wishes a prayer to be said for themselves or others, can send this in to Bishopthorpe Palace, where the Archbishop will pray, with support from The Order of the Holy Paraclete at Whitby.
If you would like to send in a prayer request, please complete the online request here. You can also email: [email protected] putting ‘Prayer request’ in the subject line.
If you would like to write your request for prayer, please post to: Prayers, Office of the Archbishop of York, Bishopthorpe Palace, Bishopthorpe, York YO23 2GE.
Please be aware that names may be shared with the Sisters of the Order of the Holy Paraclete in Whitby and that personal responses may not be possible.
Other prayer requests can be submitted anytime here