Peace and quiet

‘Peace and quiet’ is not a phrase we usually associate with a Monday morning! Setting ourselves up for the week ahead may well, in more normal times, mean writing ‘to do’ lists. Many front-line workers have never been busier, of course, and we do pray for them and their enormous workload. But for many others, a second week of living through these extraordinary times, seems strangely empty. The temptation is to fill that emptiness with just as much busy-ness of another kind. Reverend Tom Saunders reflects below how Jesus withdrew to pray. Maybe this is our invitation to use our time of imposed confinement to gain some peace and quiet with our heavenly father – even on a Monday morning.

Reed Desert
photograph by Angela Saunders

But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.

Luke 5: 15-16

Ond yr oedd y sôn amdano yn ymledu fwyfwy, ac yr oedd tyrfaoedd lawer yn ymgynnull i wrando ac i gael eu hiacháu oddi wrth eu clefydau. Ond byddai ef yn encilio i’r mannau unig ac yn gweddïo.

Luc 5:15-16

The church’s year, like the changing days of Spring, marches on even when we cannot get together to worship and pray. Lent begins by remembering Jesus’s 40 days of self-isolation in the wilderness… a time of intense challenge, but also a necessary time of preparation for what was to come. Jesus emerged from the desert fired-up and ready to proclaim the Good News. Then, from time to time again “he would withdraw to deserted places and pray”, renewing his prayerful communion with the Father, before returning to attend to the crowds.

But now, in the final two weeks of Lent, we see Jesus not in the desert or with the crowds in Galilee, but in and around the city of Jerusalem. In what the church calls ‘Passiontide’ Jesus treads the streets of the Holy City, and we join the crowd that surrounds him there. This crowd is fickle, just as we are fickle. We acclaim him “Hosanna, Son of David!” on Palm Sunday, and we condemn him with shouts of “Crucify him!” on Good Friday. Thankfully, we know the end of the story: we will be forgiven, and Love will triumph on Easter Sunday.

It was Jesus’s time one-to-one with the Father, the spiritual strength that came from the wilderness days and the many nights spent in prayer alone, that prepared him for all that he had to face, for our sakes, in Jerusalem.

For us, time spent alone over the next few days, will prepare us too for all that we have to face. Take time, at the start of this week, to accept your invitation to spend time prayerfully, in peace and quiet, with God.

Prayer (Isaiah 49:14-15)

But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me.’
Can a woman forget her nursing-child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.

Amen.

Gweddi (Esaia 49:14-15)

Dywedodd Seion, ‘Gwrthododd yr Arglwydd fi,
ac anghofiodd fy Arglwydd fi.’
A anghofia gwraig ei phlentyn sugno,
neu fam blentyn ei chroth?
Fe allant hwy anghofio,
ond nid anghofiaf fi di

Amen.

bro-celynnin-black

Daily Reflection 30th March

Peace and quiet

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Peace and quiet

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