The First Sunday of Lockdown


The First Sunday of Lockdown - 22nd March 2020 - found my wife and I on holiday in Suffolk. No churches open. It felt very odd. Reflecting on the experience I decided to write a spiritual log

Spiritual Communion?

When I was a merchant seaman - a life time ago - I belonged to the Mission to Seamen (seafarers, today!) Seafarers’ Fellowship. My mother church in those days was St. Peter's in the Fort, Colombo, where the Flying Angel Club was based.

My 'rule of life' committed me to a weekly communion, or if I couldn't get to church, make a spiritual communion. Sundays at sea went  something like this:
1) Read the Bible passages set for the day and reflect on them.
2) Tune into BBC World Service and find a religious service to join in with. 
3) By an act of memory and imagination, go in heart and mind to be with Christian communities I was part of as they took, blessed, broke and shared the bread and wine.
At sea, we stood 4 hour watches watch, 4 hours on and 8 off. There was usually loads of time to reflect and pray. Plenty of time to listen for the voice of God. And so it was I discovered a vocation.

 It has been over 50 years since I came ashore for ordination training. Not many Sundays have been missed in the intervening years.  But on this Sunday all the churches were shut and I found myself deploying the same tactics to maintain my 'rule of life'.  It is not altogether clear to me now, what exactly spiritual communion might entail. This is what we did:

The  Archbishop of Canterbury was leading Sunday worship on BBC's Radio 4. So we tuned to the BBC Radio 4 and joined ++Justine in prayer.  It being Mothering Sunday, during the rest of the day I found myself calling to mind the communities and people who nurtured me in the faith over the years.  It is 77 years since I was baptised! There's a lot of memories!

A good long walk gave us both plenty of time for reflection. Given my age, I should not have been surprised to note the majority of the people I remembered are dead and gone, worshipping, as they say,  on another shore. 
I don't doubt that the care they  had for me in life, has been lessened with their death. Certainly, my appreciation of them has grown and my love for them is undiminished. 
We are bound together, so it seems to me, in a web of prayer, held in the love of one who shares his bread with sinners. 

 Fanciful words ?  Yes, but  I can find no better way to describe what was going on in my imagination(?), heart and mind (?),  it  was as if I had come close to a great company that no one could number,  the Church Triumphant and all the host of heaven.  Wonderful as it was, I felt there was a deficit. 

 At supper that night there was bread and wine. As is our practice, in silence, we shared a morsel of bread which we chewed thoughtfully, then sipped a little  wine.  Was this communion? It seemed to be holy. Whatever else it might have been it was our response to Jesus', "Do this",  we broke bread, shared wine and remembered him.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Image
 I have not posted much of late. I have been struggling. Between completing the pioneering work on a possible Withburga Way between Holkham and Dereham in the summer of 2022 and today my health has gone downhill in alarming way. I'll never walk the route in a couple of days, nor yet in 3.  I'll never walk it.  The rapid onset Pulmonary Fibrosis has left me struggling for breath putting my boots on let alone walking.  Yesterday, I went to St. Benet's Abbey , ate my picnic lunch in the car park and set myself the challenge of walking from the car park to the Abbey ruins. It is 0.35 miles and uphill all the way from from the Gate House to the old rugged cross that marks the site of the high altar at the summit. The hill looked quite daunting -  "Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?" I sang under by breath. Stopping often to catch my breath, slowly one foot in front of the other, I got closer to the summit. There before the cross, wind in my hair, it felt as if the b
Read more

North Elmham

Image
I’d come to North Elmham pursuing a mystery. Did the Bishops of Elmham from Bedwinus in the 7th century to Herfast in the 11th have their cathedral in Norfolk or  Suffolk?  North or South Elmham? I’d followed a circular walk I’d found in the  Norfolk Health Heritage and Conservations Walks  leaflet (You can get hold of one from Norfolk County Council or on-line at www.countrysideaccess.norfolk.gov.uk .)  It took me through parkland,  along quiet lanes and ended up at the parish church  (Well worth a visit in its own right!) My final destination was indicated by a brown tourist sign. Uncompromisingly it asserts “Saxon Cathedral”! But when you get to the ruins and read English Heritage’s helpful interpretation boards there’s no certainty at all.  What you see are earthworks and  ruins of a castle built by Henry Despencer,  the fighting Bishop of Norwich. He was famous for putting down the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. A man not without enemies, Henry had obviously felt the need of
Read more

Buckenham Rook Roost

Image
Beneath a winter sky the sun sinks slowly in the west . Wrapped against the cold -  and rapt by the beauty - I pondered on the generations before me who had stood and watched as day turned to night. Millions of sunsets and millions upon millions of the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve .  I found myself signing with the Psalmist: You appointed the moon to mark the seasons and the sun knows the time of its setting, You make darkness that it may be night in which the beasts of the forest creep forth (Psalm 104) Across the darkening marsh the whistles and murmuring of widgeon quietened, a thin mist rose and deer emerge from the woodland  to graze beneath a reddening sky.  All this was but the overture to the evening’s main event. I had come to see a wild life spectacular which is repeated every night during the winter period and the station platform was the grandstand from which to view it. From far and wide streamed “ in a countless host” each as black a clergyman’s cassock and eac
Read more