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.


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