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The 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

7th February 2021

Dear Friends,

 
In today’s gospel, we are told that, ‘long before dawn’, Jesus goes in search of a solitude that has hitherto eluded him. It is a phrase that perhaps has some contemporary resonance at a time when many record sleep as harder to come by, where the concerns of both the day past – and the day yet to be – seem invasive and unrelenting. Moving out of the city within the past year has brought about, for me, a new wakefulness to the watches of the night, as the barking call of the Muntjac deer meets the cries of a local population of foxes busy at work in the small hours. And, indeed, ‘long before dawn’ comes the promise of the morning with a chorus of birds that is, if nothing else, persistent.

As ever, whenever we find ourselves awake and watchful, we find Jesus already there – already sanctifying the hour with his presence, already teaching us that to be awake is to be at prayer. Where Job laments that no good can come either of the day or the night, for both bring their own turmoil and distress, the Good News of the One who is himself the Radiant Dawn scatters all darkness, making even ‘the grave to be a bed of hope’. As we near draw ever closer to the season of Lent, we are reminded that this journey will be towards another daybreak, where we find not the distress of Job but the consolation of the risen Christ who gives a glittering adornment to morning, noon and night.

Charles Wesley’s great Morning Hymn reminds us that the morning is ‘dark and cheerless … unaccompanied by thee’, but that Christ imparts an ‘inward light’ that will ‘glad my eyes, and warm my heart’. In the final, symphonic verse (worth reprinting in full), we pray the words that should be on the lips of all Christians:

Visit then this soul of mine;
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, radiancy divine;
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.

You may listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAwaUDkol1Q

And, if you have a little more time, perhaps committing the Te Deum to memory is not such a bad thing to do. Here is John Ireland’s exuberant, joyful, inimitable setting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqIjk2Ll0M0
 
 

 

With love,
Simon
 
Our Lady, S.Pancras and all the Saints Pray For Us
Copyright © 2021 Parish of Old St Pancras, All rights reserved.


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