Sanctuary with the Bishop: 19.11.11
Us adults had a wonderful time at the December Sanctuary Day! We began with the reading from Eccclesiastes on ‘A Time for Everything’ which was an apt introduction to be theme of ‘Living in the Moment’. We were invited to turn off our phones and put our watches into a basket as a symbol of giving ourselves wholeheartedly to God for the day. Some of us were surprised how difficult we found this to do!
Bishop Peter was our speaker and in the first session he spoke about the importance of not living in the past, in our memories or regrets for the past has gone. But neither should we live in the future by constantly looking to what is next or worrying about what might never happen. Instead we should be enjoying each moment that God has given us today. We were given cards that said ‘Today is a gift from God, that’s why it is called the present’. Pam led us in an exercise about being balanced between the past and the future and then we had a discussion at our tables on all we had heard. Many of us admitted to not being able to put away the events of the past, or to worrying about future events and not taking time the enjoy the present.
In our second session the Bishop spoke about Blind Bartimaeus and how he threw off his cloak to follow Jesus. He challenged us to think about the thing we need to ‘throw off’ in order to follow Christ. We had half an hours quiet time in the church to think and pray about this.
After lunch we had our last session where Bishop Peter talked about Vincent Nicholls address on being confident in Christ and challenged us to think about our mission-being gentle but confident, our teaching- being clear about our belief and out witness- humble and courageous. We were each given a ‘letter from God’ and responded by writing back, art work or sculpture. Our time together with a beautiful, quiet Mass.
Altogether a very good day, much enjoyed by all who attended!
