Tag: Perseverance

Keep going

A reflection for Wednesday in Holy Week
Luke 22.54-end

As I already wrote in an earlier reflection this week, accepting our own limitations is one of the spiritual challenges that we face in these weeks of uncertainty, loss and isolation. A letter written from Italy in the Guardian last week put it rather well and in Luke’s Gospel this morning we hear the story of Peter, the disciple who epitomises our inability to be committed and faithful.

Vicente Manansala - Man with Rooster, 1963, Watercolor | Artistas
Vicente Manansala – Man with Rooster, 1963, Watercolor | Artistas

I am sure that I am not the only one who finds it very easy to relate to Peter’s story in which he denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed. Peter was one of Jesus most faithful followers; knowing that he would deny Jesus must have grieved him deeply. Indeed, it had a great impact on both men, as we hear that also Peter himself wept bitterly when he realised that Jesus’ predication had come true.

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Sometimes it rains

This is the first of five reflections on my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. During ten days over half-term, I walked from Leon to Santiago. Although it was by no means the full length of the French Way, it was long enough to make it a worthwhile experience.

Sometimes it rains

When I was thinking what to do with my two-week break during half term, I landed upon the thought of walking a stretch of the famous Camino. Having done my research, October seemed a good month to walk as the weather is generally settled and the number of pilgrims is lower than during the summer months. Without much time to train, I decided that about 20km per day would be a reasonable distance, with enough time to rest, think and pray, presumably in the late autumn sunshine.

Having waited booking my flights, trains and first night’s stay until after the start of term, this became a rushed job between lessons and other activities, so it was not until a couple of weeks before I started that I realised that my starting point should have been Ponferrada, not Leon. Well, 315km is not that much further than 200km!

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Try it, just one more time!

Sermon Marlborough College Chapel, 10th February 2019, 8.30am
Fourth Sunday before Lent: Luke 5.1-11

I guess we all know that moment: when we have tried, and tried and tried, and we have reached the point we know we cannot do it. Whether it’s the further maths problem: a proposition impossible to prove, or the perfect short corner in hockey: something that looks so straightforward when you see someone else doing it. We have tried, not once, not twice, but many times, and we’re ready to admit: we just can’t do it.

SONY DSCWhat’s your first reaction when someone then says “Try it again, just once more.”? I suspect that you also, just like me, are tempted to say something better not repeated in Chapel. “It’s not for a lack of trying, isn’t it? There are times when things don’t work, and we need to give up,” is what we’d like to say.

That is precisely, I think, how the fishermen in the boat in our reading this morning are feeling. Frustrated, tired, and ready to give up. So when Peter says to Jesus “We have worked all night, but have caught nothing. Yet, if you say so, I will let down the nets”, we can almost hear him saying: “Yes, whatever” in a similar way we ourselves would do, or indeed have done. But then, a miracle happens: when Peter and his companions let down the nets once more, they catch so many fish that they can’t even pull them back into the boat themselves. Their success, so to say, is beyond imagining.

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