Merle's blog - My challenge for this week

Yesterday I caught the end of the Sunday worship service from Hereford Cathedral, as follows,

"And perhaps above all, we are called in this Holy Week to a new patience. To see the positive of watching and waiting and listening. I recently heard these words which really inspired me, ‘Patience is a negative virtue but nonetheless heroic.’ It implies being passive rather than active. Having something done to you rather than doing something, like the patient in the hospital. It implies suffering, of which the overwhelming example is the Passion of Christ. A great philosopher wrote of, ‘an energy of non-motion’. Patience requires a great deal of energy. Impatience often none at all."
The Very Reverend Michael Tavinor, Dean of Hereford

I was grateful for its appropriateness at this point in time. I've taken patience as my challenge for this week. It will not be patience with other people or even the circumstances we find ourselves in, so much as being patient with myself.

The service ended with one of my favourite hymns ‘Great is thy faithfulness’ by Thomas Chisholm, the words of which I leave with you to encourage you:

1. Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with thee;
thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
as thou hast been thou forever will be.

Refrain:
Great is thy faithfulness!
Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see:
all I have needed thy hand hath provided --
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

2. Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. (Refrain)

3. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
blessings all mine, with ten thousand besides! (Refrain)

Palm Sunday worship from Hereford Cathedral is available on BBC iPlayer for 28 days - click here to watch.

Merle Sparkes

Return to Home page - Merle's reflections- HCC Thoughts and readings April 2020