For Ash Wednesday — “Common”
Added Monday 23rd February 2009
- With Thy sweet care before me I will lie
Naked and weak, emptied of all my pride,
As open to remorse as I should be
Who crowned Thy sacred head and pierced Thy side. - Thus, here I kneel enhumbled and en-ashed
With the same palm that spoke my treachery,
Shrunken yet shrouded in my self regard
Frightened of Thy tormentor I would see. - Yet with thy naked wounds before my face,
I shall my passions flay, my lusts expose,
To grow as helpless as the manger babe
And bleed with Thee beneath our common cross.
On women bishops, Carey says asking liberals to accommodate traditional Catholics and Evangelicals is "A big Ask"
Added Thursday 19th February 2009
Kevin Carey, calling for the Measure on the consecration of women bishops to be sent for legislative review said that liberals were being asked: "...to make room in the Church of England for people on the one hand who want to undo the Reformation and those on the other hand who want to undo the Elizabethan settlement; it's a big ask. We will do our best."
You can read a paraphrased version of the speech.
Compline for Shrove Tuesday
Added Tuesday 17th February 2009
Take some time out from making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday to say Compline, the "night office". Kevin Carey has written a special Compline for Shrove Tuesday, with responses, psalms and readings.
Women Bishops majority in Chichester Diocese still possible says Kevin Carey, General Synod lay Member for the Chichester Diocese
Added Monday 26th January 2009
In this short presentation on the situation of women and the Episcopate in the Church of England, Kevin Carey outlines some of the issues which will come before the General Synod in the immediate future before passing on to a wider consideration of the implications arising, depending on the Synod outcome.
Prayers for Lovers
Added Monday 19th January 2009
This year's Lent Course is now available on the Jesus4u website. Entitled "Prayers for Lovers", it was written in response to observations such as: "I don't know how to pray", "When it comes to praying, I feel as if I am not doing my duty," and "When it comes to private prayer, I feel completely bewildered; I can never get rid of distractions."
The course is written from the standpoint of a fellow struggler, and draws on the following three ideas:
- Prayer is about relationship with God;
- With perseverance, love grows in depth even if it varies in intensity;
- Prayer resembles sex, a very specific aspect of love, because we expect more of it than it usually delivers but at its best it is life transforming; and we think that other people are invariably 'better' at it than we are.
The Christmas Spirit
Added Monday 22nd December 2008
The Spirit celebrates Her child
In silver star and diamond snow
To let her raptured maiden know
How she is faithful, sweet and wild.
She is the sparkling
She is the song they sing
She is the news they bring
She is the star beckoning.
The Spirit celebrates Her Word,
Good news in harmony unknown
Which leads the awestruck shepherds on
To see the lamb that is their Lord.
She is the sparkling…
The Spirit celebrates her king
With gifts secured in rough-hewn wood
By nails of fatal brotherhood,
Sealed with the stamp of suffering.
She is the sparkling…
The Spirit celebrates our God,
Forged flesh from light's divine desire
Quickening all hearts with sacred fire
To know God in our flesh and blood.
She is the sparkling…
Divine and Erotic Love
Added Friday 19th December 2008
Included in the latest batch of sermons to be added to the site is a discussion on Christianity's control of erotic (rather than economic) behaviour.
Also discussed are the death of doctrine and mission in a postmodern world.
Advent Firesiders
Added Tuesday 18th November 2008
This year's Advent Firesiders — fireside reading for Advent — are now available. This year, the four parts (Prolgue, Father, Son and Spirit) are a A Nativity for our times and a Trinitarian perspective on the birth of Jesus.
Joseph's Reverie
Added Monday 10th November 2008
I sometimes forgot at the wood shavings' fall,
As He carefully reckoned the line of a wall,
That an angel had called him the ruler of all.
But I never forgot what His mother had said
Of the angel's request and the price on their head
And I dreamed of stones flying and my love lying dead.
Read more of Joseph's Reverie, from the Advent to Candlemas collection.