Last month one of the regular bi-monthly Play and Praise Services coincided with St Valentine’s Day, so the theme, unsurprisingly, was love! Margaret Cross (who wasn’t able to be there that day) had prepared all the craft materials – heart shaped cards to be coloured in and with “jewels” to be stuck on them, along with the names of those chosen by the children. The children loved it, and worked very well together, some even choosing the names of their friends to go on the hearts.

As part of the service I walked around the church with the children, showing them some of the stained glass windows and asking them if there was anything about love in the pictures and scenes depicted in the windows. It turned out to be a very interesting exercise, and if you haven’t had a close look at the very beautiful, and varied, windows in the church I would thoroughly recommend it.

The very modernistic “creation” window, based on the first Chapter of the Book of Genesis, by Linda Walton above the South Porch evoked an almost unanimous response from the children – no love there – but one child disagreed and, nodding her head vigorously, said the creation of the world by God was all about love – “like a mummy and daddy”.

The Leigh family window provoked mixed responses, but some of the children were agreed that the scenes of Jesus’ healing various people were about love.

The beautiful window in the Arley Chapel of Mary and the baby Jesus was a very definite yes – a mummy and her baby – all love! But it was the main East window, above the altar, by Charles Kempe, that provoked the strongest reaction – looking at the stark details of the crucifixion portrayed in the window a lot of the children grimaced and turned their heads away – no love there. Again however one child nodded their head hesitantly while fixing her gaze on the crucified Christ and said yes, there was love there, for Jesus to die for us, but she didn’t really know how or why – out of the mouths of babes! I could have wept!

This Lent we will be thinking a lot about love, and there will be a number of occasions (Ash Wednesday, The Stations of the Cross, Palm Sunday and Holy Week to name but a few, as well as the weekly Compline Service and ecumenical Lent Group) to reflect on that child’s poignant and profound observation as we read and pray about both the creation and the crucifixion:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16) – the how and the why! And, given the discussions and the decisions made in General Synod last month, we might also want to be thinking and praying about how we, as individuals and as a church community, can play our part in the continuing care of God’s creation, which is so necessary and so urgent.

May God bless each one of us richly in this season of Lent.

The Revd Alec Brown.