Attached is the order of service for this Sunday's Mass. Join via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/letchworthparishAll welcome!
The Annunciation - 25th March 2020What is the Word of God saying to us today, to the people of the 21st century who find themselves in midst of the coronavirus pandemic? Two things stand out to me very strongly in the readings set for today’s great feast of the Annunciation, and I hope they might be of help to you too. The first is the promise of God’s presence, the assurance that God never just disappears and leaves us to deal with our problems on our own. The salvation story as described on the pages of the Bible makes it very clear that God’s interest in us is deep and passionate. Haven’t we been created in the image of God? Our beginning and our end are in Him from whom we come and in whom we find our origin. This allows us to hope that our end is not the end as such but rather it’s a gate to eternal life. Our names are written in God’s heart, the heart overflowing with compassion and love. We don’t need to be afraid. As Jesus once said to Nicodemus: ‘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’ (J 3.16). It is true that death is inevitable. It comes to us all. However, the life-giving presence of Christ among us in his Word and Sacrament gives us the assurance that we will never perish but will have eternal life. How does God come to us? He comes as ‘Emmanuel’, as ‘God with us.’ He desires to be close to each and every one of us. That’s why he comes to us as someone we easily relate to, someone we don’t need to be afraid of - a child. Today’s feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary provides us with a glimpse of Christmas joy. In the middle of Lent, we are reminded that ‘the Word became flesh and made home among us’ (J 1.14). When the Angel Gabriel comes to Mary, the first words he says to her are, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ He assures her of God’s continuing presence in her life and, although perplexed at first, she soon realises that this presence will materialise in form of a child. She is the favoured one, because she is now the bearer of God’s love. Her ‘yes’ to God’s will opens the way for the Holy Spirit to work and for her to become a bearer of the hope of salvation for all people. This remarkable encounter with God changes her. At the end of the Annunciation story Mary is no longer perplexed or afraid. She is now ready to say, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according your word’ (Lk 1.38). This brings me to the second thing I would just like to briefly mention now and let you reflect on yourself throughout the rest of the day. These are the words the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary in the moment of fear: ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God’ (Lk 2.30). Today and, indeed, every day, God, through his Holy Word, offers us his encouragement and assures us of his loving presence among us. He may not be present in the way we imagine him to be, but he, nevertheless, is present. In the time when our anxiety caused by the coronavirus pandemic grows and we become increasingly worried about our lives and the lives of our loved ones, let us try to find some comfort and peace in keeping this wonderful feast that speaks to us so clearly of God’s desire to be close to us all. Even when we are not able to be physically present in church, we can still set aside a time each day dedicated to listening to the word of God and asking the Holy Spirit to fill us with God’s healing and transforming grace. Let us hear the words Jesus speaks to his disciples, and take them to heart: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid’ (J 14.27).
This year’s Lent is a strange one. The discipline of giving things up has now become something that everyone - whether they are a Christian or not – now needs to learn and embrace. Our world has changed, and it acquired a somewhat Lenten character. We have been asked to abandon the many things we enjoy doing, including attending church and socialising, pubs and restaurants are all closed, and we cannot visit our families on this Mother’s Day. But we know that this compulsory abstinence has been introduced for a very good reason and for a greater good of all, including ourselves. I believe that as those who follow Jesus on the way of his cross and passion, we are called to lead by example. We have a Saviour who suffered the most excruciating pain and who died for us all, not out of necessity, but out of love for humankind. As St John the Evangelist writes in the Gospel, ‘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’ (J 3.16). God wants us to live. He doesn’t wish to punish or destroy us but invites us to trust in his unfailing love and compassion. This means that even when illness and death shatter our everyday lives, we can be sure that God never abandons us. In his Son, he carries our pain in his heart and gives us hope stretching beyond a confinement of our earthly lives. One of his greatest gifts for us is a sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. It is an essential part of our calling to imitate the love we continue to discover in the person of Jesus Christ. During a time like this, when we are asked to give up our daily routines and inhabit a new and, in many ways, more demanding way of life, not only we need to obey but also to love. When, for the time being, we are deprived of the Eucharist then we will do well to remind ourselves of St Augustine’s exhortation to ‘become what we receive’, the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ. In the world we live in right now, one of the most obvious ways in which we can give sacrificially of ourselves to our neighbour and become more Christ-like is by staying at home. Something of our own comfort needs to die in order to allow someone else, and ourselves, stay well and live. This is going to be especially difficult today, as we are celebrating Mothering Sunday during this time of social distancing and self-isolation. But as we do all we can to fight an invisible enemy of the coronavirus, we soon realise that we in fact share in a common task of mothering one another, that is of taking our responsibility for each other seriously. In today’s reading we see Mary, the mother of Jesus, standing at the foot of the cross, supported by Jesus’ beloved disciple, St John. Jesus, on seeing his mother doesn’t fall into pieces, but does something incredibly practical. Even in the darkest hour of suffering and isolation, when death seems to have un upper hand, Jesus brings life into this most desperate and heart-breaking moment. He says to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he says to John, ‘Here is your mother’ (J 19.26-27). These few words of Jesus spoken from the cross addressed to the two people closest to him established between them a new relationship of trust and of love. They knew things were going to be different after Jesus’ death. They knew that for a while to be out and about was going to be too dangerous for them, so they went home. Perhaps the closing sentence from today’s gospel passage is what we need to heed the most today, ‘And from that hour the disciple took her into his home’ (J 19.27). Although it’s Mothering Sunday, today is not the day to visit our families. This is the day to show our love and care for one another by doing exactly the opposite – staying at home to help slow down the spread of coronavirus. Small acts of kindness will have to suffice today: making a phone call, sending an email, or offering to do a shopping or prescription run for someone who is self-isolating. At 7 pm this evening, when we light a candle in our windows to remember the light of Christ shining even within the darkest night, let us receive the love and comfort of God into our homes, and pray for those from whom we are separated, but also for those who are on a front line of the fight with the coronavirus epidemic, all health workers and their families. May Mary, Mother of Our Lord, who at the foot of the cross became also a mother to John and to each one of us, pray for them and for us. Fr Robert
