Every Tuesday morning at 10am

Simply tune in on Zoom and enjoy a few moments of quiet, prayerful reflection as the week unfolds. It will last no longer than 10 minutes.

Meeting ID: 892 2955 4820 Passcode: 836488
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86523047387?pwd=cZ8g29z3nUYTbXh1VlxdGedrf7Pvid.1

A time to pause, pray, reflect and reconnect.

No preparation needed.

Time for conversation for those who can stay.

“….Waiting on God, learning to be passive in a way creative for your inner life, is not a question of thinking about God, but of growing in stillness. It has to do with prayer, and with music or from the simple contemplation of the world about you.” (Michael Mayne, ‘A Year Lost and Found’)

The English tradition of Mothering Sunday was shaped by a lady called Constance Smith, who in 1913 looked back into the church´s traditions from pre-Reformation times, and discovered that, on Laetare Sunday, the middle Sunday of Lent, people were allowed a small break from the austerity and their Lenten fast, which is the reason why it is also known as ‘Refreshment Sunday’.

And so, in 1920, the pre-reformation tradition, where people would return to their home for a day in the middle of Lent, was revived, and became associated with another tradition on this day, of baking a simnel cake - a light fruit cake with a layer of marzipan in the middle and another on top.

Many youngsters worked away from home, as apprentices or domestic servants, and were given the day off to visit their mother. As they walked along the country lanes, they would pick wild flowers to take to church or to give to their mum, just as we do to this day.

Pope John Paul 1st, the Pope who lasted for only 33 days, said this: “God is our father, yet even more so, God is our mother”. For those qualities of motherhood that we remember on this day – care, warmth, responsibility, comfort, fairness, love, healing - are there aplenty in our God.