Dear Friends,
This comes, as ever, with much love and prayers as we move closer to Holy Week and the wonder and mystery of Easter. The Community this week is closed to guests as we have our own retreat – it’s good to have an ebb in the usual flow, sometimes strong current, of the everyday life of Community within our offer of hospitality.
You are very welcome to join us online for our Holy Week and Easter reflections – check it out here. Please note there will be no Sanctuary services for the next two weeks – our next service will be on Wednesday 23rd April.
We are beavering away on the next Momentum and programme (covering new events from September 2025 to February 2026) which should be on your doormats during the week beginning 28th April. When the programme is released, do put in your booking requests via the website (rather than by ‘phone) to help our lovely Admin Team deal with your booking requests in the order that they are made, and we thank you in advance for your patience as we work through each booking in turn.
We are now beginning to plan for Phase 8 of the Masterplan. Our buildings are always about making a guest experience beautiful and enriching. Please do read this ‘Building a future letter’ which is an invitation to join this adventure through an Appeal we will be running from Easter to Pentecost.
Please find below Di’s reflection on Maundy Thursday. Enjoy!
Phil and I were leading our recent Lent Retreat looking at various pieces of art and poetry. We as a group noticed the lack of women in the images we were looking at. So I was delighted to find that in the 1450’s Fr Angelica was making a positive statement about women, here in the Easter story.
This fresco comes from Cell 34 of 44 in the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence, where in the mid-fifteenth century Fra Angelico and his assistants painted on the walls various religious scenes. It is very unusual, not only in having women present but also because Fr Angelico gives us the names of each of the figures in their halo. From left to right we have James, John and Peter asleep in the garden. Whilst within the house, we have Mary and Martha awake and at work. Also have a look at the angel holding out the cup of suffering, a reminder of Jesus’ pleading with God the Father to let the cup of suffering, pass him by.
As you can imagine it was the two sisters who drew me in. Hidden from view in the garden Mary is reading a book, continuing her study, her learning from Jesus and Martha is praying, actively praying – of course! I love the idea that Fra Angelico not only deliberately added women but also gave them positive roles to play in the scene. They are awake, vigilant and watchful, waiting through the night, whilst the disciples on the other side of the wall have their heads in their hands, emotionally exhausted, sleeping. You can’t really blame them! But they do seem to have lost their trust in the prophecies leaving the women to keep vigil, to hold their friend, their teacher in their prayers.
But for me, this fresco primarily speaks into the times when we find it difficult, impossible even to pray, when we no longer know how or what to say, when hope has vanished. It is into those times, on the other side of our walls, that I believe people have been called to pray, to hold us in their prayers, to sustain us. Those are the prayers we are invited to join each lunchtime, in the Chapel. They are the prayers we are all called to pray for a remembered friend. A nudge! a letter received, a ‘feeling’, a dream, a word spoken can help us become aware that we have been called to pray.
The women watching and waiting through the night trusted in the prophecies and kept vigil supporting their Lord in his suffering. This Maundy Thursday we are asked the same, we are asked to “keep vigil” to be fully present to Christ’s suffering and spiritually awake to his will and direction. A direction that I hope leads us to grow in expectation, ready to hear the call to pray for others, to ‘keep vigil” for them, to bring them into the love of God.
For some of us this may be easy, for others like the disciples, it may be a bit of a challenge but if we listen, we will hear the call:
Stay with me Remain here with me Watch and pray Watch and pray
With love and prayers from Phil, Di and the Scargill Community