Sunday 11 April 2010

CofE

Confronted by the wistful, the half-believing and the seeking, we know what it is to minister to those who relate to the faith of Christ in unexpected ways. We do not write off hesitant and inadequate responses to the gospel. Ours is a church of the smoking flax, of the mixture of wheat and tares. Critics may say that we blunt the edge of the gospel and become Laodicean. We reply that we do not despise the hesitant and half-believing, because the deeper we look into human lives the more often we discern the glowing embers of faith.

Robert Runcie, 'Comment', Church Observer, June 1962, quoted by Martyn Percy in ed. Bell, Hopkinson, Willmott, Reshaping Rural Ministry – A Theological and Practical Handbook, p151

Friday 2 April 2010

Easter

Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east,
More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,
Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,
Our hearts' charity's hearth's fire, our thoughts' chivalry's throng's Lord.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wreck of the Deutschland, lines 277-280