Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As the weather here at this time of the year is reminding us, the cool of winter is so quickly replaced by the time when we find the days unbearably hot, and when doors thrown open to the refreshing breeze will be replaced by claustrophobic air-conditioning. How grateful we must be for the variation of climate that gives nearly all of us weather to look forward to - even when around the world we are looking forward to a variety of different times. 

Other than weather and climates, doubtless we are all looking forward to an existence without war, without disease, without insufficiency of all sorts and with the full capacity to be human. Such a looking forward requires the presence of other humans with an outlook that is congruent to our own. So we can put our trust in the One who has designed us with such hopes and not let difficulties and disappointments rob us of the humanity with which we were and are ultimately endowed.

As Professor Donald Scott whose new book “The Interconnected Cosmos” I am happily ploughing through at the moment says, we do not live on an isolated speck in a largely cold, lifeless and meaningless universe. What happens here on Earth is conditioned by vast interconnected cosmic forces which as an active physicist he convincingly analyses. And so, we can say, we are never “alone”.

Which, as Christians, we never should have thought we were. 

Sunday coming is the Fourth Sunday in Lent, and is widely known as Mothering Sunday, or, alternatively, Refreshment Sunday. This has an entirely older and different history from the “Mothers’ Day" of American origin and should never be referred to as “Mothers’ Day”, pace the modern British and other radio stations and newspapers that often do just that.

The Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Lent is

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The “worth” (as in “worthily”) of "our evil deeds” is that of a punitive sentence (i.e. “punished”), but the prayer is that by the “comfort” (strength acting with and for us) of the “grace" of Almighty God, "through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” we “may mercifully be relieved.” The Good News is that we do not live in a the cold and isolated place of the unmodified consequences of our own “evil deeds”: rather, through the atonement of the Lord Jesus we may yet successfully plead for His warm mercy and relief.

I need to let you know that our brother-in-law Wilbert McKnight who I indicated at service last Sunday was very ill, died that afternoon in University Hospital (Jamaica) in the presence of loved ones. This has turned out to involve our being absent for some days in Holy Week and it will affect the services that can be offered that week.

For directions about the services this Sunday the 27th March 2022, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, please see the website www.TruthWithLanguage.com . 

In faith in the holy Name of our Lord Jesus, who will continue to provide guidance by the Holy Spirit to all His people.

+ Nicholas