The Priory Church, St. Bees

Bega to Bega Pilgrimage: July 8 – July 10, 2009

Five members of the Priory Church, St. Bees, undertook a pilgrimage from The Priory Church of St. Mary and St. Bega to St. Bega’s Church, Bassenthwaite.  Information regarding the route of the walk can be found here. Chris Robson (one of our Readers) has developed draft pilgrimage notes to help make the 3 day walk intentionally prayerful and reflective.

Day 1

“Gracious God, you are the journey

and the journey’s end.  Open our eyes to your presence, open our minds to your peace,

open our lives to your power.  Guide on this pilgrimage, and on our pilgrimage through life,

that we may walk in the way of peace and find our freedom in your service as we follow Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

Read the rest of this entry »

A study group that we have been running at the Vicarage during this last academic year has been on the lives of ‘Great Christians’. By ‘Great’ we simply mean those who for whatever reason had a large influence on their generation and whose lives and work have been recorded. There are many people who could fall into this category, and we looked at some of them.

A recent individual we have looked at particularly challenged and encouraged me. Mother Teresa, who would be one of the most well known Christians of the 20th Century, lived a life of service and love to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Through a book by Malcolm Muggeridge she became well known all around the world.

Often, when people think of what pure Christian love looks like in today’s world we think of people like Mother Teresa. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this except that the result is that most of us despair at the thought that such a love could be a part of our lives. If we live in ‘the West’ we have no poor people of the degree that Mother Teresa was caring for. We are not surrounded by such intense poverty of the physical kind. As much as we like to moan about the NHS and our social safety net, the fact that it exists at all is a testament to the Christian roots of care and compassion in our country.

Read the rest of this entry »