Abstract
Amid all the sorrow, fear, anger, loneliness that I, and no doubt the vast majority of people across the world, have experienced for over the last year and a half, I have found myself returning to Book of Common Prayer (BCP) in search of understanding and a sense of community that stretches beyond this current turbulent time and space. I have felt supported by reflecting upon the Collects, comforted in the knowledge they are and have been voiced during times of plague, war, social injustice and political instability for almost five hundred years. The BCP Collects’ timeless human longing for the reassurance that God is with us are just as authentic and needed today as they when they were written.
Week beginning 4th July
“Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think” (taken from the Collect for the Nineth Sunday after Trinity).
We are drowning in a world of polished soundbites and highly ‘air-brushed’ video clips. It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. The destabilizing sensation of living during a time of global political and social instability has perhaps left us craving for smooth, glib words and easy answers to provide us with a supposed lifeline, but such glossy responses are often at best vacuous and at worst deliberately misleading and harmful. Similarly, much to the detriment of some, God’s Call to everyone to use the gift of curiosity and serious thought has been blinkered and curtailed, owing to some embodiments of the Church choosing to reduce God’s invitation to get involved in the messy and difficult story of Christian faith with unquestionable assertions and dogmatic notions of truth. The Collect reminds us that we each have the responsibility to think, that an authentic quest for truth is one that seeks out challenges and importantly at its core is the spirit that it is done with generosity and the intention of displaying compassion for all not just to advance our pride and own hollow sense of power.
Week beginning 11th July
“Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants” (taken from the Collect for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity).
Over the past year, owing to the various ‘lockdowns’ nations have had to instigate to protect their citizens as much as possible from the harms of Coronavirus, it would appear there are a plethora of voices we haven’t heard from for a long period of time. However, has their silence been simply owing to the inability to be in their presence to listen to them or have we chosen to close our ears, not being able to withstand the heartache? Covid-19 has created a pandemic of loneliness, where once there were more available opportunities to meet and give voice to anxieties in the hope of obtaining access to the everyday help needed to cope. Yet, as a result of these unprecedented circumstance such moments of succor have been replaced by a vacuum. The first-time parent unable to access baby groups to meet with others coping with the demands of parenthood, the clinically vulnerable individual with no family and few friends unable to leave their home and sit in a café where they previously had experienced such joy, the palliative care patient who knows owing to the restrictions regarding funeral arrangements will not be able to have the funeral service they had always hoped. Self-preservation in such turbulent times has caused many of us to close our ears to the cries, the laments, the prayers of other perhaps even to our own. The utter honesty of the Collect speaks of a faith that God will hear them when we are unable to listen.
Week beginning 18th July
“O God, who declares thy almighty power most chiefly in shewing mercy and pity” (taken from the Collect for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity).
The atmosphere can descend into something profoundly unattractive and dispiriting when Christians, who attend different churches, compare congregation sizes. Such conversations can be particularly pernicious between those who are members of the same denomination. One can almost be made to feel ashamed when honestly responding to the question “How many attend your church?”, if you belong to a church that is not ‘stuffed to the rafters’ every Sunday. Anxiety among members of churches with small congregations regarding their short-, let alone long-term, future viability was elevated even before the pandemic. Yet, despite remaining faithful in their worship of God and serving their locality in sincere and much-needed ways, these parts of the Body of Christ are struggling to survive, especially owing to heightened financial hardships. The Collect reminds us that God calls those in a position of security and confidence not to feel satisfied at their relative eminence but to support other members of God’s family to ensure that their unique perspective of God’s Kingdom is not crushed simply on account of such human creation of church statistics and economics. The pandemic has caused so much unsurpassable suffering and hardship, rather than extend this pain, it is incumbent upon those with the privilege of power, rather than gloat, to instead work to sustain all of the Body of Christ.
Week beginning 25th July
“Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we are to pray” (taken from the Collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity).
There is often a great discrepancy in the amount of information we give when asked about the welfare of a loved one compared to when there is an inquiry about our own well-being. It appears we would often much rather talk about our partner, children, friends, etc., than about ourselves. I wonder how many of us can identify with the situation when asked “How are you?” have responded with “I’m fine” when nothing could be further from the truth. Whether owing to embarrassment, discomfort or, even, disbelief that another individual could have asked this question from a place of concern for us rather than only social etiquette. We are particularly hesitant to share with others mental health difficulties, perhaps because we fear being persevered as weak, dissembling, or unsafe company. Prior to the Coronavirus pandemic, it was estimated that each year one in four people experienced mental health difficulties, now with the unparalleled stressors that have arisen owing to Covid-19, it is now predicted that this proportion of us living with psychological distress has increased exponentially. It is vital that we all work to create an environment in which everyone can feel comfortable to discuss pain and vulnerability, physical and psychological health, without fear of judgement or being forced to accept easy answers. To create such a habitus in which the opportunity to give voice to our own trauma be heard with compassion, without rushing to distract with the misfortune of others, will allow greater honesty to flow and transformed into healing from others, God, and importantly ourselves.