Zoom Service with Revd. June Boyce-Tillman
We had a wonderful first service using Zoom, many thanks to June Boyce-Tillman for leading it so beautifully. Below for those who could not be there – the poems read and the words used for the ‘spiritual eucharist’.
Enjoy and stay safe!
Holy Trinity Roehampton Mothering Sunday
Darkness by Nicola Slee
Christ has penetrated into the depths of darkness,
Loneliness, rejection, agony and fear
In order to touch the depths of darkness
In each one of us
And to call us to belief
To call us to walk in this world of darkness
Loneliness, rejection, agony and fear
Hoping trusting in the resurrection
So do not turn aside from your own pain
Your anguish and brokenness
Your loneliness and emptiness
By pretending you are strong.
Go within yourself
Go down the ladder of your own being
Until you discover-
Like a seed
Buried in the broken, ploughed earth
Of your own vulnerability-
The presence of Jesus
The light shining in the darkness.
Nicola Slee
From Julian of Norwich
As truly as God is our Father; so just as truly he is our Mother… A mother’s caring is the closest, nearest and surest for it is the truest. This care never might, nor could, nor should be done fully except by him alone.
As we know, our mother bore us only into pain and dying. But our true mother Jesus, who is all love, bears us into joy and endless living. Blessed may he be! A mother feeds us with her milk, but our beloved mother Jesus feeds us with himself.
Sweet Mother Jesus by June Boyce-Tillman
CHORUS: Sweet Mother Jesus, mercify me
Sweet Mother Jesus, Christic rose,
Sweet Mother Jesus, mercify me
Sweet Mother Jesus, my repose.
- Encircle me within Your loving
Holding me gently in Your arms
Encircle me within Your loving
And keep me softly from all harm.
CHORUS
- Encircle me within Your loving
Invite me in and comfort me
Encircle me within Your loving
Engage my creativity.
CHORUS
- Encircle me within Your loving
Give me Your hope and silent care
Encircle me within Your loving
Enfold me in Your silent care.
CHORUS.
- Encircle me within Your loving
And shape me as Your eagle priest
Encircle me within your loving
And seat me at Your mystic feast.
CHORUS
June Boyce-Tillman 2015-16
A Psalm of repose
Psalm 131. Lord, I am not high minded; Nor are my eyes raised in arrogance; I have not exercised myself in great matters; nor busied myself with- wonderings beyond my- understanding. But I have calmed and quietened my soul, like a weaned child upon its mother’s breast. In this way have I quietened my soul. O Israel, trust in the Lord; At this time and for the years to come.
Listen by Christine Valters Paintner
I wake to a rising of robin voices,
their tiny chests puffed like ripe persimmons.
Acres of clouds strum across the day-blue sky,
wind breathes its endless score over heathered hills
and the sea beyond my window churns.
Somewhere a hazelnut drops rustling to the ground.
Peony peels herself open in a slow yawn
to reveal a multitude of pleasures.
Fox darts between hedgerows, breaking her silent reverie,
orange fur brushing against golden gorse profusion.
Beneath sirens and the perpetual groan of cars,
the march of trains and planes propelled by timetables,
beneath the endless clatter of your own mind, you can,
for a moment, hear the asparagus heaving headlong into spring.
My labor is to love this secret symphony.
You curl yourself around me at night,
song of your breath stuns me into the sweetest sleep.
And the blue glass vase sits on the table beside me,
holding roses you bought because they smelled like an aria.
When this is over, all I want to say is that I heard the music
of the very last petal drop.
Christine Valters Paintner, in Dreaming of Stones: Poems
Anima Christi – This well-known Christ-centred prayer which is still used widely by the Church dates from the early fourteenth century. It was so well known and so popular at the time of Ignatius of Loyola, that it prefaced editions of his Spiritual Exercises (1522-24).
Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within thy wounds hide me
Permit me not to be separated from thee
From the wicked foe defend me
At the hour of my death call me
And bid me come to thee
That with thy saints I may praise thee
For ever and ever. Amen.