Today’s Gospel reading continues our journey through Mark’s Gospel and brings us to the end of chapter 4. Chapter 4 had begun with Jesus teaching the crowd on the shore while he sat in a boat. When evening came, Mark shows Jesus crossing to the other side of the lake in the boat. But then a great storm arose and the waves beat into the boat. The opening chapters of Mark’s Gospel portrayed Jesus as one who has authority over the powers of evil.  In chapter one, Jesus said to the man with an unclean spirit ‘Be silent.’  Now the same Greek word is addressed to the storm, translated this time ‘Be still.’  In both cases the result is instantaneous and peace is restored.  Peace is that context in which God’s will for the creation is realised.  Jesus says, ‘Peace!  Be still!’
 
For those of you who wanted to do some thinking and preparation for today’s service during the preceding week, I invited reflection on the image of hands, since hands communicate the sign of peace within the eucharistic liturgy. Today’s picture of hands is taken from the illustrated communion book, The Lord is Here!
 
Lord Jesus Christ,
you brought peace to the storm.
Teach us to turn to you
when our lives are stormy and rough,
that we may hear your words of peace
and experience your calm in our hearts;
today and every day.
Amen.
 
Next Sunday our journey through Mark’s Gospel takes us into chapter 5 where two healings are presented within one narrative. The image to help us prepare for next Sunday’s theme is ambulance.  You can find out more about that theme here https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. We would really appreciate you letting us know how you are using these materials. Please send us your ideas and photos of the things you may create; email them to Nelson.Pike@liverpoolcathedral.org.uk.
 
To learn more about The Lord is here! and other communion resources, please follow this link to the relevant page of the St. Mary’s Centre website: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/childrenandcommunion.html.
 
You are warmly invited to join us in worship online. We are livestreaming our said 8:30am Eucharist on our Facebook page, linked here: https://www.facebook.com/LiverpoolCathedral. This will be our sole offering online today, as many of our live streaming volunteers are self-isolating in compliance with official regulations. 
 
I send Sunday greetings to all.
 
Canon Leslie

In one sense, I don’t think Micah Liverpool has ever found itself in the situation it finds itself at the moment. The necessity of delivering food parcels each week to sometimes over five hundred folks a week demands tremendous energy and time from so many. 
Covid-19 stopped so many things--but even in the guidance during lockdown one, church-related food banks were allowed to continue to operate, of course dependent on good safety precautions. Micah hasn't missed a week since lockdown one, nor had any outbreak, thanks to our safety protocols (but would someone please touch wood!). 

We stand now on the precipice on what “the new normal” will look like. The pandemic has indeed changed so many things long-term. And Micah will be no exception. Plans are afoot regarding how we will respond to need long term once restrictions do lift, in addition to emergency food aid, particularly how we will respond to the increase in joblessness as a result of the pandemic. 

So Micah stands at a time of great change, yet continues, as it has done, to address the age old problem of the brokenness of our world. For Christians, this is a constant demand of Christ, and that we witness to him in seeking to do our bit in making the world a better place.

As Jesus promised, poverty is still among us: “you will always have the poor with you” (John 12:8). Covid has not changed that, in fact, it’s only exacerbated inequalities among rich and poor, white and people of colour, male and female, citizen and refugee. As far as scripture is concerned, this is, I believe, a long-term result of the curse of Genesis: the enmity between the man and the woman means for us today that our relationships with each other are not as they should be, or as God intended them to be. They fall short of the vision of shalom God has for everyone. 

We are working towards a kingdom that isn’t here yet, and probably will be a while. The work of feeding the hungry is such an important ministry and so inherent to the Gospel, yet even that work operates in a fallen creation. We won’t always be able to do what we’d like to. We will have stumbling blocks. We will have to wait for restrictions to change a few weeks longer than we originally had hoped. 

It takes faith to hold on to the promise that there will be brighter days ahead. We can take heart that through the communion of saints, we aren’t alone in holding on. The church has always been reconsidering and responding to the needs and events of her surroundings. In fact, it’s always the duty of the church on earth to “[bring] the grace and truth of Christ to this generation”, as we are tol, in the preface to the service of the installation of a canon. We continually work out what the Gospel means as the world changes. And we do it together with the church across time and space, in an eschatological hope for what God has in store for us in the future. It is a continual offering to God in response to his continual call, for his continual glory. 

AMDG

Nelson, Residential Tsedaqah Community Member

While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.

(Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash. Thanks to Lina Trochez for sharing on Unsplash.)

Last week, Dean Sue reflected very powerfully on the work of carers – those millions of people who give of their time and energy, their love and care to look after others.  Carer’s week was highlighted; a week dedicated to ‘Making Caring Visible and Valued’, through organisations like Carersweek.org (https://www.carersweek.org/) who were noting the issue especially through the pandemic.  Many of us know, many voiced and other organisations continued to note, that it is not just within the Pandemic that people have done this – some have done this all their lives, and the concerns for helping these millions of unpaid carers have been around for many, many years. 

Highlighting the week was an opportunity to make these issues more visible in some way.  Spookily, I’d tweeted about @Carersweek without knowing that Dean Sue was also writing about it!  But news clips on radio and TV, and other organisations also highlighted the work of carers – these unsung heroes who give their all for others.  Organisations such as the Alzheimer’s Society highlighting the ever-present importance of self-care for carers; the BBC running local and national reports with a very powerful news article that I saw of organisations like MyTime in Wigan, (@mytimewigan) and what they do supporting Carers across the UK.

But I felt drawn to reflect more, in complement with Dean Sue’s, because of a prayer request I read out last Saturday at morning prayer, and from Sunday’s gospel (Mk 4:26-34).  The prayer request, placed on our prayer wall (https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/requests.html), asked for prayers for a loved one, for God’s guidance and strength, peace and healing for them – to let them know they are never alone…..

Just over a fortnight ago was the ninth anniversary of my own mums passing into our Lord’s hands.  A few weeks before my father, husband and 24/7 carer, was rushed into hospital with his own healthcare problems – and I and my brother stepped in for a very short time to look after mum.  We experienced on a tiny scale just how difficult life was for Dad, indeed for both of them.  On one of the days when it was just myself, I had that feeling that all carers know; feeling completely drained and exhausted, wondering what to do next; for me, praying in my feeling of loneliness and isolation..…when completely out of the blue at that exact moment, a text came through.  From one of my ordinand friends, it simply read, “Remember, Mike, you are not alone”.  There was absolutely no way that they could have known that that was precisely what I was thinking that very moment; no way.  For me it was a perfect example of the answer to prayer.

Just a few weeks beforehand, in passing conversation with my parents’ neighbours, they were asking me how mum and Dad were and also mentioning how they felt helpless in knowing what to do.  Previously, they had always put the bins out for my parents each week – they asked if they could still do that.  My parents were delighted; knowing that through that one, small gesture, being the fastidious and caring individuals, they always were, that was one less thing for them to worry about.

Both examples for me, resonated powerfully with that prayer request, and Sunday’s gospel on one of the seed parables.  Where, for me, the smallest of gestures or actions can, like the tiniest of mustard seeds, produce an impact we could never have imagined.  Though small in nature, the action of that text, the offering from the neighbours, both helped in a massive way.  For me, they indicate that the Kingdom is present, that God’s love is present here and now; and the effect that we might have ourselves can never be underestimated in going to help others…..that the Kingdom will come into all its fullness and glory in the future, but it can also be seen in the here and now, through the love and care that all express – especially in caring for the carer. 

As Dean Sue wrote, “as Christians we are encouraged to care for each other”;  like everyone, there are times when we might not know how to do that or simply what to do in the circumstances.  The parables of the smallest seeds give us faith that no act or gesture is too small to make a difference to others, especially those giving so much of themselves caring for others, day-in day-out.  Our prayers, our outreach, the smallest of things can help….the importance is that we do something.  And from what might seem like the smallest of things, will be seen the love of God in some way….

As always, with my love and prayers; go gently…..

Canon Mike 😊

While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.

Today’s Gospel reading continues our journey through Mark’s Gospel and brings us to chapter 4, where we find Jesus teaching beside the sea. Such a large crowd gathered around Jesus that he got into a boat and carried on teaching from there. Mark begins with the Parable of the Sower and then goes on with the Parable of the Growing Seed and the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Like all the parables, these two have been interpreted in a variety of ways.  Read together, however, they can be seen to make the same basic contrast.  One begins with seeds and ends with a field full of grain.  The other begins with a tiny mustard seed and ends with a large shrub.  Both are parables of growth.  Both demonstrate the natural processes of growth without human intervention.  The point is that the Kingdom of God is like that too.  The seed has been planted and nothing can stop the growth.
 
For those of you who wanted to do some thinking and preparation for today’s service during the preceding week, I invited reflection on the image of growth. In today’s picture, from the book Exploring Buddhism, Sara and Rees join their friends to plant a tree that will grow taller than them in the years to come.
​
Lord God,
your kingdom grows from
the smallest seeds.
Nurture the seeds of your love in our hearts,
that we may grow in the ways
of your kingdom;
for you reign as king for ever.
Amen.
 
Next Sunday our journey through Mark’s Gospel takes us to Jesus experiencing and calming a storm at sea. The image to help us prepare for next Sunday’s theme is hands. In the eucharistic community hands give the sign of peace. You can find out more about that theme here https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. We would really appreciate you letting us know how you are using these materials. Please send us your ideas and photos of the things you may create; email them to Nelson.Pike@liverpoolcathedral.org.uk.
 
To read the book, Exploring Buddhism, follow this link to the resource on the St. Mary’s Centre website: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/World%20Faiths%20Today%20series/Storybooks%20World%20Faiths%20Today/Buddhism%20story%20English.pdf. For more adventures with Rees and Sara in the Exploring Faiths today series, follow this link to the appropriate page of the Resources section of the St. Mary’s Centre website: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/worldfaithstoday.html.
 
You are warmly invited to join us in worship online. We are livestreaming our 10:30am service on both our Facebook and YouTube pages. To stream the service on Facebook, follow this link to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LiverpoolCathedral. To stream the service on YouTube, follow this link to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/LiverpoolCathedral/videos.
 
Rees and Sara send their Sunday greetings to all.
 
Canon Leslie

Carers Week began on Monday. The Carers Week website (www.carersweek.org) states:
​
"Carers Week is an annual awareness campaign that celebrates and recognises the vital contribution of the UK’s unpaid carers – supporting family members and friends who are older, have a disability, mental or physical illness or need extra help as they grow older." 
 
There are 6.5 million carers in the UK and this number has risen over the past year as families have faced the impact of COVID-19. The theme for this year’s Carers week is: Making Caring Visible and Valued.

Helen Walker, Chief Executive of Carers UK, on behalf of the Carers Week Charities, said:
​
"Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic unpaid carers have played an essential role supporting older, disabled and seriously ill relatives and friends, doing so most of the year on their own behind closed doors. They have forgone breaks from caring and much of the support they would normally have relied on.

"As restrictions ease it is vital that we acknowledge the enormous contribution that unpaid carers continue to make day in day out. I am delighted that many individuals and organisations are getting involved with virtual activities, helping carers to connect to others and access advice and information locally. 

"Looking after someone can be a hugely rewarding experience, but it sometimes comes with difficulties, including getting the right support. This Carers Week I hope all parts of the community – family and friends, employers, businesses, schools, health and care services – do their bit to make caring visible and show it is valued."
 
Caring is a hard vocation at times it is relentless and tiring so as a Cathedral we honour all that you do and we thank you.

As Christians we are encouraged to care for each other. The parable of the Good Samaritan helps us to understand our responsibility to care for and support all of humanity despite religion, creed or race.

So thank you Carers from all at Liverpool Cathedral.

Dean Sue
​
While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.

The cathedral is a place where real life happens – and it is also a place where a taste of heaven – the Kingdom of God to come – happens. In the everyday and in the extra-ordinary. The mundane and the exceptional exist in almost effortless conversation in our Cathedral. I meet Jesus every day at the Cathedral, I am touched by the glory of the generosity of the Holy Spirit and the tenderness of God. This is the everyday stuff of our cathedral, I don’t expect it but it just happens.   

I hear the justice of God proclaimed in every food parcel offered by Micah, I see love of Jesus shared in our welcome of guests, the gentle call of the Holy Spirit as we dare to whisper ‘glory’ in our worship. I see the wrestling of our humanity in our disagreements and the challenges we face together. And experience something of the incomprehensible enormity of God in the architecture.

It’s not always been easy (well life isn’t always easy is it!) but these past five Cathedral years have been magnificent and way beyond anything of my imagining. I am grateful for every encounter, every brick, every note heard and every moment being Canon Chancellor at our Liverpool Cathedral.

Canon Ellen

While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.

Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday, and we are now back into that phase of the Church’s year known as ‘ordinary time’. The Gospel reading for today resumes this year’s systematic reading through Mark’s Gospel.
 
Today Mark’s narrative is picked up in chapter 3. Earlier Jesus has called his disciples. He has healed the sick and won the hearts of the crowds. But Jesus has also begun to make enemies and to stir up conflict by the way in which he welcomes outcasts and challenges the religious leaders. In today’s Gospel reading Mark contrasts the way in which the sick, the possessed and the outcasts flock to Jesus with the way in which the religious leaders refused to recognise Jesus’ authority and stirred up controversy against him.  In this passage even Jesus’ closest family questioned his sanity, while the scribes insisted on attributing Jesus’ actions to evil sources.  In his reply to the scribes Jesus asserts his own authority to overturn the forces of evil.  It is this conflict which leads inevitably to the crucifixion later in the Gospel.
 
For those of you who wanted to do some thinking and preparation for today’s service during the preceding week, I invited reflection on the image of conflict. In today’s picture, from his book The Grumpy Day, Teddy Horsley is stirring up conflict around the breakfast table at home.
 
Lord Jesus Christ,
you faced conflict in your ministry.
When we face conflict,
help us to follow your example,
that we may choose the right way
and not the wrong way;
now and always.
Amen.
 
Next Sunday, our journey through Mark’s Gospel takes us to two of Jesus’ parables about growth, the Parable of the Growing Seed, and the Parable of the Mustard Seed. The image to help us prepare for next Sunday’s theme is growth. You can find out more about that theme here https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. We would really appreciate you letting us know how you are using these materials. Please send us your ideas and photos of the things you may create; email them to Nelson.Pike@liverpoolcathedral.org.uk.
 
To learn more about The Grumpy Day and to find more adventures with Teddy Horsley, you can follow this link to his page on the St. Mary’s Centre website: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/TeddyHorsley.html, as well as this link to his own website: https://teddyhorsley.org/.
 
You are warmly invited to join us in worship online. We are livestreaming our 10:30am service on both our Facebook and YouTube pages. To stream the service on Facebook, follow this link to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LiverpoolCathedral. To stream the service on YouTube, follow this link to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/LiverpoolCathedral/videos.
 
Teddy Horsley sends his Sunday greetings to all.
 
Canon Leslie
 

As I write I wonder, will this be the month when we can all sing again? Perhaps, like me, you have been able to sing out of doors – I have happy memories of some very wet carol singing just before Christmas in Wigan. People came to sing the familiar tunes and words that mean so much, and do so much to weave us into the story of God’s love for the world.

But we all understand, I think, why it has been easier for officials to relax other rules, while hymn singing by congregations remains suspended. It is simply too powerful, risky, all that air stirred up and shared.

It has been glorious to have the choir back in greater numbers since Easter, distanced, and when the children sing, masked. Hymns, however, are at the heart of our personal faith for many of us.

When the people of England were experiencing the gospel of God’s grace in a new way in the days of the Reformation, under the first Queen Elizabeth, they sang hymns, outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London, and psalms, the most ancient hymns. On the cross, Christ himself drew on these songs, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ comes from Psalm 22. It describes a fate like his humiliation, and silencing, but it looks forward with hope, as do we, to Resurrection, and rejoicing,

“The poor shall eat, and be satisfied:
they that seek after the Lord shall praise him; your heart shall live for ever.”

These are words that come from the heart of God, and unite us with Christ. In the words of another verse from the psalms, as we wait patiently for news,

“O Lord, open thou our lips.”

Canon Philip 

​While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.

At last we have the peace doves in the cathedral!    
​
As we are able to show such a spectacular installation in such a spectacular place we are left in awe and wonder - giving an opportunity for a million and one different opportunities for the doves to resonate with each of us at different times and different emotions. Tears will be shed expressing a whole range of emotions from relief, joy and sorrow. As we have been in lockdown many a cry has been, “O for the wings of a dove far, far away would I rove”!

I am reminded of the motto used by Bootle:

Respice, adspice, prospice Examine the past, examine the present, examine the future.

I first came across it living and working in Bootle during the time of the government initiative, “City Challenge”, which aimed at bringing regeneration to the area--with limited impact, as there was not enough reflection on the past and present to lead into a better future at that time.

As we slowly emerge from this current pandemic we will all be living to a small or large extent altered lives:

• Reflecting on past mistakes and things that we can never regain - needing time for tears of loss.
• Emerging from our bubbles and the changes that has brought to our lives and tears of joy as we reengage with those we have missed.
• And most of all, how does this reflecting help us to live for the future? What kind of world do we want to live in and leave for the future?

My diary is beginning to fill up, firstly with long awaited visits to family and friends, secondly with face to face meetings and opportunities to engage with new initiatives. As we move into this new future, let’s thank God for the gift of tears and look to let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

Canon Linda

While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord.
 
Today is Trinity Sunday when the Church contemplates and celebrates the mystery of God revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The full nature of God is a mystery which men and women have struggled to grasp and to express, a mystery that inspires us with awe and wonder. The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that God has been made known in the world in three characteristic ways, as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit. The way in which the early church chose to express this mystery was in terms of ‘three persons in one Godhead’. In John’s Gospel Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus provides biblical roots for the distinctive activities of God as Father, Jesus as Son, and the Holy Spirit.
 
For those of you who wanted to do some thinking and preparation for today’s service during the preceding week, I invited you to reflect on the image of the night sky that inspires awe and wonder. In today’s picture, taken from the illustrated communion book, The Lord is Here!, the text of the Sanctus is superimposed on the night sky.  
 
Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord of sky and sea.
Praise to the Father,
praise to the Son,
praise to the Holy Spirit,
praise to the Glorious and Holy Trinity;
now and for ever.
Amen.
 
Next Sunday, the First Sunday after Trinity, the Gospel reading takes us back to our journey through Mark’s Gospel. In chapter 3 Jesus faces trouble with the religious leaders. The image to help us prepare for next Sunday’s theme is conflict. You can find out more about that theme here https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. We would really appreciate you letting us know how you are using these materials. Please send us your ideas and photos of the things you may create; email them to Nelson.Pike@liverpoolcathedral.org.uk.
 
To learn more about The Lord is here! and other communion resources, please follow this link to the relevant page of the St. Mary’s Centre website: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/childrenandcommunion.html.
 
You are warmly invited to join us in worship online. We are livestreaming our 10:30am service on both our Facebook and YouTube pages. To stream the service on Facebook, follow this link to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LiverpoolCathedral. To stream the service on YouTube, follow this link to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/LiverpoolCathedral/videos.
 
I send Trinity Sunday greetings to all.
 
Canon Leslie