​
My picture today was taken in the gardens of the Community of The Resurrection, Mirfield. The Community of the Resurrection is a community of brothers who live together, rooted in the Anglican tradition and formed in the monastic round of prayer, worship and ministry.
 
The community offers hospitality and a place where people can come to to reflect on God and to wait on God. I have been coming here for a number of years and I try to come in the first few weeks of September. It was here that I prayed through and completed my application for the role of Dean in Liverpool. It was here I came when I was going through a very challenging time in my ministry.
 
Coming to Mirfield gives me the opportunity to stop, to think, to pray and to reset my inner life and to wait on the God who knows and loves me. Mirfield gives me the space to reflect on the past and to look to the future.
 
I last came here for a couple of nights in January and what a lot has happened since then! At that time we were just beginning to realise the seriousness of COVID 19  and the effect it was having on other countries, but little did we realise what was to come.
 
While the brothers have remained untouched by COVID 19 they, like the rest of us, have had to change the way they operate in order to keep the community safe. In January when I came to Mirfield we sat and ate our meals with the brothers, we did not socially distance. We walked the long corridor to the Chapel together, there was no segregation. We had afternoon tea with the brothers and the opportunity to tell stories, to catch up on their lives and the lives of other guests.
 
Today, there is no sharing of meals with the brothers, there is no afternoon tea, there is the long walk to the Chapel on the outside of the building. There is social distancing.
 
What does remain the same is the worship. Each day the brothers pray together. They pray four times a day; Mattins in the morning, midday prayers, evensong and compline. There is a rhythm to the day that is comforting and despite all the changes taking place in the world the regular prayers that this community offers gives stability to a world that is forever changing.
 
As I sit in the gardens of Mirfield I am aware that changes are coming once again as we move in to Autumn. The trees are beginning to lose their fruit and their leaves. The blackberries are coming to the end of the season and everywhere I walk there is a carpet of acorns. Despite the physical changes I see one thing I am sure of, as I sit and look at the beauty of creation, is that God’s steadfastness will not change. I am sure that whatever happens in the next few months God will walk with us, God will abide with us and for me the liturgy whether it be prayed here or in Liverpool Cathedral will give me the framework to give thanks, to lament and to praise the God who knows and loves us.

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 other day a ‘Memory’ appeared on my Facebook page with pictures I had taken on a family holiday a little less than 3 years ago. There was Pauline and myself along with our daughter and son in law and son and daughter in law. There was a clue that things were about to change in our lives as you didn’t have to look too closely to see that our daughter was not far away from giving birth! However there is no way on earth that I could have  guessed how profound that change would be. Now by October (God willing) we will have four grandchildren all under the age of three!

Thankfully both families live reasonably locally and so we see them at least weekly and usually more often. My day off (now non negotiable) is spent helping (helping being the appropriate word) with childcare. It has been an enormous privilege to watch and touch new life making its way into the world. I have always had my problems with the doctrine of ‘Original Sin’ and these last few years have reinforced my doubts.

The Gospel reading for this Sunday is Matthew’s account of Jesus’ teaching given to his disciples immediately following Peter’s confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Yes, said Jesus, that is the right answer, but not the kind of Messiah you may have been hoping for.
 
Here is not the warrior, invincible, superhuman Messiah, the Messiah who manages to sidestep the downside, the pain, and the suffering of what it means to be really human. Here is the Messiah who fully shares in the human condition, right to the very end. Here is the real and living mortal who faces death and who dies an ignominious death on the cross.
 
Peter found that whole idea unpalatable and railed against it. Suddenly the rock on which Jesus had intended to build became the stumbling block against which he began to fall. Like Peter, unless we take this teaching to heart, we are unlikely to last the course of discipleship.
 
To prepare for this Sunday’s service I invited those of you who want to do some thinking beforehand to focus on the image of suffering. Today’s picture from his book The Broken Leg, shows Teddy Horsley is suffering too. I recall Teddy Horsley writing this book while he was waiting with me one long evening in A & E at Glangwili Hospital.
 
Next week the image to help us prepare for participation in the Sunday service, whether offline in the Cathedral or online at home, is the game of hide and seek, when the Gospel reading is from Matthew’s teaching on the community rule and calling out the lost. 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.
 
If you’d like to learn more about Teddy Horsley and his writings, visit his website: https://teddyhorsley.org/, or his page on the website of St. Mary’s Centre: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/TeddyHorsley.html.
 
We warmly invite you to join us in worship online here:

​Teddy Horsley sends his Sunday greetings to all.
 
Canon Leslie

Recent experiences have caused me to reflect deeply on being different.

One of the opportunities I have had since lock down is to undertake some online training organised by the National Church. The training is about how you lead in times of change and what they call disturbance.

As I have worked through the modules and engaged with my fellow Deans I have been reminded, as if I need reminding, that we are all different and that we all have something to contribute to this beautiful world and to the church.

My leadership style may be very different to yours, but what is clear is that different organisations require different skills from their leaders depending on the culture of the organisation. This for me also means that different roles and jobs require people with different personalities. In the Cathedral team we are a very mixed bunch as I am sure you know. We look different to each other, we respond to different situations in our own unique way and we have our own personality and character. And surprisingly we get along with each other despite or because we are different.

The key I think to ‘getting along’ and working together is the fact that we respect each other, we value what is different in the other person and we work with the skills and gifts we have to further the Kingdom of God in the Cathedral. On the whole we tend not to be egotistical, we recognise that it is not about me, but it is about what God has given each of us through our skills and gifts.

As I reflect on these positive experience of working together I have been wondering why as human beings we so often find it so difficult to value one another and to recognise that we are made in the image of God.

This lack of respect for one another has once again come to the fore through the shooting in Wisconsin of Jacob Blake only three months after the death of George Floyd. Why do we find it so difficult to accept, value and respect people of different faith, different culture and different race? Why does difference threaten us?
As I ask these questions I continue to reflect on what I believe.

I believe that God has created us equally. I believe that God has given us gifts and talents to serve him. I believe that God has created us in his image and we need therefore to honour Christ in all people. I believe that the world is a rich place of different nations and different peoples and that’s what makes our world such a great place.
 
What do you believe?

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.

Meet one of our local ‘tigers’! Well it’s actually a Northern Dune Tiger Beetle and it lives just a few miles north of Liverpool, on the Ainsdale Nature Reserve. It’s one of the UK’s rarer beetles and, in the UK, it can only be found on the sand-dunes of the Sefton Coast, and on dunes in Cumbria. So it’s a bit of a special mini-beast, and it’s on our doorstep! It’s called a Tiger Beetle, I assume, because of its stripes. But it’s also, like a tiger, a ferocious predator, perfectly adapted for skittering across the sand to intercept hapless insects and caterpillars that might stumble across its path. I have managed to find them on a couple of recent visits to the reserve, which is when I took this picture. Mind you, it’s a bit of a sun-worshipper, and only comes out when the sun shines and the temperature of the sand is hot enough. But then if it gets too hot, it retreats to the shade. (Sounds like a few humans that I can think of!)
 
As a child, I recall that I approached tigers with a mixture of admiration and fear. They are stunning creatures close-up of course, although seeing one padding disconsolately round and round its tiny cage in London Zoo in the 1970s didn’t really live up to expectations. Thankfully, that kind of captivity is now prohibited in zoos, I hope. I was also introduced to tigers through being a Cub Scout and the Jungle Book. There, however, the tiger (Shere Khan) is the ‘baddie’ and so you will never find a Cub Scout leader named after him. At this point, I ought to say, in order to appease my Winnie-the-Pooh-loving colleague Canon Mike, that of course Christopher Robin’s friend Tigger is nothing like that – but playful and loveable and, well, “bouncy trouncy flouncy pouncy”.
 
The image of a tiger has been famously employed powerfully in advertising. There is a certain breakfast cereal which has a tiger called Tony as its main advocate who roars at every opportunity to tell us that ‘They’re grrrrrreat!’ And then there was a certain oil company which claimed that, if you filled up you car with their fuel, you were putting ‘A tiger in your tank’. And that phrase has entered our langauge as a popular idiom, symbolising a desire for determination and vigour – and perhaps even courage.
 
So, as I was watching the antics of our local ‘tigers’ I was pondering that perhaps we all need to find our ‘inner tiger’ just at the moment. As we continue to journey on through very uncertain territory and seek to find something vaguely solid and dependable on which to tread, we do need a ‘tiger in the tank’; that determination and courage to keep going and push ourselves into unfamiliar places where we feel wary and afraid.
 
A shining example of ‘tiger-like’ courage in the Bible is Joshua, the young man who took over the leadership of the nation of Israel as it journeyed for four decades in the wilderness from Egypt and approached the point where it was to cross the River Jordan and into the ‘Promised Land’. The people of God had not passed that way before, and were understandably anxious about the unknown challenges which lay on the other side of the Jordan, most notably anticipated hostility from the people already living there. But God said to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). Despite the situation, Joshua trusted God’s promise and successfully led the Israelites to the place that he had prepared for them. It didn’t mean that life would be a bed of roses, but it did bring them into a place where they could flourish and be free to worship God in the way that he planned.
 
So it may be that you are not feeling like a  “bouncy trouncy flouncy pouncy” Tigger at the moment but I do pray that God will help you to put a bit of a ‘tiger in your tank’ this coming week. And, if you are quick, and the weather is right, you may just be in time to see the rare Northern Dune Tiger Beetles of Ainsdale and enjoy their antics, before they throw in the towel for this year and hunker down deep in the sand as grubs until the sun shines and it is hot enough once again!
 
Canon Neal
 
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 Gospel reading for this Sunday is Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ game-changing conversation with Peter. The conversation began when Jesus puts Peter on the spot by asking him directly just what he has experienced living alongside Jesus, just how he has interpreted that experience, and who he thinks Jesus really is. Listen carefully and you may be hearing Jesus ask you the same question. But you may need to be brave to hear that question.
 
The conversation continues when Peter puts two and two together and comes up with the right answer. ‘You are the Messiah’, says Peter, with his hand on his heart. Think deeply and you may be wanting to make that confession of faith your very own. But you may need to be brave to give that answer.
 
The conversation continues when Jesus affirms Peter’s faith, when Jesus gives his blessing to Peter, and when Jesus commissions Peter to stand firm, to stand as firm as a rock. Open your heart fully and you may just be willing to accept the same commission, and the same new name Petros, The Rock.
 
To prepare for this Sunday’s service I invited those of you who want to do some thinking beforehand to focus on the image of rock. In today’s picture from his book Water, Teddy Horsley looks up to the great rocks by the coastline.
 
Next week the image to help us prepare for participation in the Sunday service, whether offline in the Cathedral or online at home, is suffering, when the Gospel reading is about Jesus warning his disciples of his own forthcoming suffering and crucifixion. 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.

If you’d like to learn more about Teddy Horsley and his writings, visit his website: https://teddyhorsley.org/, or his page on the website of St. Mary’s Centre: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/TeddyHorsley.html.
 
We warmly invite you to join us in worship online here:
​

Teddy Horsley sends his Sunday greetings to all.
 
Canon Leslie
​

Yesterday was World Humanitarian Day, a day set aside by the United Nations to commemorate humanitarian workers killed or injured in the course of their work. It is a day when the world honours all aid and health workers who continue, despite the odds, to provide life-saving support and protection to people most in need throughout the world.
 
This year World Humanitarian Day comes in the middle of a world blighted by and suffering from COVID 19. Despite COVID 19, aid workers are assisting people in humanitarian crises in 54 countries across the world, as well as in a further nine countries that have been affected by COVID 19 and now need humanitarian need.
 
Christian Aid is honouring local heroes on this World Humanitarian Day. They are honouring their local partners who are overcoming huge obstacles to provide life-saving support and protection to those who need it most. They are honouring their partners in: Afghanistan, Nigeria, El Salvador, South Sudan, Bangladesh, Syria, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Lebanon.
 
One of the challenges during COVID 19 has been to recognise that there are still parts of our world where humanitarian help is needed in addition to COVID 19. In some ways our world became smaller during the lockdown, as we sought to make sure that we as individuals were safe, but we live in a national and global context.  What World Humanitarian Day does is remind us that we live in a global context and that all people are our neighbours.
 
Christian Aid has a campaign running entitled: ‘Let’s help our Global neighbour today.’ Through that campaign we are encouraged to pray for our neighbours facing crisis, to write a prayer for our neighbour, to sign a debt petition asking the Chancellor to cancel debt, to give a gift to support families overcome crisis. You can learn more and take action here: https://www.christianaid.org.uk/appeals/key-appeals/global-neighbours-autumn-appeal.
 
As we know in times of crisis, love unites all and so as we remember World Humanitarian day we pray:
 
Loving God,
Come now and make us
Into a global neighbourhood,
Looking out for each other
Through struggles and crisis,
Reaching out to strangers
Who become sisters and brothers.
Shape us into a caring community,
Strengthening each other
Through every challenge,
Standing together
Until justice comes for all;
In your name we pray. Amen. 
Christian Aid/Wendy Lloyd.

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.

I often thank God, for all he has blessed me with, and continues to do so.  I’ve just been away for a fortnight, and the main reason for giving thanks is that I was able to do so; I’m so mindful that much as I felt I needed the break after these last few months, there are many who will have needed it far more than I, and yet will not have been able to do so.  My thoughts and prayers are very much for those in such situations.

​But, the last two weeks I spent time alone; resting, reflecting, remembering.  Time and space to myself, in a beautiful part of our country which I love so much; Northumberland.  Putting the watch and all electronic devices to one side for a while and just being; not worrying about time, just rest and relax.  Prayer and reflection come naturally – not surprising when one can walk for miles along fantastic beaches, and in such beautiful countryside.  The above photo is just from one of those places, very close to where I was staying this time…..Druridge Bay; a beautiful seven mile stretch of sandy beach, part of the Northumberland Coast Country Park.  Walking barefoot in the sand and sea, listening to my favourite worship songs, seeing people and families at rest and play – it brings one to a place where prayer and reflection come so easily.  Bliss!

And the bible reminds us how important Jesus found such practice – many instances note how, deep within his preaching, teaching and healing ministry in Galilee, he would make time to be alone, to rest, reflect, pray.  For example, in Mark we hear how,
​
‘very early in the morning, before daylight, Jesus got up and left the house…..to a lonely place, where he prayed’ (1:35, GNB).
​
Luke writes how Jesus,

‘…would go away to lonely places, where he prayed’ (5:16, GNB). 

And before the miraculous feeding of the five thousand we hear Mark note how busy it was for all of them:

‘There were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples didn’t even have time to eat.  So he said to them, “Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and you can rest a while”’ (6:31, GNB).    

This last one has such resonance for all of us, whether in just the last few months, or every day in ordinary life, times can be so busy that there is no time to eat or do anything else.  Jesus recognised what an effect that could have – two thousand odd years before our present-day life-coaches!  Whether we can go away for a while, or are just able to make a small amount of time and space in our own schedules and homes or work, is so important.  Those knowing me well, will be smiling at this point – this isn’t something that I am good at; I promise to keep on trying harder!

With the time and space to just be, rest, reflect, pray….there come memories too, often prompted by events at the time.  I always remember my dear parents – for my love of such holidays came from our similar memorable summer holidays together.  But at the end of this fortnight’s holiday, we were reminded so poignantly of the 75th anniversary of VJ Day - 15th August 2020; a day when through the surrender of Imperial Japan, WWII was effectively brought to an end.  My parents were both back in Ceylon during WWII – both recall the sounds of war aircraft often flying over the places where they lived; and the fear it brought even out there.  A true world war.

The memorials over the weekend have been fine, honourable presentations – with grateful remembrance at places like the National Arboretum, the Cenotaph in London and in many local communities too. The stories which emerge are always revealing – of sacrifices made, of the awful conditions and situations our brave soldiers were in and had to endure, especially in the jungles of the Far East.  The brave testimonies of current war veterans are striking, to say the least – what they went through for the freedoms that we now enjoy.  Staggering.

The ending of the war, drawn to a close through the horrific loss of life from the two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring some interesting reflections for me in particular as a physicist.  The academic pursuits of Atomic and Nuclear Physics are at the heart of my world of using radiation for diagnosis and treatment in medicine – my professional world of cancer therapy; an example shown in the picture below.  Although much of our work is through the use of artificially produces radiation modalities, radioactivity and nuclear processes which are the basis for atomic explosions, can also used in very different ways for diagnosis and treatment with radioactive tracers for our patients.  It brings discussion on the benefits that we can draw from such science – science used in these tragic events.  The ethics of the whole use of such weapons of mass destruction, though, are thoughts for another day.    

It emphasises to me, the need to use our knowledge wisely, humanely, compassionately…..for the love of neighbour, as Jesus commands us.  The world as a whole sometimes still demonstrates how far we have to go in this respect; that we use our gifts and talents for peaceful outcomes.  We continue to pray for such instances – not just in the actions and decisions of our world leaders, but in the efforts of ourselves as scientists and the responsibility our advancements bring.  We know, as disciples of Christ, that it is only with the coming Kingdom of God will such dilemmas be truly resolved.
​
I’m going to leave you this time with a prayer – used as an alternative prayer of Commemoration for Remembrance Services:

Ever-living God, we remember those whom you have gathered from the storm of war into the peace of your presence; may that same peace calm our fears, bring justice to all peoples and establish harmony among the nations, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

May we all, through what rest, relaxation and remembrance we may be able to have ourselves, always be mindful of the sacrifices of others for our sakes, and the quest for peace which should be in the hearts of all the peoples of the world.
With my love and prayers, as always; stay safe…
 
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.

The Gospel reading for this Sunday is Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman. This begins as a very uncomfortable story as the barrier set between Jesus and the Canaanite woman seemed insurmountable, and Jesus plays along with the barrier set up by history and by past experience. After all, Jesus was a Jew and she was a Gentile, a foreigner.
 
The woman, the foreigner comes to Jesus and seeks his help. Jesus ignores her. Jesus’ disciples suggest that she should be sent away. When first she pleads for help, Jesus makes it plain that the call on his help does not extend to outsiders. When Jesus sees that her faith in him is real and sincere, he breaks down the barrier that separates them and extends his healing power to embrace the foreigner, to include the outsider.
 
For Matthew’s Gospel this breaking down of the barrier that separates is a decisive event for changing perceptions about how God works and about what the reign of God is like. The God whom Jesus proclaims is the God of inclusivity, not the God of exclusivity.
 
To prepare for this Sunday’s service I invited those of you who want to do some thinking beforehand to focus on the image of removing barriers. In today’s picture from his book The Grumpy Day Teddy Horsley is removing barriers by saying sorry for his grumpy behaviour.
 
Next week the image to help us prepare for participation in the Sunday service, whether offline in the Cathedral or online at home, is rock, when the Gospel reading is about Peter. The name Peter means Rock. 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.
 
If you’d like to learn more about Teddy Horsley and his writings, visit his website: https://teddyhorsley.org/, or his page on the website of St. Mary’s Centre: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/TeddyHorsley.html.
 
We warmly invite you to join us in worship in the pre-recorded service, which will go live at 10:30: 
​

Teddy Horsley sends his Sunday greetings to all.
 
Canon Leslie

Some of you will know that Canon Bob and I go back a very long way, to the time when we were together in school in Crosby. I know you will find this hard to believe, but I am just a couple of years older than him. It is probably fair to say that neither Bob nor I have kept in touch with the school all that often since we left. After a gap of almost thirty years, I met up once more with a small group of friends from sixth form days, and we now manage to get together for a reunion meal occasionally, as well as keeping in touch through email.

This year the school celebrates its 400th anniversary, and when their plans were first formed, I was contacted about the possibility of a service at the Cathedral to mark the occasion. This was to have taken place in March, but has been postponed because of Corona virus.

When my retirement was announced last month, to my surprise the school featured my news in their on line magazine.  As a result, two of my former school-friends have been in touch to wish me well, and I was delighted to hear from them both.  I have only seen each of them once in the last fifty years! One spent many years with Merseyside police, and called in at the vicarage in Seaforth for a cup of tea one afternoon. The other was best man at a wedding for another school friend at which I officiated. It was good to hear from them, and perhaps one day we will meet up, though one lives in the north of Scotland and the other in south-west England.

Our lives have many chapters, and looking back, we see it is not always those who seem close at the time who become lasting, significant relationships.

Perhaps the Cathedral’s key word, Encounter, may help us here. Encounter can be just a chance moment - or so it seems. Those we encounter at school are those who happen to be in the same age group and who live in the same locality. We may have little else in common. In my case, those encountered at theological college presumably all shared some sense of call from God, but the variety of age, experience and vision for the future all blend to shape the experience we share of two or three years in community, and the God of surprises uses this to shape the future of each one, to God’s glory. Those we encounter in pastoral ministry, especially in moments of joy or sorrow, all help to form us, as we in our turn hope to be of help to them.

In each encounter, we may find be changed by the God who goes on surprising us. May we never stop being open to being surprised.

Canon Myles

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.
​