Category Archives: holy days

A perfect angel

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

That was when the angel first realized that they might just have made a smidgen of an error, a bit of a mistake.

“Not that way,” the angel cried into the increasingly empty night. “You’re supposed to run towards Bethlehem! A baby has been born this night and, oh, what have I done?” Continue reading →

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Nativity

Posted on December 24, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Not by might the almighty shoulders a way into the world, but on borrowed strength, the muscles of his mother conspiring to bring him to birth;  Not by right does he claim his throne but humbles himself to the stable stall and is fed by … Continue reading →

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The gift

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Wrapped in flesh and tenderness – the fragile feet, the faltering hands – a hunger was born, squalling for a landscape flowing with milk and kindness. Little did the wise know, still less kings that this small and helpless this … Continue reading →

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Awaiting glory

Posted on December 22, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

The stars have turned cold awaiting their chance to shine shrouded in clouds watching the child swaddled in hope and fear crossing the desert braving the sea lullabied in a bomb shelter –a mother wearied by the wake father haunted by the absence of a ghost spirit sibling … Continue reading →

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The wolf and the lamb

Posted on December 16, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

To speak of love is to render it tame; so the word became flesh and took again the fiercer features of life; took flight from the angels, hid instead within the brutish warmth of mother-milk and frailty; the love whose name we dare to speak for fear else of devouring one … Continue reading →

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Christ, the king we need

Posted on November 20, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

At the end, as at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was subjected to the taunts and contempt of the tempter. The voices that surrounded him invited him to abdicate his position as one of us, Emmanuel, God with us; … Continue reading →

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A crown of thorns

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

They twisted together a crown with which to anoint his brow.  They thought to make a mockery,but had the pliant green twigs not yielded of their own accord, their obeisance and homage to their king, then their hands would have held only dust rubbed into the … Continue reading →

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All Saints 2022

Posted on November 6, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

All Saints’ Sunday 2022; Luke 6:20-31 _____________ According to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Laurentius (St Lawrence) was the “principal of the deacons” serving in Rome in the middle years of the third century, when yet another round of persecutions of … Continue reading →

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Angel

Posted on September 28, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Hide stretched taut, a little frayed at the edges – homage to the fantasy of feathers – humming as the updraft plays its song of praise to the author of breath;                         you have become  an instrument of glory, the terrible call and echoing, empty response, symphony on skins full of … Continue reading →

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The Call of Matthew

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

If you were to write a gospel, what would you include? What might you leave out?   Would you slide in a cameo of the time that Jesus, passing through your toll booth, caught your eye, mouthed, “Follow me”?   … Continue reading →

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