Category Archives: prayer

Afterwards

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

It was the following day that sealed it for him waking with the rooster an hour before dawn the darkness of the room unfamiliar tangled in bedsheets he shivered still straining his hope to conjure up that sun light and … Continue reading →

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Secret

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Today’s little Lenten story is a secret so I can’t tell it to you, but you can whisper it so that only your body and your breath and God and the cat can hear it.

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A meditation on the Cross

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I imagine they made it of living wood; the tree itself shared your fate,cut down in service of hateful violence,its beauty overlooked, its sacrifice, turning our exhaust into air, sweet bitterness of fruit and pollen, its praise of heaven, limbs raised high, razed to the ground with you. They did not … Continue reading →

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Running out of water in the holy lands

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

A little Lenten story First in the north, between fruit trees and shade, it seemed it should be more difficult than this to die, except for the envy of avocadoes and apricots, hoarding the hidden streams of mercy for themselves; It made more sensein the south, where … Continue reading →

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Born of water and the Spirit

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I am not preaching this Sunday, and there was no little Lenten story/legend this morning, so consider this an offering to replace them both. ____________ You know, although it wasn’t recorded, that when God made Adam — dust of the … Continue reading →

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Things that do not exist

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Taken out of context it reads like a ghost, 
like the time I conjured up a cat 
in the attic that leapt like a flame 
and vanished along with its own shadow 
when I was a child.  Continue reading →

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St David

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

A little Lenten legend A pigeon with a golden beak fed him from its overflowing crop words of grace like kisses that he might strew abroad with every penitential sigh the love of our sweet Saviour; his breath uncluttered by … Continue reading →

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Stigmata?

Posted on February 23, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

A little Lenten story She found a strange bruise on one foot – stigmata, perhaps, if it spread? – but it soaked away in the bath instead, leaving an emptiness to blossom somewhere behind her left breast, unseen.

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Shrove Tuesday

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

O God of branches and hosannas, forgive the dried state of last year’s palms; trampled by Holy Week and scant adoration, they have desiccated, as our hearts too often do, too. Kindle them, our hearts and our psalms, to fresh … Continue reading →

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A psalm of lament

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

We turn to you, Compassionate One,
with your endless forbearance and infinite mercy, and pray that your patience will one day break;

because it seems some days that ours, our capacity for carnage, is everlasting. Continue reading →

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