Category Archives: prayer

The priest

Posted on January 3, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Leave your prayers here with me,   not because I can answer them –   you and I know better –   but to slip on like borrowed shoes   before I cross the threshold

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The Innocents

Posted on December 28, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

From behind the page their cries muffled by millennia seep through Where, we ask, is God? There swaddled tight smuggled out into the wilderness What good, we ask, is a God who bleeds when the sword lays open a mother’s … Continue reading →

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A prayer for Christmas Day

Posted on December 25, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Gracious God, We hear of Christmas by candlelight in Kiev; we think on the borrowed cave, rude shelter in which to bear life. We hear of twins reunited – thank God! – with their family before Christmas. We cannot help wonder … 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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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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The Word

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Ten years later, with apologies to those still unconsoled, we wait still upon the Word to come; for good news to the victims of gun violence, peace on earth, and the goodwill to protect and celebrate every child of God. Amen: Come, Lord Jesus. Continue reading →

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A broader mischief

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

I am sorry to say that today is not convenient for revolution. I have Sadducees coming for dinner and some scribes – I did not tell them of each other – I have employed unemployed tax collectors as wait staff and women of repute  for the cabaret. Mary is livid, … Continue reading →

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A messiah for the rest of us

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

A reflection on the coming Sunday’s gospel, John’s question, which is perennially ours; Jesus’ answer, which is ours, too While John took on kings and their consorts, Jesus consorted with the lowly and the leprous. While John baptized gods, Jesus … 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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