Tag Archives: Ukraine

Sleep, prayer, grief, and Jesus

Posted on April 10, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Jesus knew that he would conquer death and sin – he had told them over and again that he would rise – but he was grieved and frightened and anguished at the capacity of his human captors for violence. There is no contradiction here: it was from ourselves that he came to save us. That is why he advises his disciples, “Pray that you may not be tested.”  Continue reading →

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Holy ground

Posted on March 20, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

God said, “This is holy ground.” In the middle of the wilderness, to the side of the path, from the heart of a desert shrub, God spoke, and God said, “This, too, is holy ground.” Because there is no place on earth that God has abandoned. Continue reading →

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“God shall give the angels charge over thee”

Posted on March 6, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

What if when we do these things, taking up spiritual arms against the onslaught of sin, the temptations of selfishness, fasting and praying and strengthening our spirits and training up our hearts to look to God in faith, and in trust; what if it is when we do these things that St Michael and her angels surround us and support us and sustain us, as the angels attended to Jesus in the wilderness after he resisted the wiles of the devil, according to Matthew (Matthew 4:11) Continue reading →

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From the cloud

Posted on February 27, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

We want the revelation of the Christ, the epiphany of the Messiah, to be the brightness of the cloth, but it includes the cloud of the continuing conflict between Herod and the Magi, the worldly and the wise, the kingdom of heaven and the pursuits of a lesser form of majesty. And it is the promise that in all of these things, wherever we find them still active in the world, Christ is at work transforming them through the power of the Cross and the Resurrection that it engendered. Continue reading →

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(Holy Saturday)

Posted on February 26, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

How to carry the world’s pain – the cries of the children, the palsy of their great-grandparents confused with the tremors of memory; the subtle, internal turmoil that turns digestion upside down – violence is not a visitor but an … Continue reading →

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Yesterday is closer than it seems

Posted on February 24, 2022 by Rosalind C Hughes

Yesterday I walked past a fallout shelter sign in the “historic district” of a run-down part of town, its triune logo sunny against the greying day, repainted, no doubt, as an artefact of interest; but yesterday is closer than it … Continue reading →

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