Lent Week 4 Year B
4th Sunday in Lent – What A Week!
What a week! What a great week if you work in the media with all of the fall-out from THAT interview last Monday night. With all of the subsequent increased uptake in newspapers and TV audiences wanting to know more and to haver their own say in support of their own sides! When two tribes go to war! Yes! Bring it on!
But what a sad week if you think about a family tearing itself apart in the full glare of the public view: with old wounds being scratched apart, afresh, anew and so publicly and quite possibly so many bridges being burnt beyond repair. How sad to think about the impact on mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and beyond, especially as we celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend: what a disaster!
Much less publicly, so probably at a level when the vast majority are not aware of it, we had some Diocesan Safeguarding Training this past week, and I thought that it was very good. It wasn’t simply a rehash of old ground but put an emphasis on looking at safeguarding afresh so that the attendees could feel recharged, reinvigorated and refreshed in how, where and when they should be looking to make safe and effective safeguarding interventions.
This training emphasised the need that exists for so much prayer and thought for all those people who have suffered and who continue to suffer abuse and maltreatment every day but maybe especially during this past year of lockdown. Where all the trials and tribulations that beset families in everyday life have been emphasised tenfold, a hundredfold due to the pressures of confinement; of reduced income; of worries about health and welfare.
People – you and I – can make assumptions; too many and too easy assumptions about life and about each other: about how people are getting on; about us all being in this together – but all getting by at the same level. But we don’t really know what is happening behind those closed doors.
This weekend we celebrate Mothering Sunday, a special day when we take and make deliberate time to remember all mums, grand, great and beyond: and in remembering mums, we remember their children too, we remember ourselves. We all have mums, no matter who we are or where we live, we all have mums: some living and others who have passed away. But this weekend we take time out of our busy lives to say a huge Thank You to our Mums for the million and one things that they have done to help us, to support us, to guide us and protect us.
And this weekend we should take time to pray for all of those mums who are not getting by so well; who are struggling with life and its demands and maybe whose children are not feeling so loved or wanted. We should pray for all those who have been maltreated over the years: who still feel scarred and marked by the absence of love. Mother’s Day is one of those special days that can really re-emphasise and bring into sharp focus, loss. Loss of ones Mum, or maybe loss of love or a lost relationship. It can be a sad time for some while others are celebrating and rejoicing
“God loved the world so much that he gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost but may have eternal life.”