大象传媒

Good morning.

My Kentish wife made me the offer of a post-Easter week in Canterbury this year and with my twentieth anniversary of ordination then on the horizon flights, trains and a hotel were duly booked. After the statutory two days of clergy decompression, our exploration of the cradle of English Christianity began. The Cathedral and its environs offered rich pickings.

My brother-in-law joined us for a day and walked us around the King鈥檚 School where he had been a pupil. A visiting parish choir from Salisbury led us beautifully for Evensong one afternoon, and a recital by the organist of Westminster Abbey had my wife in seventh heaven whilst I made myself comfortable in the stall marked 鈥淟ord Mayor of Canterbury鈥� and read my Kindle. Sunday鈥檚 early Communion under the shadow of St Augustine鈥檚 stone chair drew a hushed and reverend end to our week and pressed all my Anglican buttons.

What left the deepest impression though was a tour of the extensive remains of St Augustine鈥檚 Abbey. An English Heritage site, the visit was the idea of my parents-in-law. There to see in stones, bricks and mortar was the rise and fall of a monastery on the same vast sort of scale as the Cathedral itself and just a few streets away. A community dedicated to prayer for one thousand years now a museum and which has haunted me ever since with the question: what happens to a Church or even to a country when its people stop praying?

Almighty God, give us hearts to pray. Raise up a new generation of those who will see the necessity and seize the invitation and example of Christ and those who followed Him to pray at all times and for all people.

Amen