大象传媒

听大象传媒 Radio 4 Sunday Worship

Holy Island of Lindisfarne

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Leave me alone with God as much as may be.

as the tide draws the waters lose in on the shore,

make me an island, set apart,

alone with you, God, holy to you.

Then with the turning of the tide

prepare me to carry your presence

to the busy world beyond,

the world that rushes in on me

til the waters come again

and fold me back to you.

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Revd Canon Dr Sarah Hills

Good morning. I鈥檓 standing at end of the Holy Island causeway, in the footsteps of St Aidan and St Cuthbert, and the thousands of pilgrims who, over the centuries, have walked across from the mainland, and who continue to make this journey today.

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When St Oswald, King of Northumbria, invited the Irish monks of Iona to send a mission to his kingdom, Aidan chose the Holy island of Lindisfarne because of its proximity to the royal castle at Bamburgh, its excellent sea communications, and because it bore striking similarities to Iona. He set up a monastic school to prepare young men for their missionary task and thus began the remarkable age of the Island Saints, Aidan and Cuthbert, and the flowering of artistic endeavour exemplified by the Lindisfarne Gospels.

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Music

Down Ampney

Christian Forshaw, Choir of King鈥檚 College London

CD: Sanctuary 鈥� Christian Forshaw (Integra Records UK)

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Sarah

Holy Island is cut off from the mainland for about five hours in every twelve. It鈥檚 home to a small population of only about 140 people, but draws in well over half a million visitors each year. People come here from all over the world, and for all sorts of reasons: for the stunning natural beauty; for the peace and quiet, for the historical sites, to see the amazing bird life; for pilgrimage and contemplation; or just simply for a nice day out.

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Opening Prayer

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Music: Down Ampney (verse 2)

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Sarah

When I was ordained, several of my congregation offered to make a set of stoles for me, one red and one green. Stoles are like ornate, often embroidered scarves worn by the priest when celebrating communion. On one side of the red stole is a traditional African hut, on the other a church building with a child in front of it. A rainbow crosses over above both. The rainbow signifies peace and hope; the church, worship, and growth in faith; and the hut and the child, hospitality and the diverse community to which we all belong. At the nape there鈥檚 a cross of nails with Table Mountain in Cape Town incorporated. This South African cross of nails speaks of reconciliation. The green stole has the Giants Causeway in NI on one side, and on the other, a coracle bearing Columba across the sea. I felt really privileged to receive these gifts, which encapsulate my journey, from South Africa, to a small rural community in NI to work as a psychiatrist and now as a priest, most recently as Canon for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral.

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As the new Vicar of this parish, I鈥檝e been fascinated by the journeys of those who live here and know the church and the island. People living with both beauty and deeply felt spiritual roots, and also the challenges and opportunities that come with being a place of pilgrimage and tourism for so many.

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Music

Veni Creator Spiritus 鈥� Plainsong

Ex Cathedra

CD: A New Heaven: 1000 Years of Sacred Choral Music (EXCCD002)

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Reflection: Rev Kate Tristram

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Sarah

This is St Mary鈥檚 Church. It鈥檚 at one end of the Island, next to Lindisfarne Priory which was established by the Benedictine monks of Durham in the 12th century. The Priory was closed in 1537 as part of Henry VIII鈥檚 Dissolution of the Monasteries. Since then, there has not been a monastery on the island; but St Mary鈥檚 Church has continued to be a focal point of the local community.

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Many visitors come into the church, and they present a wonderful opportunity to tell stories about the Gospel, the Island Saints, and the faith that has sustained the life of the community for over 1300 years. Kate is鈥�.

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Reflection: Rev Kate Tristram

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Music

Holy is the True Light 鈥� William Harris

Cambridge Singers, cond. John Rutter

CD: This is the Day 鈥� Music on Royal Occasions (Collegium)

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Bible reading 鈥� Micah 4:1-4

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Music

Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus 鈥� Vaughan Williams

Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, cond. Neville Marriner

CD: Midnight Adagios (Decca)

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Sarah

One of the many blessings of being part of this church and island community is welcoming pilgrims. To hear not just stories of sore feet, and that they could sleep for days, but to see faces transformed as they talk about God鈥檚 creation they鈥檝e witnessed in the landscape walked through and in the people they鈥檝e met on their journey, those 鈥楪od moments鈥� of fellowship and conversation. Revd Rachel Poolman is URC Minister at St Cuthbert鈥檚 Church on the Island.

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Reflection: Rachel Poolman, URC Minister at St Cuthbert鈥檚, and a pilgrim.

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Music

How deep the Father鈥檚 love for us 鈥� Stuart Townend

Stuart Townend

CD: Ultimate Hymns for Today (Integrity)

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Sarah

Pilgrimage has at its core hospitality, healing, welcome and peace.

So what does a pilgrimage of peace and reconciliation look like? What made St Aidan a peacemaker as he walked the lanes of Holy Island, Bamburgh and the surrounding countryside? Making peace and reconciliation are about renewing relationships in order to live better together 鈥� with God, self, others, and the earth. Peace is a journey 鈥� from the past, through the present, to the future. And this journey of peace involves all of us. Journeys of peacemaking and reconciliation start with the same thing 鈥� our stories. God鈥檚 story, your story, my story. We are not all the same, and we do not all need to agree on everything all the time. But how can we live with difference well if we don鈥檛 know something about each other, if we don鈥檛 share our stories, if we don鈥檛 try to understand the other? Because not trying to understand the other, to stand in someone else鈥檚 shoes, has potentially dangerous consequences. Fear of the other, power imbalance, hate can flourish when we鈥檙e unable to live with difference.

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Two years ago I spent part of Holy Week and Easter on a peace walk, a pilgrimage, in Northern Iraq. About 20 of us from Europe and others walked with local Christians, Muslims and Yazidis. A quarter of people living in Northern Iraq live in refugee camps, people internally displaced from their own country due to attacks. Many refugees and aliens in their own land.

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We walked for peace, to proclaim the possibility of peace in that fought over land. On Good Friday we visited a village about 30km from Mosul 鈥� Mosul, incidentally is the ancient city of Nineveh - a village that had been destroyed, the villagers having all fled or worse. It was a place of destruction, completely devoid of life. Houses were rubble, shops damaged, and the church though still standing had been desecrated, the altar broken and lying in rubble. We could hear Mosul being shelled. So I held a Good Friday service in the desecrated church. We laid candles that we had brought with us in the shape of a cross in front of the destroyed altar and prayed the prayers of Good Friday, the pain and lament for Jesus, and for healing, for the end to that conflict, for peace.

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On Easter Day we returned to that deserted village and desecrated church. But this time, the bleakness in the Church was transformed. The same rubble was there, the same bullet holes in the walls, the same broken crosses and hacked memorials. But there were people from the surrounding villages, flowers on the altar, children dressed in white, and a packed church there to proclaim the hope of the resurrection, the hope of peace and the possibility of rebuilding. The local Peshmerga, the soldiers came to receive their Easter communion. There were even painted eggs and chocolate after the service. People were rather surprised to see a female priest - I don鈥檛 think I have been asked to bless as many babies! The foundation of a rebuilt community was born that day. A space in between for remembering and for reconciliation.

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It was in many ways an extraordinary walk. Risky, at times truly dangerous, where we existed caught between the past and the future. Our necks straining, trying to look in both directions as we walked. As we left that church in the destroyed village, we had to walk carefully back to the bus for fear of unexploded ordinances just off the path.

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Despair to hope, hostility to peace, conflict to reconciliation.

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Music

Be not afraid

Soloist: Kitty Cleveland

CD: Be not afraid (Christiaria)

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Reading: Matthew 5: 1-12

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Sarah

There is a poem by the 13C Persian poet, Rumi: He wrote, 鈥極ut there beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I鈥檒l meet you there.鈥�

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The field might be a place of childhood memories; of playing in a meadow; the field might be a field of gold; or it might be a muddy field, shell pocked, fought over, or a field of desert in Iraq or Syria.

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When I was in South Africa, I spent 3 months living and working among the still mainly racially divided communities in a small town in the Western Cape.听 I had been working and journeying among this group for almost three months, and felt a huge debt of gratitude towards them, for their openness, hospitality and friendship. It seemed that the best thank you gift I could offer was to hold a Eucharist for any in the communities I had been working with. It was held during a time of farm workers' protests, asking for justice in their housing, their wages, their dignity as fellow human beings, whatever the colour of their skin.

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We gathered in a hall in the township, dusty, hot, chickens under our feet. I set up a makeshift altar and as the people arrived the singing started. I had asked Nobanzi to bake the bread for the communion and DV brought the wine from his family vineyards. The bread baked by Nobanzi from the black township, and the wine grown by DV in his white family vineyards represented a sharing of gifts, given and accepted as equals. The body and blood of Christ were given and received, both tangibly and symbolically, with a powerful reminder of the past hurts transformed into the present move towards justice and reconciliation. The diverse body of Christ, as the community present, shared in these gifts as symbols of relationship, justice and peace. As a pilgrimage of peace to the altar.

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Can we as a Church speak out to our nations, our communities, ourselves? We need to courageously inhabit this liminal, reconciling space on our pilgrimage, steering our communities toward peace and reconciliation and away from conflict and division. We truly need to inhabit this space however uncomfortable it may be.

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And so as we journey on our pilgrimage, we pray 鈥� for ourselves, for the other pilgrims along the way鈥� for what has happened in our lives and our hopes for the future.

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And as we pray, let's meet in the field, where we see Christ in the face of the other.

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words, at its most basic, a pilgrimage of peace and reconciliation is about sharing hospitality. This may seem simple, but it often needs us to take radical steps, within our immediate community and in the wider world, to break down barriers and share reconciliation as widely as possible.

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Nurturing the sacred space of the church on Holy Island in a way which remains congruent to the work of the ancient island saints but also to life in the 21st century is a delicate balance. St Aidan was known as a peacemaker in his time. He walked alongside people on their level.

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Music

My peace I give you

Reading Phoenix Choir

CD: Domine Deus 鈥� Taize chants (Pilgrim Tapes)

Prayers

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We pray for this Holy Island and all it means to each of us here. We

pray for those who live and work here and for pilgrims to this place. For

the glimpses of you Lord in the beauty of your creation and in the people

we encounter here in this place. For all who will come into this church

today.

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We pray for our world. For peace and reconciliation among all people.

We pray for all people journeying to survive and protect their loved ones.

For those who have left their communities seeking food and water,

shelter and safety. We pray for all refugees travelling by land and those

at sea. We pray for those who will welcome them this day and offer them

hope and a future.

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We pray for those we have journeyed with and who enrich our daily

lives. For those we know who finding life challenging. We pray for

those on our hearts this day.

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We pray this day that we may have grown in our understanding of God鈥檚

great love for us and discerned the work to which he is calling us. That

we may have found God in the stranger and in each other. That we may

have encountered God in the landscape, in the sun and the wind. That

we have heard God鈥檚 words speak to our hearts in the rhythm of our

walking and of our resting, that today has been one of transformation as

we have journeyed in the footsteps of Aidan and Cuthbert on this Holy

Island. Amen.

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Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come;

thy will be done;

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

the power and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

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Music

The Deer鈥檚 Cry 鈥� Shaun Davey

Soloist:听Rita听Connolly.

CD: The Pilgrim 鈥� Shaun Davey (Tara)

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Blessing

Lord, be a bright flame before us

Be a guiding star above us

Be a smooth path beneath us

Be a kindly shepherd behind us.

and the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you this day and for evermore.

Amen.

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