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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Rev Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle.

Good morning.

Standing 20 metres tall with a wingspan of fifty four metres and built to withstand wind speeds of over 100 miles per hour, Antony Gormley’s ‘Angel of the North’ keeps watch by day and night over its north-east England location. Twenty five years ago the sculpture was installed, having been transported over the previous night from its Hartlepool construction site. Now that I have returned to live in the north-east where I grew up, I see the Angel quite regularly when I travel by raid or by road. During the development stage of the project, several smaller Angels were produced, and a few years ago during a visit to Canberra in Australia I was surprised to turn a corner and see one of these Angels right before my eyes. This piece of art immediately connected me with my home thousands of miles away and was a powerful reminder of how public art can evoke emotions and reminders of who we are. This is a particular feature of the Angel because while it clearly represents the human form, it doesn’t explicitly point to a particular individual or group.

Its sculptor Antony Gormley was once asked, ‘why an angel?’; ‘The only response I can give’ (he replied), ‘is that no-one has ever seen one and we need to keep imagining them’. Angels of course have significant pedigree in religious narratives, as well as in literature and other types of artistic expression. In the Bible, they often appear at significant moments to deliver a message of good news. The Angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she was to bear a child or a host of angels telling the shepherds not to be afraid but to go and see the child that had then been born. The writer G K Chesterton once said that ‘angels can fly because they take themselves lightly’.

God, help me to communicate well today, and to tread lightly on this earth as I go about the tasks that await me.

Amen.