Fr. Stephen De Young (via @ReaderJohn ):

God loves you. Jesus said so. St. John’s Gospel, the Father Himself loves you. He is not angry at you. He does not want to destroy you for your sins. There is no power of justice that commands Him to do so. No one commands Him to do anything. He loves you. He wants you to find salvation, but salvation is a thing you have to actually do. He wants you to do it. The Bible says so. God wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. But you have to do it. He empowers you to do it. He forgives you when you mess up trying to do it. He heals you when you damage yourself trying to do it and failing. He is entirely on your side. The God who created the universe is entirely on your side and the saints are on your side and the church is on your side. Everyone is on your side. Christ is advocating for you. Everything is set up for us.

When Saint Paul says to us, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” you don’t stop there like Kierkegaard did. Read the next verse because it is God who is working in you to will and to do according to His pleasure. We continue on and we work out our salvation because we know that God is on our side and empowering us to do it and loving us and loving other people through us. We need to pray about that. We need to pray it. We need to repeat it. … We need to say it out loud. We need to say it to each other. We need to say it to everyone who will listen right? That God loves you and wants you to find salvation, wants you to be healed, wants you to be set free from sin. He wants all these things for you. It doesn’t mean you have nothing to do. That doesn’t mean you’re fine just the way you are. You know you’re not fine just the way you are, right? But it means that he is there to help you to grow to be transformed into the person who you need to be and want to be. The person he created you to be for eternity. That’s the actual message of Christianity. Don’t accept any substitutes for that, ever at all, for any reason.

Maundy Thursday Eucharist in the tiny hamlet of Kirby Knowle. An excellent sermon and surprisingly good hymn singing by the congregation of three.

A stone church with a tall, square bell tower is surrounded by a graveyard filled with daffodils. A gravel path leads to the church entrance. In the foreground, a metal gate and a blossoming tree with pink flowers add to the serene scene. A sign provides service information, and the background features rolling hills under a partly cloudy sky.

Delightfully eccentric medieval stained glass at Shibden Hall yesterday.

A stained glass window features a diamond-shaped panel depicting a bird pushing a wheelbarrow. The bird is located in the center of the panel, with detailed feather patterns. The background is textured, allowing light to filter through, and the surrounding window framework is black.

A stained glass window featuring an illustration of a bird holding a spade in its beak. The bird has detailed brown and black markings on its feathers. The image is set within a clear, etched glass diamond-shaped pane surrounded by darker lead framing. The background appears slightly blurred due to the etched glass texture.

A stained glass window panel featuring a mythical creature with a bird-like body, wings, and a long neck ending in an animalistic head with a snout and pointed ears. The artwork uses earthy tones, and the creature is centered within a diamond-shaped glass section.

Dougald Hine had me with this opening:

She said, “Didn’t you know, Dougald? I’m dying.” And just for a moment, I wasn’t sure what kind of conversation we were about to have. Then I saw the edge of a smile on her lips, and she started to explain about this programme she’d joined called A Year to Live, where a group of you go through a whole twelve months, living as though this were the last year of your life.

He goes on:

In the summer of 2020, I heard this question from the Inuit poet Taqralik Partridge: “What if the pandemic is just a warning shot?” Not the big event that changes everything, but the first in a chain of crises. Some days I can picture them, lined up like storms on a satellite picture of the Atlantic in hurricane season, rolling in, one after the other, to make landfall along the coastline of the future.

People get broken all the time, there’s no art in that, but there is an art in making spaces where we can be broken open with a chance of healing. Encounters that leave us changed, with a chance of becoming the people we’d need to be to bring about those “presently unimaginable futures”. That feels like work worth doing, in a time when the world is on fire.

The Musée d’Orsay was very busy and physically exhausting. But the building is extraordinary, and it was wonderful to come face to face with so many famous impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. Van Gogh’s stare has stayed with me…

A large clock face with Roman numerals is shown from the inside, silhouetting a person standing in front of it. The clock serves as a window, providing a panoramic view of a cityscape outside under a clear blue sky.

View from inside a large clock face looking out over a river. The foreground shows the black clock hands and Roman numerals on the glass. In the background, there’s a cityscape with historic buildings and a clear blue sky.

A large, open museum gallery with an arched, ornate ceiling and intricate patterns. The interior is filled with people walking and viewing sculptures and artworks displayed throughout the hall. The ceiling is made of glass panels, allowing natural light to illuminate the stone walls and exhibits below.

View of the Seine River in Paris on a sunny day, with a sightseeing boat in the foreground. The riverbank is lined with historic buildings, including a prominent museum building. A stone bridge spans the river in the background, and a partly cloudy sky is overhead.

A painting of a man with reddish-brown hair and a beard. He is wearing a blue coat with a white shirt underneath. The background features swirling patterns in shades of blue and gray, creating a textured effect. The man’s expression is serious, and his gaze is directed outward.

We’re just home from a few days in Paris. I wanted to visit Notre Dame for the first time since the fire. It was busy and chaotic but also unexpectedly moving. There was a real sense of people responding emotionally to the restored building. Last time it felt like a simple tourist attraction; this time, there was more.

The image shows the front facade of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on a clear day. The sun is shining from behind the building, highlighting its architectural details, including two large towers and a central rose window. A crowd of people are gathered in the plaza in front of the cathedral, some taking photos and others walking around. The sky is mostly clear with a few clouds, and a construction crane is visible to the right of the cathedral.

Interior view of a grand cathedral with vaulted ceilings and ornate architecture. The aisle is filled with people, and chandeliers hang along the sides. A large baptismal font is prominently located in the foreground. Stained glass windows and an altar with lit candles are visible in the background.

A person with white hair stands near a display of lit votive candles arranged in circular patterns on a table inside a dimly lit cathedral. Above them, a stone statue is mounted on a decorative column, illuminated by soft lighting. The cathedral features tall arches and stained glass windows, adding to the serene atmosphere.

Statue of St Teresa of Lisieux in a church setting, positioned in front of a stained glass window. Below the statue is a stand with numerous lit prayer candles arranged in circular patterns, casting a warm glow in the dimly lit surroundings.

Interior view of a cathedral featuring a large, ornate chandelier with lit candles hanging from a high, vaulted stone ceiling. In the background, there are arched windows with intricate stained glass designs, and detailed columns add to the architectural beauty. The lighting highlights the elegance and historical significance of the space.

Interior of a large cathedral featuring tall, arched ceilings and intricate stained glass windows. The focus is a large rose window displaying vibrant blue and red patterns. The area includes an elevated altar with lit candles and a statue, with several people seated nearby. Rows of wooden chairs are arranged on a checkered floor in the foreground. The atmosphere is serene and reverent.

A view of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, showing its intricate Gothic architecture with two towers and detailed sculptures above the entrance. People are gathered outside, and the sky is clear and blue.

Helen Stanton is very good on the apophatic tradition:

Telling the truth: that we do not know, cannot understand, but recognise that God is in that place of darkness as much as in God’s glorious light. This is, I think, one of our resources when our equations fail as our words do. And it is important for others too. Staying with the not knowing about the planet shares some resonance of God’s solidarity with God’s suffering creation in Jesus Christ. Thomas Trahern wrote of God’s dazzling darkness, as if the darkness of God is indeed somehow light. Isaiah (43:3) wrote of the treasures of the darkness, hinting that there is something about the dark that enables us to know God. And in the darkness of despair, of destruction, of boredom, of plain nothingness, God is also present. God’s presence isn’t like the switch of a light. All is not easy and bearable. God bears, and we too must bear, that which must be borne.