Sustaining the Sacred Centre - First Sunday in Lent

In the Buckingham episcopal area of Oxford Diocese, we are encouraging all clergy to take an extra day off each week during Lent. Six days for them to sustain their sacred centres, that is do something that will re-energise themselves and sustain them in their ministry. We have suggested forty things they might do, and maybe this blog will produce some more ideas.

With most days of Lent accounted for in my own diary, I am much challenged by our idea. However, as archdeacon I am experiencing my own space. For the first twelve years of ordained ministry I was up at 6.30am most Sunday mornings to sustain an 8am service. It was an important time for me, and the 8am congregation in my former parish were very special. Now, I find myself booked for the 10am, or even 9.30am and sometimes only the 6.30pm service somewhere in the archdeaconry but hardly ever the 8am, so I find myself with an extra few hours spare. I could easily spend Sunday morning (when I am not out and about) working, sat at my desk ploughing through the paperwork, but find it is becoming increasingly a time to do some of the things I don't find time for anywhere else - such as doing the sudoko's in Saturday's paper, or reading a magazine. Today I have a baked a sponge cake! Finding God in the ordinariness of life, means deliberately making the ordinary extra-ordinary. I hope other clergy discover that too.

In you, Lord, I live and move and have my being,

In me, Lord, you live and move and have your being.

Brother Ramon