Liverpool Cathedral Labyrinth

Liverpool Cathedral is inviting people to follow a journey around a labyrinth to reflect on the past year and to look towards the future.

The attraction is a modern version of the 12th century ritual featured in medieval cathedrals. Unlike a maze a labyrinth has only one path leading to a central point. The path is followed slowly whilst contemplating life, the planet and God.

The free attraction will be open from 28 December to 2 January 2010.

Canon Richard White, the Cathedral’s Canon for mission and evangelism said, “Our contemporary labyrinth is designed for all ages and reshapes the 12th century ritual for the 21st century with a mixture of music, art, media and activities or rituals along the path. “These will form a journey that looks back on 2009, looks forward to 2010 and helps us to encounter God in the present moment.”

For more information on The Labyrinth visit the Liverpool Cathedral website.

Picture of St Clare

Clare’s father was a count, her mother the countess Blessed Orsolana. Her father died when the girl was very young. After hearing Saint Francis of Assisi preach in the streets, Clare confided to him her desire to live for God, and the two became close friends. On Palm Sunday in 1212, her bishop presented Clare with a palm, which she apparently took as a sign. With her cousin Pacifica, Clare ran away from her mother’s palace during the night to enter religious life. She eventually took the veil from Saint Francis at the Church of Our Lady of the Angels in Assisi, Italy.

Clare founded the Order of Poor Ladies (Poor Clares) at San Damiano, and led it for 40 years. Everywhere the Franciscans established themselves throughout Europe, there also went the Poor Clares, depending solely on alms, forced to have complete faith on God to provide through people; this lack of land-based revenues was a new idea at the time. Clare’s mother and sisters later joined the order, and there are still thousands of members living lives of silence and prayer.

What many of the Catholic commentaries on Clare forget to mention is that she had to fight to allow her Order to live in the poverty she and her sisters so desired. It simply was not the done thing to allow women to live by faith alone, they had to be supported in some way by the (male) dominated Church. This was the biggest battle Clare had to face, but one she finally won when the permission she so desired was granted whilst she was on he death bed.

I admire Clare, she was a woman who knew what she wanted and was willing to give herself wholeheartedly to bring it about. She fought to enter the monastic way of life and then she fought  to make sure that way of life of her sisters followed the Franciscan ideal of poverty.

Some excellent pictures of St Damiamo, Clare’s Monestary

In 1373, when she was 30 years old, Julian had a visionary experience during a serious illness.

After she had thought about it — perhaps soon after the experience, perhaps as much as fifteen years later — she wrote a relatively brief account of the visions and what they meant to her. But in 1393, she was still meditating on her experience and perhaps had begun to write a longer, more theologically-centered analysis. By 1394 she had become an anchorite, living in a cell attached to the parish church of St. Julian in Norwich (which may be the reason for the name we know her by); she was visited there by Margery Kempe (a particular heroine of mine) in about 1413, and she was still living there in 1416.

Julian’s writing as still in print and well worth reading – this extract is one of my favourites.

Because of the great, infinite love which God has for all humankind, he makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ and the lowliest of the souls that are to be saved . . . .

We should highly rejoice that God dwells in our soul and still more highly should we rejoice that our soul dwells in God.

Our soul is made to be God’s dwelling place, and the dwelling place of our soul is God who was never made.

I just goes to show that we never know how the things we do and say today will impact on the future. It does not matter what station we have in life, we all have our role to play in God’s economy.

I’ll let Brian speak: -

I left school when I was  fifteen, and when I was fourteen there was this very wonderful teacher who covered his classroom in maps, and he always said when he retired from school, he would go to certain places on these maps. This poem is called “The Geography Lesson.”

Our teacher told us one day he would leave
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to be.

The house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind`s eye he could see
Sweet-scented jasmine clinging to the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.

He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never drab or cold.
I couldn`t understand why he never left,
And shook off the school`s stranglehold.

Then halfway through his final term
He took ill and never returned.
He never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.

The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name forgotten, he faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.

I travel to where the green leaves burn,
To where the ocean`s glass-clear and blue,
To places our teacher taught me to love-
And which he never knew.

Brian Patten

Site of our old School. Only the trees remain.

View Larger Map

The truth is I’m not OK. A whole series of problems have coincided with one of my ‘down’ mood swings and I know from experience that I am on the brink of depression. My friend  has been there too and so I was able to speak my mind. “I thought so”, she answered, “Takes one to know one.” 

Over the years I have learned to cope when I am like this but obviously there are the tell-tale signs: usually I become argumentative and self opinionated – well more than usual!  Partly because of that, and partly because my creativity seems to have deserted me  I have kept away from writing on this blog.

Usually, when I am feeling like this I turn to music. and there is one piece I keep playing time and time again. I have not been able to a copy of the version I have on my iPlayer but it is the words that are important and so I thought the least I could do is share. So here they are along with a video of the melody

“Jesus Draw Me Ever Nearer”
Music by Keith Getty; Words by Margaret Becker
Copyright © 2002 Thankyou Music

Jesus draw me ever nearer
As I labour through the storm.
You have called me to this passage,
and I’ll follow, though I’m worn.

May this journey bring a blessing,
May I rise on wings of faith;
And at the end of my heart’s testing,
With Your likeness let me wake.

Jesus guide me through the tempest;
Keep my spirit staid and sure.
When the midnight meets the morning,
Let me love You even more.

Let the treasures of the trial                                 
Form within me as I go –
And at the end of this long passage,
Let me leave them at Your throne.

Last night I attended a social event at the Church, a Chocolate Bingo. It consisted of Bingo (of course), burgers and whatever drinks I had chosen to take along. Now it seems that nothing ‘spiritual’ could come out of such a meeting, although I agree with the Quakers when they say: All of life is a sacrement.

Gill had come along with me and we were joined at our table by a friend and his wife, both Methodist Ministers and the talk got round to some pilgrimages the husband has made to  Compostela. The upshot of our conversation was that he was going again this year and would I like to come.

Now this is one journey I have always wanted to make. I’ve been to quite a lot of Pilgrimage sites but so far this one has eluded me: obviously I jumped at the chance to make the trip in order to take some time walking through Spain.

Perhaps I should not have been so suprised. God is very good at speaking to us when we least expect it. Only last Sunday I talked  of Zaccheaus who climbed the tree to see Jesus. Now Zaccheaus never thought for one moment Jessu would speak to him, and yet he did inviting himself around to Zac’s house for a meal. Even my own Christian journey started when God spoke to me when he was as far from my thoughts as could be.

Does Jesus like Chocolate? Could make a good Synod debate.