Morning Prayer with the Community of Brendan the Navigator from Killodiernan Church on Tuesday 8th February 2022

 https://fb.watch/b2213V3I-l/

Apologies for the dodgy captions!

‘How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!’

·         And it is lovely, isn’t it, to be back in Killodiernan church for Morning Prayer with the Community of Brendan the Navigator this morning.

·         This little rural church is very special for those of us who are part of its accustomed congregation. We come to it Sunday by Sunday – or at least on the 2^nd & 4^th Sundays a month when services are scheduled. It is special because here we find blessings.

·         Here we chatter with our friends and neighbours as we gather for the service, passing on the news. We sit in our accustomed pews, and remember those who have gone before us.

·         Here we listen to the Word in scripture, and hear it preached. And when words bore us, we look through the windows, contemplating the trees as they change, season by season.

·         Here we are led in prayer for our needs and the needs of the world, and we sing together when we’re allowed to do so.

·         Here we greet our neighbours in the Peace. We eat with them the bread which earth has given and human hands have made, and - when not prevented by Covid – we drink the wine, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. In the great sacramental mystery, we do so in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose body and blood it signifies.

·         Here, after the service, we chat some more - and if the weather is clement, we linger outside to admire the handiwork of God in the everchanging sward of wildflowers in the graveyard.

·         ‘Here (our) heart and (our) flesh rejoice in the living God’, as the psalmist says.

 

The psalmist declares: ‘The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young: at your altars, O Lord of hosts.’

·         I don’t know about sparrows and swallows, but the bats are back in the roof of Killodiernan church – to my delight, I have recently noticed traces of them once again. They always used to be here, but sadly left after the roof was replaced some years ago, despite the best endeavours of the builders not to disturb them.

·         Yet we must not think that God can ever be constrained to a building, for all the delight we take in our churches, and for all the encounters we have with God in them. God is present everywhere, all the time, not just in this building on Sundays.  God’s altars are to be found everywhere.

·         Much of the time, in our busyness, we do not feel God’s presence, nor notice his altars. But God and his altars are all around us. All we need to do is to stop rushing and still our racing thoughts for a moment, then we can feel God’s presence and see his altars.

·         It may be when we pause our work for a cuppa. It may be when we hear the Angelus bell. It may be when we look up to see a magnificent view, or look down to identify a tiny flower. It may be when we sit down to a meal prepared with care and love.

·         We ought to practice seeking out such moments, focus our attention on being a doorkeeper in God’s house which is the universe all around us, and spend time in the loving presence of our God.

·         Then with the Psalmist we can sing, ‘Blessed are (we) who dwell in your house: (we) will always be praising you’.