Thought for the Day - Love and Betrayal

The Wounded Deer, 1946 by Frida Kahlo

Thought for the Day given at a lunchtime service of Holy Communion on Wednesday 16th April 2025 at St Giles-in-the-Fields based on the text of Hebrews 12.1-3 and John 13.21-32.

The woman with the alabaster jar

Mary Magdalene, Jan van Scorel (c1530)

A nameless woman

breaks her alabaster jar

and pours out the scent of life -

Her life for His.

A postscript to the gospel.

A man who need not be named

fills his hands with the spoils of betrayal.

The stench of death. 

His death for His.

Whose life do we remember?


(A poem in response to Mark 14.1-11, one of the readings at Morning Prayer on Monday 14th October 2019).