Thought for the Day-The Prayer of all Prayers

Pater Noster Church, Jerusalem

A Thought for the Day given at a lunchtime service of Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Wednesday 9th October 2024 based on the text of Luke 11.1-4

A Grace before a dinner celebrating the Civil Partnership of two good friends

The Owl and the Pussycat - Screen Print by Joyce Hargreaves

A grace given before a dinner celebrating the Civil Partnership of two good friends:

From the Yorkshire Moors to The Golden State;
there’s no distance too far for your soul mate!
Now a new journey has begun, no time to reminisce
  about blowing the last long-goodbye kiss.
Sharing a home and all their stuff
They’ve celebrated their love together at Goodenough.
So let us thank God for such a special day;
before sharing the First Supper after anchors aweigh
and give thanks for being with them on this new trip; 
   the maiden voyage on their civil partner-ship.
Amen.

Image : The Owl and the Pussycat by Joyce Hargreaves

Sermon-The Accession Day-Why Pray for the King?

A sermon given during Holy Communion (BCP) at St Giles-in-the-Fields on The Accession Day, Sunday 8th September 2024, drawing on the texts of 1 Peter 2.11-17 and Matthew 22.16-22. 

Why ought we to pray for the King? A former Rector of St Giles-in-the-Fields (and Chaplain to King George II) helps us to understand why…

Sermon-The Art of Why?

Job: A Masque for Dancing - Original Production at The Cambridge Theatre, July 1931 (V&A Collection)

A sermon given during Choral Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 28th July 2024 based on the text of Job 19.1-17. A canter through the artistic masterpieces inspired by the Book of Job - one of which was premiered in this parish.

Further Prayers for Choral Evensong on Sunday 10th September 2023

Zandile Tshabalala, Untitled, 2021

Further Prayers written for a service of Choral Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields based on text from the hymn ‘O Perfect Love’ by Dorothy F. Gurney (1883), Psalm 119.46-64, Proverbs 31.10-31 (‘The Valiant Woman’) and Matthew 6.19-34.

A Bouquet for Saint Giles

Saint Giles and the Deer by The Master of Saint Gilles, c1500 (National Gallery)

‘Saint Giles and the Deer’ by the mysterious ‘Master of Saint Giles’ originally formed one section of a multi-panelled altarpiece dating from the early 1500’s. 

The painting and its companion piece ‘The Mass of St Giles” depict two of the three most popular stories about the saint mentioned in the accounts of his life, the most recent of which being The Golden Legend, a famous medieval hagiography.

 

Both paintings can be seen in The National Gallery and their website allows us to zoom in to see minute detail. The commentary for St Giles and the Deer states: “The different types of plants and flowers in the wilderness are perhaps a reference to the legend that the desert flowered around Giles’s hermitage.” Tantalisingly no description of the flora or what it might symbolise is offered - nor in The Golden Legend or other versions of the Life of St Giles - so I have attempted to make an educated guess!

BOOK REVIEW : Praying the Psalms by Thomas Merton

Abbey of Gethsemani – August 1962 by Pimon Singhasin

Since starting at St Giles-in-the-Fields I think have said more psalms each day than ever before! The Book of Common Prayer is the basis for all the liturgy here. In it, all 150 psalms are said consecutively, with the Psalter dividing the text into sixty groups of Psalms to be said each day of the month at Morning and Evening Prayer.  When a month has thirty one days, the psalms set for the thirtieth day are repeated. 

‘Praying the Psalms’ is a short essay by the Catholic Priest and Trappist Monk Thomas Merton. In it he offers advice on how to gain a “lived sense” of the Psalms - something he says is vital if we are to truly pray with them. 

Choral Classics - My Beloved Spake

Egon Tschirch: Song of Songs, No. 11 (picture cycle 1923)

It was a great joy to introduce Choral Classics at St Stephen Walbrook this week, inspired by the text and themes of the Song of Songs. My script is below. Watch a recording below: 

Choral Classics - Ev'ry time I feel the spirit

James Keay-Bright, Trinity Redemption, 2013

It was a great pleasure to introduce Choral Classics at St Stephen Walbrook on Wednesday 8th February 2023. My script is below. You can watch the recording below or on YouTube at this link.

Start:Stop - Talking the talk and walking the walk

George Grotz, Metropolis, 1916

Start:Stop at St Stephen Walbrook enables busy people to start their day by stopping to reflect. Ten minute reflections are repeated on the quarter hour, from 7.45am until 9.00am every Tuesday morning, beginning with a reading from scripture, followed by a reflection based on an event from this week in history, with space for silence and prayer. You can hear a recording of this week’s reflection at this link and read the script below.

Good morning and welcome to St Stephen Walbrook and our Start:Stop reflection. Today is the anniversary of the birth of master-storyteller Charles Dickens, whose Night Walks through the streets of Victorian London provided the inspiration for novels and short stories that revealed his concern for the poor and the oppressed. 

Dickens had an on-off relationship with the church into which he was baptised. Though, by his own admission, at times he struggled to do so himself, he was highly critical of those who attended church every week to say the creeds but who seemed to fail to act upon them. People who “talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.”

A criticism shared by the author of the First Letter of John, writing to the church in the first century. His readers are exhorted to live the word - through acts of righteousness.

Our reading this morning is from the second chapter of the First Letter of John.

Prayers of Intercession - The Feast of Candlemas

La presentación de Cristo en el templo, Kelly Latimore

Prayers of Intercession written for the Choral Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 2nd February 2023. The Feast of Candlemas. Based on texts from Malachi 3.1-5, Psalm 24, Hebrews 2.14-end and Luke 2.22-40.

Prayers of Intercession - Follow Me

Carl Kylberg "Venez a ma suite (Följ med)" (Come, Follow Me)

Prayers of Intercession written for the Choral Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 26th January 2022 (Year A, Epiphany 3) based on texts from 1 Corinthians 1.10-18 and Matthew 4.12-23.

Prayers of Intercession - All Souls Requiem at The National Musicians Church

Symphony Orchestra, John Albert Cooper (1894-1943), Leeds Art Gallery

Prayers of Intercession written for the Requiem for All Souls at Holy Sepulchre, the National Musicians’ Church on Wednesday 2nd November 2022 based on readings from Revelation 7.9-17 and Matthew 5.1-12.

Prayers of Intercession – Season our lives with the foretaste of your Kingdom

Motoi Yamamoto, Salt Installation 

Prayers of Intercession written for the Sung Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 30th September 2021 (Year B, Trinity 17, Proper 21) based on readings from James 5.13-end and Mark 9.38-end

Start:Stop - Business as usual

Monk (Mönch) by Katharina Fritsch, 1997/1999 (Art Institute Chicaco)

Hello and welcome to this week’s Start:Stop reflection from St Stephen Walbrook, when we stop for a few moments and start to reflect on a passage from scripture. My name is Phillip Dawson. You can find an audio version of this reflection at this link. This week we begin with a passage from St Paul’s letter to the Romans. Described as his ‘theological masterpiece’ Paul’s reasons for writing the letter - to diverse congregations he did not establish and had not visited - are unclear; but in it, he sets out his view on the demands that living a life in a Christian community entails:

The Practice of the Presence of God. Conversations and Letters of Brother Lawrence

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, c1809

Why do we need to “practice the presence of God” when we know that God is with us at all times?

The answer to that question lies at the heart of four conversations with and fifteen letters by Brother Lawrence, a lay brother of the Discalced Carmelite Order who lived in France in the seventeenth century and were published posthumously, becoming a spiritual classic.

Prayers of Intercession - Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi procession by Amadeu de Souza-Cardoso (1913)

Prayers written for the Sung Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook at 12.45pm on Thursday 3rd June 2021, the Feast of Corpus Christi.

Back at the Empty Tomb - A Prayer for Easter Monday

The Empty Tomb - Richard Bavin, 2013 - Methodist Modern Art Collection

Lord, as we rise this day,
  fill our lives anew with the truth of your empty tomb.

 

Roll away the darkness that distracts and divides; 

   that we may all reflect the light of your love.

 

Roll away the heavy weight of injustice and inequality;

   may the explosive power of your resurrection reveal the path to peace.

 

Roll away all suffering and sorrow;

   restore us with your promise of new life; renew us with a passion for the possible.

 

Roll away our fear and pride;

   reveal your strength through our weakness. 

 

Roll away our silence;

   let us speak only the Good News of Christ crucified.

 

May all who come looking for the risen Lord this day, discover that we have already been found;
  by our Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

 

A prayer inspired by Mark 16.1-8 read at Morning Prayer on the first day of the St Augustine’s College Residential Week, Easter Monday 2021

Image : Richard Bavin, The Empty Tomb, 2013 (Methodist Modern Art Collection) 

 

  

Prayers of Intercession - The Greatest Commandment

The Hospitality of Abraham by Andrei Rublev

Prayers of Intercession written for the Choral Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 28th October 2020 (Year A Last after Trinity, Proper 25) based on the Gospel reading Matthew 22.34-end

Let us pray that our love of God and his love for us may be shown in all we say, all we do and all we are. 

Prayers of Intercession - Give to God the things that are God's

The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1989, by The Rev Dr P. Solomon Raj 

Prayers of intercession written for the Choral Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 22nd October 2020 celebrating the Feast of St Luke. The text is inspired by the gospel reading from Luke 20.20-26 and ‘Thy Word’ a song by Amy Grant, which was sung by our Choral Scholars today.

Jesus said “give to God the things that are God’s.” So let us, his image-bearers offer ourselves in prayer to Almighty God, who is giver of all things.