Thought for the Day - The Beginning and the End

The Course of Empire: Destruction, Thomas Cole, 1836

A Thought for the Day given at a lunchtime service of Holy Communion at St Olave Hart Street on Tuesday 29th April 2025 based on the text of Mark 13.5-13

Our gospel reading today forms the start of what some call the “Little Apocalypse”. As well as recording the longest speech by Jesus in the whole of Mark’s gospel, it’s a passage that may reveal something about the people who first heard the text, whose writer the church remembers today.

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.

Songs for Suffering - Psalm 6

The first telephone used by The Samaritans, on display at St Stephen Walbrook, where the organisation began

How long?
Time
Stops.
Life & love leached through red eyes.
Drained from my nose.
And even that's clear - nothing of substance!
Suffocating in my swollen face.
The cracked voice of a broken body gives
One
Last
Hoarse
Cry.

Save me.

What changed?
He listened.

(A paraphrase of Psalm 6)

Start:Stop-Living Stones

Thank you for joining us for Start:Stop. This reflection will last around ten minutes, followed by a period of silence and prayer. The prayer response is on the sheet which you can pick up on the table at the entrance to the church.  Please come and go as your schedule dictates. We begin with a short bible reading, which can be found on page 250 in the New Testament section of the Bible.