The adventure of faith

 27 April 2025, Easter 2: Acts 5:27-32, Revelation 1:4-8 and John 20:19-end

Yesterday morning, Cardinal Giovani Battista Re (the Dean of the College of Cardinals) preached a homily which reflected on the way in which Pope Francis showed warmth and sensitivity in the face of today’s challenges. He shared our anxieties and our hopes, reminding us that the joyful heart of the gospel is God’s mercy. 

Such mercy which means God never tires of forgiving us, healing our wounds.   For Pope Francis, the church was to be a ‘home for all, a home with its doors always open’.  

How do we get to that place? How do we get to a  place of healing and openness, of mercy and joy? For Pope Francis, Thomas is our guide.

St Thomas - stock image

Three years ago, in a short address, he said that Thomas ‘represents all of us’ because he was not present the first time the risen Lord Jesus appeared to the apostles. 

He is one who shares our struggles. How do we believe without having seen him? How do we know Christ’s presence and love without having touched him? 

Thomas shares our reasoning, doubts and questions; our longing for relationship with the risen Lord. Thankfully, Pope Francis reminds us that God is not looking for perfect Christians!

Today’s gospel allows us to be honest about wounds and questions. It begins with the reminder that Jesus’ risen body is still wounded. The wounds witness to pain and to loss, to the traumas inflicted on mind and body; to the traces of relational hurt and suffering. 

Wounds do not heal instantly. They become scars over time - we see the outer transformation. The deep tissue healing - that takes longer. The knitting together of fibres and growth of new cells is sometimes felt, always unseen. 

The medical term for such deep healing is ‘granulation’. A term my late supervisor picked up during his treatment for cancer - and creatively re-deployed to describe the time and patience needed for healing to occur. 

Healing of past hurts or regrets; of challenging relationships. Healing in how we live differently in relation to grief or chronic illness. Healing in our communities - the life long work of bridge building. 

In Jesus we see the wounded God whose wounds are healing ours. 

He is present with us - in the tender heart of things; the places where we still wince at the touch. This is real presence in the wounds, the pain; presence in the granular healing, in the deep tissues of our fear and confusion, in our hurt, yes; but also in the experience of mercy, in the depths where joy might begin to emerge; in the depths of our lungs as peace is exhaled. 

We are embodied people. So was our Jesus in his life, death and resurrection. 

Our bodies tell something of our stories: scars of childhood and of surgery; of first loves and lasting griefs; of challenges faced and moments of happiness; successes, failures and everything in-between. 

Jesus’ body tells a story too: the one who was and is and is to come dwelt with us; a story of solidarity and encounter; of love and mercy; of forgiveness and peace; of wounds that heal. 

If God does not seek perfect Christians but wounded, healing ones then Pope Francis is right. Thomas stands for us.

He says: 'the adventure of faith, as for Thomas, consists of lights and shadows. Otherwise, what kind of faith would that be? It knows times of comfort, zeal and enthusiasm, but also of weariness, confusion, doubt and darkness.’

He highlights the way Thomas teaches us that we should not fear the moment of crisis: they are part of the story. 

The crisis he experienced is not hard for us to imagine. We live with FOMO - the fear of missing out. Thomas may have felt that acutely - his closest friends had encountered the real presence and peace of their risen friend and Lord. 

He wasn’t there. It wasn’t enough for him to have their account of what happened - however detailed, emotional and vivid. If you weren’t there as the applause erupts or as an infant takes a first breath; if you weren’t there for that shared joke or that parting word, we do feel as if we have missed out. 

It’s not something to write off as weakness or stubbornness or a lack of trust. 

It is an expression of our yearning for encounter; to hope in the face of uncertainty.

If Thomas stands for all of us, we can take courage from him - from his witness - as one who recognised his Lord in woundedness. As one whose own wounds were healed by a wounded Lord.

Thomas knew his need. He was not ashamed to express it - his crisis of missing out was part of his journey.  Such moments, as Pope Francis put it, ‘rekindle the need for God and thus enable us to return to the Lord, to touch his wounds, to experience his love anew as if it were the first time.’

Our need exposes our humility. It strips us of our pride. 

That week of waiting must have felt very long for Thomas. Waiting without knowing if or when he would encounter Jesus. 

Did he think his fellow disciples were suffering from grief-induced delusion? Did he find hope in the murmurings of peace? 

Jesus knows these moments of crisis and vulnerability. And as the gospel reminds us he does come back. Pope Francis says ‘he always comes back: When doors are closed, he comes back; when we are in doubt, he comes back; when, like Thomas, we need to encounter him and to touch him up close, he comes back.’

And this moment of return is the moment of Thomas’s recalling. He went - legend has it to Kerala - he witnessed to others of the one who was his wounded and risen Lord. 

Perhaps, with a pastoral tenderness born of his experience, he was able to speak peace to others; to speak of mercy and joy. Perhaps breathing those words - softly, urgently - ‘blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.’

Perhaps he is the one who not only represents us, but bears witness to us, so that we can live out the good news of resurrection life. 

Perhaps it is in this place of woundedness that healing happens: at a granular level life begins, faith blossoms; a new future in community is made possible. 

As David Ford puts it: ‘Here the breathing in of life is inseparable from the words of peace, sending, receiving and forgiveness.’

When John writes of forgiveness and what is retained, he is reminding us of Jesus’ promise to hold us fast. In all our woundedness and capacity to wound others, we are held fast. Jesus holds on to us in that - loving as God desires us. Forgiveness is tied to such an embrace. 

Peter went on to speak of what it is to bear witness to the resurrection and forgiveness, to repentance and obedience. As part of a fragile and fallible community of friends, we are invited to love and serve - breathing in and breathing out the Spirit of peace. 

Revelation reminds us that we are loved and set free from sin. We are made a kingdom - a people of solidarity and encounter, serving God and our neighbours, drawing the margins into the centre of our life.

Thomas is the one who asks the awkward questions - who stands for us in seeking faith and love, worship and embrace.  As we break bread together, we relearn  mercy which means God never tires of forgiving us, healing our wounds.   May we embody those gifts in the local, in the unseen and granular, so that this church might be: a ‘home for all, a home with its doors always open’.  

© Julie Gittoes 2025

Doubt as productive

16 April 2023 (Easter 2): Acts 2:14, 22-32, 1 Peter 1:3-9 and John 20:19-end

As human beings, we often seek certainty but also find ourselves living with doubts. 

There may be times in our lives when guidance and direction are important; or there might be moments when we need space to weigh the questions, trust our instincts. 

Some of us might be predisposed to ways of thinking and acting rooted in confidence and clarity; others of us may experience decision-paralysis or imposter-syndrome, being all too familiar with doubt.  

Perhaps we say to ourselves ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘I don’t know’ - on the threshold of changes in work or relationships, circumstances. It is rare to hear such phrases in public though.

Someone seeking to change that is Nicola Reindorp, the CEO of Crisis Action. In reflecting on the impact of her own doubtfulness on her career, she decided to explore it in conversation with neuroscientists, counsellors, economists and leaders. 

In doing so, she writes [here] that she ‘discovered another side to doubt that is productive and powerful, not the destructive doubt of paralysis and pain, but a productive form of questioning and discovery.’

In a way, her “rebranding” of doubt makes sense: she puts it at the heart of self-awareness and humility, seeing it as a prompt for curiosity and learning. Doubts enable us to interrogate our own biases driving not only innovation but also inclusion and diversity. 

Does it help us understand Thomas better? He was someone who elsewhere in John’s gospel speaks openly and directly about his thoughts. Questions don’t seem to phase him. So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that his faith and belief was also mediated openly, directly and indeed relationally. 

St Thomas - Diego Velázquez

As Rowan Williams puts it: ‘doubting Thomas is often thought of as demanding hard evidence - unless I touch the wounds - and yet it was his encounter with the person of Christ that sparked faith.’

Thomas's doubt leads to a desire for touch; but what he sees inspires his belief, his trust. His testimony opens up space for others to find new purpose, new life. 

A better nickname might be ‘inspiring Thomas’ after all!

Does such a rebranding sit alongside what we hear in our text?

The tomb was empty. The doors were locked. 

Rumours of resurrection were circulating as fears were pressing in.

Into that place of grief-stricken hearts and troubled minds the risen Lord breathes peace.

To the exhausted, troubled and anxious: peace.

To the fearful, questioning and grieving: peace.

To the curious, hopeful and courageous: peace.

The marks of the nails and the pierced  side are visible: the continuity of scars witnessing to the continued presence of the self-giving love of God. 

The one breathing peace was of the Father’s love begotten; breathing peace having been betrayed, denied and beaten.  

Those wounded hands took the sting out of death and now reach out to places of mistrust, pain, disappointment and guilt.

Those wounded hands also reach out with the balm of love to forgive and heal rather than condemn.

But Thomas was not there. 

His doubtfulness means the confidence or charism of the words of others was not enough. He needed to see, to touch, to feel the breath of peace.

Those are productive signs of questioning and discovery rather than a painful paralysis. 

He had to take that doubtfulness into the week of waiting, of talking, eating, praying. 

Did their joy give space for his questions? Did his curiosity deepen their joy? Did their peace soothe his hurt? Did his interrogation prompt deeper fellowship?

The tomb was empty. The doors were locked. 

Stories of resurrection filled the room, fears being dispelled.

Into that place of hearts warmed by conversation, fellowship and prayer another word of peace is spoken. 

There is no rebuke or condemnation - simply an invitation for Thomas to reach out, to touch, to see, to trust.

Doubt becomes worship: my Lord and my God!

Evidence and observation becomes unconditional acceptance.

That is not the end of the matter: all this is for our sake - the words, the stories, the testimony, the breath of peace.

All this is written to assure us that we are healed by the same words; that we might put our trust in the promise of renewed life; that we might know ourselves to be loved, forgiven, restored, made whole and blessed. 

More than that, in the power of the Spirit, the risen Jesus sends us to transmit that love and forgiveness. 

In problem broken bread and outpoured wine, our fragile and fallible bodies are nourished as we are called from penitence to restoration; as we allow love to seep into those locked places of fear. 

This new life is a gift but also a process. The Spirit is at work in us - confronting us those things we hide from and cultivating in us new hope and dignity.

This process is held within our community - the accountability we have to one another before God.  If doubts are about curiosity, self-awareness and humility - if it prompts our learning and the safe space to interrogate our own biases, questions and weakness - then they have their place. 

Together, faith and doubt can be productive: bearing those first fruits of healing, generosity, conviction; rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep.

Hand in hand it staves off those things that paralyse us or hidden growth and change; finding a deeper stability and ways forward that do not coerce, demand or control. 

This kind of questioning and discovery drives the processes of forgiveness: being honest with ourselves and knowing what sets others free; the changes that bring hope and liberation; letting go of habits which cause harm.

For the one who breathed peace was the one who endured the worst of humanity - shame, failure, selfishness and betrayal - and burnt it away in the refining fire of a crucible of love.

Perhaps Thomas and Peter strengthened each other in their faith and witness through the way they tested, challenged and encouraged one another. Certainly Peter’s words - in Acts and in his letter - speak of a liberating hope and new life, which is full of gladness, mercy and love. 

It is a message, as Willie Jennings puts it, that is ‘far more powerful than its messengers’; it is a remarkable message which draws our life from fear to peace. 

Faith and doubt, peace and forgiveness: worked out in prayer, fellowship and breaking of bread for the sake of the world.

As Rowan says: ‘Faith is not just ideas in your head, faith is not just feelings in your heart - faith is the whole of a new life, making a difference to your lives, to your neighbours, to your community, by the grace and the Spirit of God.’

© Julie Gittoes 2023

Peace behind locked doors

Our Sunday morning worship is continuing to evolve: adding in some music and images; bringing in a range of voices; and breaking down the reflection into two. The texts were Acts 2: 14a, 22-32 and John 20:19-end. Perhaps it's our local version of R4's Sunday Service! So here are two reflections - one on fear and the presence of Christ behind locked doors, speaking peace; and the other on our hands being the hands of Christ.

Reflection One

The disciples, like us, are living their lives behind locked doors: we hear of fears, doubts and words of peace. 

Perhaps we can imagine the conversations and questions: behind locked doors, they are caught between news of an empty tomb and fear of those in authority. Behind locked doors they ponder Mary’s passionate declaration “I have seen the Lord”. Behind locked doors they are held captive by their feelings of grief, shock and exhaustion; by their expectations, disappointments and guilt.

And yet, the enormity of the resurrection is being made known every minute, literally breath by breath as they share their experience.

Jesus is present amongst them in this fearful place. His body still bore the makes of nails and wounds. This body overcame suffering and death; this body signals that love wins as he breathes out a word of peace.

Peace be with you: peace following from the heart of God; peace that took the sting out of death; peace that rested on places of hopelessness.

Our risen Lord continues to breath peace into our troubled, joyful, curious, courageous and questioning hearts. 

In our locked homes and amongst isolated friends: peace!

When anxiety, fear and uncertainty paralyse us: peace!

In the midst of all we’re doing, in lives lived at a distance: peace!

Image: William Hatherell

The one who breathes peace, sends disciples to share peace.

God so loved the world that he sent his one Son: to forgive and love, to heal and not condemn. Now, he sends others, in the power of the Spirit to share that love, to restore relationships. 

But Thomas wasn’t there. He missed it. His questions and exclamations are met with “believe us”. It’s overwhelming. No wonder he replies with  ‘unless I see’; no wonder he longs to touch the one he loves. 

He’s locked into this room with the others - talking, eating and praying. He’s locked in with those whose experience he cannot fully understand or share. He was locked into his own disappointment, perhaps; that he’s missed it; locked into his own isolation or jealously, as the days pass.

Although the doors remained shut, Jesus was there to speak words of peace. He does not rebuke Thomas. Instead he invites him to reach out and place his trust in him; to touch and to believe. At that moment fear and doubt and separation becomes worship: my Lord and my God!

Perhaps it feels as we are standing with Thomas today: not just because our lives are constrained and relationships stretched, or we fear we’re missing something; but because that’s were God meets us to: that we might receive a gift of peace. 

Image: John Granville Gregory - based on Caravaggio

We are healed by those same wounds; restored to new life; knowing that we are loved, made whole, blessed and forgiven.

We are people whose lives have been sustained and shaped by sharing in broken bread and outpoured wine; it might be that that is the thing we miss most in this season.

And yet, not only does God reach out to us in the places where we feel fearful or locked in;  in the power of the Spirit, God uses us to unlock the fears of others, to meet them with kindness and patience and peace.

Our lives are Christ’s broken bread; our love Christ’s out poured wine. 

Many across South India came to believe through the honest and faithful witness of Thomas; Peter also points people to ‘this Jesus’. Jesus who wasn’t just a wise teacher or compassionate healer; not just a inspiring or controversial celebrity. 

No, this Jesus endured the very worst harm human beings can inflict on another; he went to the depths of shame and suffering; bringing life out of death, hope out of fear. 

Our world longs for the justice that such love demands; for the dignity and compassion such love enables. We are witnesses to the power of love in this risen body, standing among us breathing peace.

Even behind our own front doors, the witness of Mary, Peter and Thomas continues in our prayer, in relationship and in our worship. 

Even in lockdown, something of that love is made known: when we use our words to inspire and encourage others; when our work continues in new ways; when we listen to those who mourn; when we share what we have with generosity; home schooling with patience; when we receive from others the care we need.

Peace be with you. 

Though the layers of fear and bewilderment, may that peace seep in: we belive, we rejoice, we hope, we love.

Reflection Two

Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said, ‘peace be with you’. 

As you breath in, imaging that you are breathing in that gift of peace.

Jesus knew that the disciples were frightened; locked in behind closed doors. 

As we breath out, we name the things we’re worried about. 

Again Jesus said, ‘peace be with you’. 

He invite them to look at his hands and feet.

Wounded in suffering with us; in loving us to the end.

This risen and glorious body is marked with love.

Look at your hands: open them, flex them, turn them over. Look at the lines; the finger tips; the joints. 

Look them: remembering the words they’ve written, the things they’ve carried; the meals they’ve prepared.

Remember the acts of love they’ve shown; the hands they’ve held; the times you’ve washed them to cleanse, protect and care.

Jesus said: look at my hands: hands that brought healing; that welcomed children; that broke bread; that wiped tears from eyes.

How much did Thomas want to see and hold and touch these hands; to know that healing and life was possible.

Look at your hands.

Teresa of Avila wrote this prayer: Christ has no body on earth but yours; no  hands, nor feat on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion o the world; yours are the feet with which he walks to do good; yours are the hand with which he blessed all the world. Christ has no body now on the earth but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours, but ours: to care for the vulnerable.

No feet but ours: to run errands for others.

No eyes but ours: to see the anxiety and fear, and respond with love.

No ears but ours: to listen to the lonely and isolated.

No tongue but ours: to speak words of comfort and encouragement to the bereaved.

No heart but ours: to love the young, the old, the sick, the key worker, the carer, the teacher, the almost coping, the neighbour.

Yours the feet with which he walks to do good; the hands with which he blesses all the world.  Your bodies are his body; Christ has no body now one earth but yours.

He said, peace be with you.

You that are fearful, see my hands.

Look at your hands. Mark your palms with the sign of the cross.

Say: may Christ these hands; may they be healing hands for  a hurting world. 

©  Julie Gittoes 2020

Love's risen body

The text of a sermon preached at the Cathedral Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Easter.  As i was preparing to preach, I came across a news story on the BBC website entitled Can you be spiritual if you don't believe in God?  More than half of the British population identify as having no religion. The sociologist Linda Woodhead describes them ‘nones’ - rejecting the categories of secular or religious, but still affirming a spiritual side to life. In this context, the BBC asks people to explain what spirituality means to them. 

In the article above, Barbara describes her spiritual life as enabling her to move away from hatred towards compassion, forgiveness and love.  Ziad names the pressure of individualism and self-indulgence; seeing in all religions expressions of the one truth, the divine spark in us. Hugh talks about being an orphan from infancy and discovering that he had a Father who was God.  Reverend Bonnie talks about the way in which doubt and questions have shaped her personal development. She says ‘certainty closes doors. Doubt deepens faith’. 

It's the final comment which feels pertinent when preaching about Thomas' response to being absent when the disciples encounter their risen Lord behind closed doors. It's become a truism to say that faith and doubt aren't opposites; questioning and conviction often go hand in hand. What we see in Thomas a deep desire to be assured of the extent of transformation brought about by resurrection - it is the wounded Jesus who is risen, defeating death. 

I begin with another Thomas: R. S. Thomas whose own ministry grapples with the nature of presence and absence, and persistence in the way of faith.

The texts were Exodus 14:10-end, 15:20-21, Acts 4:32-35 and John 20:19-end

Alleluia: Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed: alleluia!

Lines from the welsh priest-poet R. S. Thomas [The Answer]:

There have been times

when, after long on my knees

in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled

from my mind, and I have looked

in and seen the old questions lie

folded and in a place

by themselves, like the piled

graveclothes of love’s risen body.

Like the Thomas of today’s Gospel, his witness to ‘love’s risen body’ flows from the intersection between certainty and doubt, sight and insight. 

They walk with us - these faithful Thomases - as old questions resolve in faith: in silence and waiting, in seeking and hoping, in absence and presence, and in kneeling to pray, 

Belief flows from the defeat of death itself. 

The Empty Tomb by George Richardson: Fine Art America

In the days following the resurrection event, Jesus’ disciples have been grappling with the reality of an empty tomb and rumours of encounter with the one who was their lord, teacher and friend.

As they gathered behind closed doors, did the beloved disciple share the experience of sudden realisation as he saw grave clothes piled up in a tomb? Did he describe the way in which that absence awakened in him an ever present love?

Did Mary Magdalene take the risk of seeking them out, her heart pounding as she hammered at a locked door? As the bolt slides back, she rushes in; her breathless declaration ‘I have seen the Lord’ flowing from a faith which lets go and embraces new life.

They talked about these things: these moments of recognition and these transformed lives. Their old questions shifted to make space for new ways of thinking, giving way to new life.  

A stone rolled back; piled grave clothes; love’s risen body.

The very person who was crucified is risen.

They see his wounded side.

And Jesus speaks words of peace.

They see the marks of death.

Their fear is turned to joy.

And Jesus repeats the promise, the gift, the truth, the hope: Peace be with you.

This moment of encounter is an awakening of a new community: a community which is breathed into existence. 

Those who are gathered together in a room are sent into the world. 

Jesus’ death and resurrection have changed the world: this is the ultimate reality of the power of God’s love to create, heal, forgive and bless. 

But the world is changed through them, through their witness; it is changed through us, through our witness that love wins.

In an act of recreation, love’s wounded and risen body gives to them the gift of the Spirit: a gift which continues to seek reconciliation; a gift which bequeaths mercy and justice; a gift which pursues forgiveness; a gift which dares to hope. 

The church is a wounded body; a body which dares to speak of love’s risen power.  Walking in the step of Jesus demands humility and courage; compassion and patience.  Small acts which resist the toxicity of hatred; repeated gestures which build peace; dogged perseverance that things can change.

In the complexity of our lives and the uncertainty of our world, that can sound naively optimistic, but there are glimpses of realistic hope.

Watching the BBC’s My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me last week offers one such glimpse (quotations from the Irish Times).  It’s a searching and disarming documentary by comedian Patrick Kielty: his father was killed in the troubles; his family resisted revenge. Twenty years after after the Good Friday Agreement, he continues to search out fresh perspectives on the way forward - remanning equally open minded when interviewing the DUP’s Arlene Foster of Sinn Féin’s Emma Rogan.  

Photo from BBC website

Today Stormont is deserted and Brexit presents new obstacles. The experience of violence and mistrust are grievances which way heavily. And yet. And yet transformation is possible. The peace campaigner blinded by a British soldier’s bullet speaks of the way forgiveness brings freedom; it ‘allows us [you] to let go’. Those Kielty meets in schools and comedy clubs, on the Belfast streets and in his home town hold onto the hope expressed my Mo Mowlam: ‘it may take a wee while but we’re going to make it’.

We’re going to make it. God’s Kingdom will come near in small steps amounting to unimaginable change.

Reconciliation takes time.  It is a glimpse of love’s risen body transforming wounds. As Kielty puts it: ‘where there’s peace, there’ll always be a wee bit of hope’.

This is the hope of forgiveness that love’s risen, still wounded body, breathes into us: forgiveness is a process; there is no coercion; each of us can chose moment by moment to accept that gift and be embraced by it; to refuse it or withhold it.

Thomas stands with us - like us - in that place of hesitation.  He has heard his friends talk about the peace of love’s risen body.

Rather than seeing him as the doubter or the skeptic, the pragmatist who wants to see for himself; perhaps he is just like every other disciple, then and now, grappling with loss and the most profound grief.

He hesitates with his tears and questioning; he’s seen some run away from the cross and others waiting at the tomb.

The Incredulity of St Thomas (Caravaggio)

He, like us, waits for the old questions to answered; for fears to be rolled back like the stone. He needs to know that the horror and scandal of death - of the death of his Lord - to be overcome.

As the poet and writer John Gardener puts it:  ‘For [Thomas] to believe, death itself - and those specific wounds - would need to be overcome. It would have to be transformed, all of it… Thomas would have to see the very thing that had crippled him and broken his spirit undone’ [John in the Company of Poets]. 

Jesus speaks peace to his anxious heart.

Jesus tells him: what you most fear has been turned into life.

Death has been overcome by love’s risen body.

And Thomas declares the truth of his heart; the reality of his experience; the meaning of the Gospel.

My Lord and my God!

My Lord and my God!

Thomas rejoices that in Jesus God is with us. His death restores life to our frail, wounded, suffering and mortal bodies.

Jesus is God himself, in the fullness of our humanity, overcoming the enemy of death. He is love’s risen body.

Here at this Eucharist, our fears are dispelled by the peace we share; in broken bread and wine outpoured, we rejoice at transformed wounds and restored life.

We are called by name as witnesses to a new reality: like Thomas, belief is rooted in recognising this new life in love’s risen body.  

The Assurance of Thomas: believing not doubting

Traditional icon from icon reader blog

Such life is not an abstract ideal or unobtainable ideal. It is found in a person.  Because Jesus lives and overcame death, we too live.

We are united with as members of his body: love’s risen body.

We are to communicate that love in our body language:

Dare we have the confidence of Moses: encouraging others to stand firm, to not be afraid, to trust that God will guide us?

Dare we have the boldness of Thomas: naming our hurts, declaring our faith and having the courage to place our trust in the risen Lord?

Dare we follow the example of the early church: witnessing to our faith with grace and passion and striving to deepen our fellowship with each other?

To be members of love’s risen body is to be willing to put all that we have - and all that we are - at the disposal of God, in the service of others - in words of peace and in generosity, in acts of trust and in a movement towards forgiveness.

Alleluia: Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed: alleluia!

© Julie Gittoes 2018