Pastoral Letter April 2020
Dear Friends, I hope you are all as well as can be expected and are bearing up under these very difficult circumstances we are experiencing with Covid-19. As you may be aware, the Arch Bishop of Canterbury has instructed that all public worship must cease in our Churches until further notice. This is very distressing to many of us, however we must keep things in perspective, Covid-19 is very infectious and potentially life threatening, and so a period of imposed restrictions will not be a bad thing, and we know that this situation will not last forever.
Our Churches will remain open for private prayer, so if you are not self-isolating at home you may want to come into Church to pray, or just sit quietly. On a practical level we are being asked to practice social distancing, which will mean making sure that we are not sat or stood within 2 metres of somebody else, and do please respect others need to just be sitting quietly. I understand that this is difficult for all of us, but for the time being this must become our ‘new normal’ so to speak. And it is the loving thing to do to keep everyone as safe as possible.
I will be sending out messages regularly, and adding resources to help you pray and worship at home, and please do email me if you are not already on my list and would like to receive these. My contact details are revsue.cooper@gmail.com and Tel 01869 810903. I would like to commend to you the Church of England website that has daily resources for worship at home and a number of prayers which you may find helpful in these times.
I would like to add my thanks and praise to all the many good people who are keeping our nation going in their various jobs and roles. There are too many to name individually here, but especially the Doctors, Nurses, Hospital workers and Care workers. You are all hero’s thank you. And it is wonderful to see how the Aynho folk are pulling together collectively to help one another, and the most vulnerable in our community. Thank you all.
Finally, let’s not forget that we will be celebrating Easter shortly. If ever there was a time that we needed to feel hope and peace it is now. And the Christian faith is founded on hope, peace and love. Because of Jesus, and that 1st Easter, we are able to call God ‘Father’. We are able to pray to him and put our hope in his never failing love. This means that even in the most terrible of times we can experience peace of heart and mind, and can keep hope alive in our hearts for ourselves, and for others. And more than this, we can even dare to believe that out of this present darkness and chaos, light and good can, and will, surely come.
God bless you all, with love Rev Sue.
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