成人快手

A reflection and prayer to start the day with Canon Simon Doogan.

Good morning.
Chances are, just lately, we鈥檝e all found ourselves seeing people we haven鈥檛 seen for a while.
When we have how near have we come to thinking or, perish the thought, even saying: you look different?
Well that鈥檚 going to start happening a lot more often, at least according to Helen Rumbelow in The Times a few weeks ago.
鈥淭he friends and colleagues we once spent our days with,鈥� she predicts, 鈥渨ill suddenly reappear after rusting in the sidings.鈥�
Her recommendation is that we practise hiding our shock.

Remembering faces can be a hit and miss business at the best of times, but on the subject of recognising people, Jesus鈥� closing words in the Sermon on the Mount take us way past the physical. Many will say to me, Christ foretells in St Matthew,
鈥楲ord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name,
and cast out demons in your name,
and do many deeds of power in your name?
But Jesus will declare to them, 鈥業 never knew you鈥�.
In the end, so far as Christ was concerned, it鈥檚 about a relationship with him, and the proof of that relationship, is doing the will of the Father.

I guess human nature makes it likely that, what we are slow to notice happening to ourselves in the mirror, we will be quick to notice happening to others in the flesh.
Surely what bound us to those people before though, will bind us to them still, whether we can identify them with their distinguished new features or not.
We will always know them, as God will always know those whose hearts belong to him.

Lord, you alone know us as we truly are.
Be in our reunions,
that as others change before our eyes,
we may draw closer to each other and to you,
till we see you face to face.
Amen