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Your weekly update from Portsmouth Cathedral

Your weekly update from Portsmouth Cathedral

Your weekly update from Portsmouth Cathedral

Your weekly update from Portsmouth Cathedral

‘Give me a drink.’

The words of Jesus to the woman at the well in our Gospel reading this Sunday have a particular resonance for us at the moment, as, in line with our Archbishops’ advice on the coronavirus, water has been removed from our font and water stoup, and we will no longer be receiving the wine at Communion.

One of the most significant trends that shapes life in the modern world is a sense of radical interiority: modern people try to find their true selves by turning inwards to reflect upon themselves. Therefore many people will see Lent as a time for interiority: going inward to discover themselves anew.

Painted meditations on the Passion of Christ

The astonishing series of thirteen paintings by Nicholas Mynheer called The Sarum Cycle is now on display around the ambulatory starting from the South doors. As painted meditations on the Passion of Christ, they are well worth spending time with and perhaps revisiting over the coming weeks. They will be on display for the whole of Lent, as we journey together on our pilgrimage with Jesus on the way that led him to the Cross. And they will stay at least into the beginning of Eastertide, because the Cycle ends with the women discovering the Empty Tomb and finally the risen Jesus appearing by the sea to his fishermen disciples.

‘Thanks for posing,’ is not a remark I hear every day, but Neil Pugmire (Diocesan Communications Adviser) did say this to me last Thursday! He had been taking some photographs to be posted on-line during Lent to illustrate actions in support of the Bishop’s Lenten Appeal 2020: ‘Care for God’s Creation’. Earlier Neil and I had agreed that he would only photograph actions that were authentic, in the sense that they reflect what I will actually be doing during Lent in response to the ‘An Action a Day’ activities identified on the diocesan website. So yes, amongst other things I will be supporting ‘Meat Free Mondays’, and using my bike rather than the car.

‘You are the salt of the earth’ says Jesus to his disciples in our Gospel reading today, ‘but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot’. For his modern-day disciples, Jesus’s words are still laden with the qualities which salt brings to our lives. It is distinctive, and yet it also brings out the best in whatever is salted. It is astringent, an uncomfortable but effective cleanser. It is necessary, for our health and our life. And in water, it lowers the freezing point and raises the boiling point, widening the range over which it stays liquid.