WORD OF THE WEEK

NOVEMBER has been a time of remembrance – it started with All Saints Day, followed closely by Remembrance Sunday.

This year especially, it has been particularly poignant as we are in a time of lockdown again, reflecting on the world around us coping with a global pandemic.

At this time we start to naturally look back over the year that has gone – and what a year!

As well as looking back with thanksgiving, for many there will be the sadness of separation, isolation, missed events that would have been celebrated in other ways.

In the Christian calendar we move to the season of Advent – the countdown to Christmas – which starts this coming Sunday.

Advent and Christmas are going to be very different this year.

However, it is another time of remembering – this time remembering the journey of a refugee couple, one of whom was heavily pregnant.

They missed family, friends and community, relied on the generosity of others, gave and were given, lived with fears, journeyed in hope.

Sharing in their journey, we think of our own journey in life too, marked and shaped as it is by circumstance, opportunity and choices.

Each week in Advent we shall light a candle, counting down to the big day, when Christians will remember the coming of God in human form, in a tiny, frail, vulnerable, needy child.

I hope that this Advent season in particular, which will be different in many ways to those we have all known, will give you time to remember the joys and sorrows of the passing year and find faith, hope and love for the one that is to come.

May we really reflect on the characters of Christmas, that perhaps in a new way we may see glimpses of them in our own lives.

As we travel again their journey, so God offers to travel ours, wherever we are and who ever we are.

So as we start the Advent and Christmas season, may we know more than ever that: the best of all is, God is with us!