The Bishop's Letter

Bishop’s Letter for November

Bishop Cyril writes:

Many think the term “fast food” is a modern invention. It isn’t. Growing up in a large family in the decade following World War Two, not only sharpened your appetite, it also quickened your response time to the food being placed on the table. Putting it simply, you moved fast or went without. My mother tried in vain to get us to slow down in order to give time to digest our meal. However, chewing each mouthful thirty two times always seemed an unnecessary delaying tactic and a precarious one. My mother was right of course; all the manuals on healthy eating say you must give time to digest your food.

One of the most memorable Prayer Book collects for me is the one that used to be set for the second Sunday in Advent, known in olden days as Bible Sunday. Listen to the words of this prayer:

Blessed Lord,

You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written

For our learning:

Grant that we may so hear them,

Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them,

That, by patience and comfort of your Holy Word,

We may embrace and ever hold fast

The blessed hope of everlasting life,

Which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Did you notice? There’s that word again. Digest. Not only are we to read the Scriptures, but also, we are to allow time to digest them. One of the desert fathers was approached by a keen young student who said, “Father, give me a word from God”. The wise man asked the student if he would agree not to come back until he had fully lived the word. The student agreed. Then this is the word of God. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind”. It was many years before the student returned. The older man knew that it took time to digest God’s Word. The journey from the head to the heart is the longest and most perilous of all. We live with the Word until it changes us. Some verses of Scripture I have lived with for thirty or more years in the hope that I might yet be changed.

This Advent why not ask God for a Word. Live with it, digest it until you see Christ formed in you.

+Cyril