Faith matters: Heartfelt prayers make a difference
Let me be up front: I do think prayers, heartfelt prayers, make a difference. They make a difference to us, and they make a difference to the world around us. Occasionally, the difference is dramatic, miraculous even, but more frequently, the difference takes place slowly and imperceptibly.
Every year a period of nine days, running from Ascension Day to the feast of Pentecost, is set aside for reflection on the Lord's Prayer which includes the phrase 'Thy Kingdom come thy will be done, on Earth as in heaven.'
If we are going to pray these words, from the heart, it strikes me that we need to understand the attributes or virtues that characterise God's Kingdom and will. In understanding these terms, we are given a glimpse into what heaven may be like, and what earth could be like. When we pray, one of the hoped-for outcomes is therefore that the gap between heaven and earth shrinks. In the words of the 1980's rock ballet singer Belinda Carlisle, heaven' becomes 'a place on Earth.' Fantasy? Possibly. Worth praying for? Definitely.
So, what is God's will? Well, it's simple really: that our lives are characterised by love, love of God, and love of neighbour (see Matthew Chapter 22 verses 37-40). The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10, 25-37), however, makes it clear that Jesus' definition of neighbour extends way beyond those just like us, members of our natural affinity groups. Christian love should be both expansive and lavish. Christian love does not, or should not, discriminate.
St, Paul wrote this in his letter to the Romans (chapter 14 verse 17): 'for the Kingdom of God is not food and drink but justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.'
When we pray the Lord's Prayer, from the heart, we make a series of commitments. We commit to love God and neighbour and, we commit to pursue justice and peace. We make these commitments in the belief that in their enactment we will come to experience a deep sense of spiritual joy.
Does prayer make a difference? Yes, I believe it does, both within and beyond ourselves.
'Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.'
Andrew Lightbown is chaplain to the City of Newport, St Woolos Cathedral.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1200%26auto%3Dwebp%26quality%3D75%26trim%3D55%2C0%2C56%2C0%26crop%3D&w=3840&q=100)
Scotsman
3 hours ago
- Scotsman
Search for Viking life - and boat burial - on tiny Nave Island off Islay
The excavation could be a breathrough in the understanding of the Viking presence on Islay. Sign up to our History and Heritage newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... A search for the first Viking house or possible boat burial on Islay is to get under way. Archaeologists will move on to tiny Nave Island, which sits just at the mouth of Loch Gruinart, following the findings of an earlier investigation in 2022. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Nave Island spans just 43 hectares and sits on the western 'sea road' of Britain but, despite the high volume of place names on Islay which are derived from Norse, no evidence of Viking-era dwellings or classic boat burials have yet been found. READ MORE: Travels routes of Vikings across Scotland to be mapped like never before Now a team from Reading University are to return to Nave Island after preliminary investigtions suggested that a piece of land close to a Christian site, which had its roots in a 6th Century monastic complex, could have been a place of importance for Viking settlers. The site of interest - which commands 'spectacular views' over the narrow stretch of sea to the Islay mainland - is a stone and earth structure around 20m in length with rounded ends and curved or bowed sides. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A report from archaeologists who investigated the site said: 'This research has established that the earthwork has similarities with Viking or late Norse domestic structures recorded from the Western and Northern Isles, but can also be compared to Viking funerary monuments, in particular boat burials from the Irish Sea Zone. 'The recent survey work has, therefore, opened new lines of inquiry thatcould be pursued to advance understanding of not only this monument, but also medieval exploitation of the wider Islay landscape.' READ MORE: Incredible journey of star item in the Galloway Hoard revealed for the first time While Viking houses or boat burials - usually associated with high-status figures - have not yet been found on Islay , the archaeological record shows at least seven Viking graves and a coin hoard are known. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Scandinavian artefacts found near Ballinbay on Islay indicate a Viking cemetery, with further mid to high status burials discovered near Bridgend. A late 10th Century hoard unearthed on Machrie farm included more than 90 coins, including examples minted by the English king Aethelstan and the Viking kings of York, as well as some silver ignots. Professor Steve Mithen, from Reading University, and his team now seek to expand understanding of the Viking presence on Islay after Historic Environment Scotland approved an excavation of the site. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad While there are no written accounts of Viking activity on Islay, raids on nearby Rathlin Island and Iona illustrate that Norse warlords were operating in the area as early as 785AD. While now uninhabited and owned by Islay Estates, the last recorded residents of Nave Island were kelp burners who built their oven and chimney within the chapel ruins, the report from the investigation team said. Traces of earlier farm settlements dating from the medieval period were also found. Traces of Viking boat burials in Scotland are relatively rare, with only around 10 such sites found in Scotland to date. They range from the Ardnamurchan boat burial on the mainland, where a a high-ranking warrior was found with his weapons to the Scar boat burial in Orkney, where a woman, man, and child were buried together. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
Spectator
2 days ago
- Spectator
The masterpieces of Sussex's radical Christian commune
Ditchling in East Sussex is a small, picturesque village with all the trappings: medieval church, half-timbered house, tea shops, a common, intrusive new housing developments down the road, a good walk from the nearest train station and the Downs on its doorstep. But the resonance of the place owes much to the remarkable artistic activity that has bloomed since Eric Gill moved his family there in 1907. It was part craft commune, part lay monastery, a living experiment in distributism, the radical Christian political philosophy that held that land should be distributed as widely as possible. It was an attempt to resurrect the medieval guild. Gill's Catholic community even had its own: that of St Joseph and St Dominic, which held that 'all work is ordained to God and should be Divine worship' and 'making the goodness of the thing to be made the immediate concern in work'. Dominican friars were frequent visitors. In the early 1920s, Gill's distributist experiment was something of a tourist attraction, with a succession of visitors dropping by to observe this community of craftsmen (Gill repudiated the effete term 'artist'), with its woodworking, stonecutting, silverwork and printing. (Hilary Pepler ran St Dominic's Press, and Edward Johnston – the one member of the group who declined to convert to Catholicism – was their lettering man.) David Jones, painter and poet, was introduced to Ditchling by Mgr John O'Connor – G.K. Chesterton's original Father Brown – and was, for a time, engaged to Gill's daughter Petra. The women did the domestic chores and some skilled work such as weaving. Jones would much later say that 'if I were to write down a typical day at Ditchling in 1922, it would be very hard indeed to convey the naturalness, unaffectedness, happiness, sincerity, rightness, freshness which we at the time felt and that in spite of the usual tensions, strains, squabbles, etc. But just to give an account of it now would seem affected, arty-crafty, self-consciously 'religious', eccentric, mistaken if not actually bogus.' In the same letter he reflects on the 'extreme difficulty of conveying to chaps now the particular freshness or springtime… of the… Weltanschauung of the 1920s'. The workshops and chapel of the group were – unforgivably – demolished in 1989, and the houses sold privately (one owner painted over a mural by Jones) but the establishment of the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft was some compensation for the loss. It was reinvigorated in 2013 and, notwithstanding its small size, has held excellent exhibitions of local artists and associates of the Ditchling group, including Edward Johnston and Frank Brangwyn. Now, 40 years on, it presents another reworking to expand the range of artists on show and deal with the problem of Eric Gill – now best known for interfering with his daughters, plus his dog. On the first, there is a striking assembly of portraits on show of individuals associated with Ditchling, extending beyond the Guild, from Mary Gill, Eric's wife, eyes bent on her work, to Amy Sawyer, a flamboyant artist who wrote plays for local performance. There's fine textile work, notably Grace Denman's striking silkscreen prints, and a reimagining of Ethel Mairet's weaving workshop, complete (for the multisensory route is the way to go nowadays) with an olfactory station for smelling her dye plants, including cabbagey woad. Ditchling's tradition lives on: the illustrations here by John Vernon Lord for Aesop's Fables are exquisite and playful. But it's the work of the Guild that remains outstanding and that ethos of 'the goodness of the thing to be made' is evident in every medium, from Dunstan Pruden's exquisite silver work to Joseph Cribb's curvy, sensual carvings in wood and stone to Johnstone's calligraphy. The radical character of distributism is there in Philip Hagreen's funny anti-capitalist wood engravings. In one, the snake in Eden, 'The First Advertiser', is seen coiled around a tree. 'Eat More Fruit,' it demands. But it's David Jones who steals the show without dominating it: his moving 'Our Lady of the Hills' (1921) is the poster image and I loved the engaging, perky 'Agnus Dei' he created for the guild chapel. Wedding dress, made and worn by Petra Gill, c.1930. DITCHLING MUSEUM OF ART + CRAFT Gill, we know, experimented sexually with his two older daughters (the incest with his sister was consensual). There's a curious little room, established on the advice of the Methodist Survivors' Advisory Group, to which entrance by under-16s is discouraged, which aims to represent the achievements and personality of the girls in their own right, including Petra's hand-woven wedding dress (see above). But separating these things from the rest means that lovely pieces – such as Gill's studies of his daughters in admirable clear line and David Jones's affectionate depiction of Petra – are presented as part of a problem. I'd have put the lot out on general display with a panel offering information about his sins. 'The Plait', 1922, by Eric Gill. IMAGE: DITCHLING MUSEUM OF ART + CRAFT COLLECTION Unless you're a local, it's a hike to get to Ditchling. But it's worth it.
Belfast Telegraph
4 days ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Education Minister pays tribute to ‘remarkable' former Co Down principal following passing
John Wilkinson had been in teaching for more than three decades, 19 years of which were spent at Dromore High School. Mr Wilkinson was awarded an OBE in 2013 for his contributions to education in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. While principal, he helped lead the Co Down school to recognition for academic excellence and it was designated as a Specialist School for Science. Education Minister Paul Givan paid his respects to the senior education figure who 'dedicated his life to serving others and shaping the lives of young people across Northern Ireland'. The DUP MLA said: 'Throughout his long and distinguished career, John embodied the very best of our education system — professionalism, compassion, and a deep commitment to excellence. He approached every role with humility, wisdom, and a quiet strength that earned the respect and admiration of colleagues, pupils, and the wider community. 'In recognition of his outstanding contribution to education, John was awarded an OBE in the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours List — a richly deserved honour that reflected the esteem in which he was held. 'John's legacy is one of quiet but profound influence — a legacy that will be felt for generations. A devout Christian who served as Clerk of Session in First Dromore Presbyterian he will be remembered not only for his many achievements, but for the values he lived by and inspired in others. 'My thoughts are with his family and all who knew and respected him at this difficult time, especially Hazel, Jonathan and Joanna." Beyond the school gates, Mr Wilkinson was also on the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) where he was Chair of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee and Interim Vice-Chair of Council. Mr Wilkinson was also a Non-Executive Director with the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. The Co Down man is survived by his wife, Hazel, children, Jonathan and Joanne, and grandchildren Oscar, Darcie, Maisie and Kasie.
