That has to be my favourite headline from last week. I can’t remember which newspaper coined it – for once I don’t think it was The Sun – but, fantastic. I was taken back to times in childhood when you are up to something with your friends, having a great time, chancing it a bit, not noticing the possible dangers, and the mums lean in towards each other and say ‘It’ll end in tears!’. No sooner said then a child is crying and rushing back to mum’s skirts for comfort.

We are in another hard place. The divides which many of us have spoken about already, the glaring divides of social inequality, the divides between north and south, are becoming more and more apparent. The unity that was displayed back at the beginning of the national lockdown, that amazing community spirit, the willingness of people to volunteer in numbers never quite seen before, standing on our front door steps (almost) religiously every Thursday at 8pm, applauding the NHS, all that seems to have dissipated. We seem to be in a very different place and the almost weekly slogans and new restrictions, the confusing and seemingly illogical messages and restrictions are just irritating many people to the point when they no longer want to play ball, instead they want to take their bat home (too many metaphors)!

Like you, I imagine, I have been studying the tiers especially as London moved up a tier at the end of last week. What would this mean for the Cathedral? What would this mean for our communities? What would this mean for me? I looked through the diary. Dinner with a friend and his partner who I have known from school days and haven’t seen for months, cancelled. Pizza with the curate and his new wife, cancelled. Lunch with my colleague after we have met in his office, cancelled. Christmas …. well, we wait to see.

As a consequence of the deep disquiet within the church during the national lockdown when our churches were forced to close, contrary to Canon Law, there is no talk of Places of Worship being affected in any of the tiers. But will people want to come, to join a congregation, if they are fearful, or discouraged, from travelling and meeting other people. By the time you are reading this blog I will know what effect it had on the congregation for the Choral Eucharist. And what will it mean for the important acts of remembrance that are now just two weeks away, All Souls, gathering for a Requiem Mass or visiting the graveyard with family members to lay some flowers; Remembrance Sunday on the streets, keeping a collective silence, shoulder to shoulder for our veterans, not to mention huddling round a bonfire, watching the fireworks and enjoying the Cinder Toffee. There is so much that will yet again be changed and yet again be lost to this terrible year.

That is my moan over. I know why we are doing this, we have to try as best we can to slow down the rate of infection, we have to make sure our hospitals can function and the most vulnerable are protected. My question to myself though has been – what is my role in all of this, what is the role of the church in all of this, all of this uncertainty and anxiety, all this fear?

There are such things as Priests’ Handbooks, especially for when you are visiting the sick. They are properly called ‘Vade Mecum’ which simply means ‘go with you’. ‘travel with you’. They contain all the prayers that a priest would need at the bedside, they travel in your pocket, in your knapsack, often for a sense of security. It’s one place where you really don’t want to be lost for words. For Anglicans there is also, of course, that great book ‘The Country Parson’ by the seventeenth century Metaphysical poet, George Herbert. This is not so much a prayer manual but a manual on how to ‘do the job’, on how to live the life, how to be the Parson. So I turned to CHAP. XV. The Parson Comforting.

The Countrey Parson, when any of his cure is sick, or afflicted with losse of friend, or estate, or any ways distressed, fails not to afford his best comforts, and rather goes to them, then sends for the afflicted, though they can, and otherwise ought to come to him. To this end he hath throughly digested all the points of consolation, as having continuall use of them, such as are from Gods generall providence extended even to lillyes; from his particular, to his Church; from his promises, from the examples of all Saints, that ever were; from Christ himself, perfecting our Redemption no other way, then by sorrow; from the Benefit of affliction, which softens, and works the stubborn heart of man; from the certainty both of deliverance, and reward, if we faint not; from the miserable comparison of the moment of griefs here with the weight of joyes hereafter. 

It is that that I should be doing, we should be doing, affording our ‘best comforts’. There is that wonderful phrase in the Book of Common Prayer, the ‘vade mecum’ for the people of God of England, which are called ‘The Comfortable Words’. And the comfort given there is this wonderful passage from St Matthew’s Gospel.

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (Matthew 11.28-30)

This must be what we hold out to the nation, to the world, to our neighbours, to ourselves at this moment. Today all the cathedrals of the Church of England have been united in doing this, praying for us all in this pandemic, in our anxiety, in our sadness, in our fear, in our loneliness. It may bring us to tears, but God will wipe them away.

This is the prayer I wrote for the Cathedrals at the beginning of the pandemic. I continue to pray it.

Loving God, source of healing and comfort, fill us with your grace, that the sick may be made whole, that those who care for us may be strengthened, that the anxious may be calmed, and those most vulnerable be protected in the power of Spirit, in the faith of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.