Home    |    Holy Trinity    |   St.Tudno's   |    Parish life    |    Bells   |    Contacts
Parish of Llandudno
Contact the Rector
LETTER FROM THE RECTORY
Link to home page
LLYTHYR O'R RHEITHORDY

March 2012


Rector of Llandudno
It can be very embarrassing and humbling to be ‘put in our place’ by somebody, especially if it happens in public.  To be shown up as being in the wrong, or to have made a mistake or perhaps to have to give way to somebody else’s ideas can be deeply humiliating.

The experience of receiving the cross of ash on Ash Wednesday and hearing the words that are said as it is marked on our foreheads is designed to ‘put us in our place’ in the best sense of that term. The priest says: ‘You are dust and to dust you shall return, turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

These words are an accurate description of what we truly are. We are indeed ‘dust’, created from the matter of the universe in which we live. We are creatures of God, totally dependent upon him for our very existence. Without him we are nothing. At the end of our lives our bodies will return very quickly to the earth. Only through his grace can we hope to continue to
live. This is certainly being ‘put in our place’.

But the Ash Wednesday words are meant to humble, not to humiliate us.  God loves the dust that is us; to him it has an infinite value; to him it is nothing less than gold-dust. So there’s no shame in being dust! It’s just that we need to remember what we are and on whom we depend.  This dust so often gets above its station and thinks it can flourish simply by its own
efforts and by doing its own thing. Lent reminds this dust where it came from, where its true hope lies, and how it can be the
gold-dust God has created it to be: ‘turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’.

By the time you read this letter Lent will be well and truly underway and the Ash Wednesday Cross long gone from our foreheads. But like the cross placed there at our baptism it remains invisibly upon us marking us out as followers of the One who came that this dust might have true life and have it in abundance; and to that end offered his life on a cross of pain and humiliation. In a sense, on the cross he took our place, that we might know our true place and so experience the life that he offers this gold-dust for all eternity.

Have a good Lent!
   
                                                                                       

Fr. John


top of page

Previous letters:

January 2012
February 2012
January 2011
February 2011
March 2011
April 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
August 2011
September 2011
October 2011
November 2011
December 2011
January 2010
February / March 2010
February / March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
Aug 2009
Sept 2009
Oct 2009
Nov 2009
Dec 2009
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June / July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
Debember 2007

Site map                                Web site co-ordinator                        Last updated: March 2012