Just over a year ago God spoke to me. I was on retreat from college at Ampleforth Abbey in the Yorkshire Dales and had gone for a walk on my own in the Abbey’s extensive grounds. I reached the woods on the far side and sat down amongst the trees to be quite, to enjoy the beauty of nature all around me and to seek the presence of God.
As I sat on the slightly damp autumn leaves with my long black coat spread round me like a cloak God spoke to me in that still small voice. His message to me that day was that the future of the church lies not in continuing separation and disharmony but in combining the very best that each distinct flavour of Christianity has to offer. At least that was the impression I received and I am still trying to work out exactly what that means.
Tonight, at college, we had a special college communion for Ash Wednesday which included The Imposition of Ashes. This is, as I understand it, an Anglican and possibly Roman Catholic service and one I have not come across in any Methodist church; though I dare say there may be some who do this. I found it to be a most moving and deeply spiritual service, one of the very best things that the Church of England can offer to the wider church.
It was at the end of the service that the Imposition of Ashes took place, as we filed out into a dark churchyard for the final blessing. The minister standing at the church door made the sign of the cross on my head with ashes and said, ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’
For me it was a moment of deep penitence; a moment when I realised more deeply and profoundly than ever before that I am a fallen creature who is utterly reliant on Christ for my salvation. It was a reminder that I am a mortal and finite creature and yet through the grace of God I have received eternal life and can be certain that I will be with God for ever.
As I walked slowly out into the churchyard and looked up at the stars shining in the clear night sky; as I stood before the wooden cross, the symbol of Christ’s sacrifice: I felt stunned, I couldn’t speak or even think or move. I just stood in the silence and stillness, the vastness of creation before me and an awareness of my own smallness and insignificance filling me and it hit me all over again that God loves me, even me; and that had I been the only person who ever lived and sinned he would still have given his son to die for me.
As I write now I still feel in awe, a sense of wonder and amazement fills me along with a profound sense of peace. I have been truly blessed by our God this evening and I pray that through the ministry to which he has called me others too would know that awesome and humbling sense of the reality of the presence of God in their lives.
Father God, please take me and use all that I am and all that I will be for your glory. In Jesus name. Amen.
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