Hospital chaplains are witnessing acute stresses and strains in the NHS, in a ministry now as much geared to the needs of staff as of patients; current pressures were showing the value of that trend towards staff well-being, the president of the College of Health Care Chaplains (CHCC), Dr Simon Harrison, said on Monday.

“What Covid began is now very much continuing,” he said. “My colleagues and I are in emergency departments daily, visiting to support patients wherever they are found. There’s nothing we’re doing that’s new. Everyone is in different ways putting their hand to the pump.

“But what we learned from Covid is that you need to see staff where they are: to be alongside them on the front line. It’s not about waiting to be called, but about going out proactively to see how they’re doing on a good day or a bad day. The thing chaplains do which is relatively unique is brief encounters: a lot of these, in the moment — very real, confidential if required, but in the moment.”

Canon Mia Hilborn, a Hospitaller and chaplaincy team leader at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, in central London, described the added pressure from the sheer numbers in hospital, including many who no longer needed to be there. but had nowhere to go as a result of the shortage of workers in the care system.

“There’s a shortfall if everyone is well. But if they take leave or are off sick, then it’s a major shortfall,” Canon Hilborn said.

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Care now needed for NHS staff, as well as patients, say hospital chaplains https://t.co/vYIDgJ7giJ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 13, 2023

Covenant, Calling and Crisis: Autonomy, Accountability and Wellbeing among Church of England Clergy revisited 63 people who have been interviewed every two years since 2017. It presents qualitative findings from individual and group interviews conducted in autumn 2021 and is part of the third wave of the ten-year Living Ministry programme. The research findings explore clergy wellbeing during the Covid 19 pandemic and how clergy understand and experience autonomy and accountability.

Dr Liz Graveling, author of the report, said:, “I am deeply grateful to all the people who continue to share the joys and trials of ordained ministry to help the church learn how best to care for its clergy. Supportive frameworks of autonomy and accountability are crucial, and the stories contained within this report illuminate how these two things can be held together in the context of covenantal relationships.”

You can find much more information there.

The overall well-being of the clergy has declined since 2019, but could be improved through stronger relationships of accountability, the third wave of the ten-year study Living Ministry suggests. https://t.co/LidhLL4reP

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 13, 2023

Nobody expects America to go back to the 1990s. It is right to seek to preserve its military pre-eminence and to avoid a dangerous dependence on China for crucial economic inputs. Yet this makes other forms of global integration all the more essential. It should seek the deepest co-operation between countries that is possible, given their respective values. Today this probably requires a number of overlapping forums and ad hoc deals. America should, for instance, join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Asian trade pact based on an earlier deal it helped write but then abandoned.

Saving globalisation may seem impossible, given the protectionist turn in American politics. But Congress’s aid to Ukraine shows that voters are not insular. Surveys suggest the popularity of free trade is recovering. There are signs that the Biden administration is responding to allies’ concerns about its subsidies.

Yet rescuing the global order will require bolder American leadership that once again rejects the false promise of zero-sum thinking. There is still time for that to happen before the system collapses completely, damaging countless livelihoods and imperilling the causes of liberal democracy and market capitalism. The task is enormous and urgent; it could hardly be more important. The clock is ticking.

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Since 1945, the world economy has run according to a system of rules and norms underwritten by America. This system is in peril as a destructive new logic threatens globalisation https://t.co/SNpJji4joc pic.twitter.com/iDOvJpGsgA

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 12, 2023

We have clearly fallen on the evil times prophesied by the Apostle; for nowadays teachers are sought after who preach not God but a creature And men are more zealous for what they themselves desire, than for what the sound faith teaches. So far have their itching ears stirred them to listen to what they desire, that for the moment that preaching alone rules among their crowd of doctors which estranges the Only-begotten God from the power and nature of God the Father, and makes Him in our faith either a God of the second order, or not a God at all; in either case a damning profession of impiety, whether one profess two Gods by making different grades of divinity; or else deny divinity altogether to Him Who drew His nature by birth from God. Such doctrines please those whose ears are estranged from the hearing of the truth and turned to fables, while the hearing of this our sound faith is not endured, and is driven bodily into exile with its preachers.

But though many may heap up teachers according to their desires, and banish sound doctrine, yet from the company of the Saints the preaching of truth can never be exiled. From our exile we shall speak by these our writings, and the Word of God which cannot be bound will run unhindered, warning us of this time which the Apostle prophesied. For when men shew themselves impatient of the true message, and heap up teachers according to their own human desires, we can no longer doubt about the times, but know that while the preachers of sound doctrine are banished truth is banished too. We do not complain of the times: we rejoice rather, that iniquity has revealed itself in this our exile, when, unable to endure the truth, it banishes the preachers of sound doctrine, that it may heap up for itself teachers after its own desires. We glory in our exile, and rejoice in the Lord that in our person the Apostle’s prophecy should be fulfilled.

–Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, X

Today the Church of England celebrates Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher of the Faith, 367 https://t.co/EicFK0ihA1

Image: St Hilary depicted in a section of the east window in St Hilary's, Spridlington, Lincs. Photo: Jules & Jenny from Lincoln, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons pic.twitter.com/yAUruOBYJ6

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 13, 2023

O Lord our God, who didst raise up thy servant Hilary to be a champion of the catholic faith: Keep us steadfast in that true faith which we professed at our baptism, that we may rejoice in having thee for our Father, and may abide in thy Son, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit; thou who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

Hilary of Poitiers was Bishop of Poitiers and a Doctor of the Church. He was sometimes referred to as the "Hammer of the Arians". His name comes from the Latin word for happy or cheerful. His Feast day is January 13. pic.twitter.com/3Ubwe5lu21

— Duncan Irvine (@DuncanIrvine1) January 12, 2023

O Blessed Lord, who in the days of thy earthly childhood didst earnestly desire to be about thy Father’s business: Give us the grace of thy Holy Spirit early to seek thee and evermore to follow thee; that being continuously aided by thy grace, we may be exercised in thy service; who livest and reignest with the Holy Spirit, world without end.

pic.twitter.com/R34v7SZgDz

— The Whitby Photographer (@WhitbyPhotos) January 13, 2023

I keep the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also dwells secure.
For thou dost not give me up to Sheol,
or let thy godly one see the Pit.

Thou dost show me the path of life;
in thy presence there is fulness of joy,
in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.

–Psalm 16:8-11

Sunrise at the Atlantic Pond 🧡#lee #cork ⁦@pure_cork⁩ ⁦@savecorkcity⁩ ⁦@CorksRedFM⁩ ⁦@ThePhotoHour⁩ ⁦@corkbeo⁩ pic.twitter.com/5pv8praNTe

— Fionnuala O’Herlihy (@finnhug) January 13, 2023