Above all, the crisis in church and state has invited everyone to deepen their faith and to rediscover the prophetic symbolism of the broken bread and wine at the heart of the Christian shared meal, in the presence of the one whose sacrifice enacts and enables real justice to be both seen and done. That may sound like pious old hat in a west so over-secularised it can’t see the cross for the trees. But in Zimbabwe, the shared reality of Jesus Christ is helping a whole nation to transcend tyranny. I found myself using as a prayer this short hymn, which a distinguished friend of mine, David Isitt, a former chaplain of King’s College, Cambridge, and canon of Bristol, wrote to help people grasp this hope of transformation.
Lord, we receive /Your body and your blood /And claim communion /in one bond of love. In faith and hope /For all your world we plead, /Where hungry children /Cry for want of bread. Take in your hands /Once more, O Lord of Life, /This broken bread, /this cup of sacrifice. So shall the world /In mercy find relief; /Your children make their /Eucharist in peace.
Read it all.
Chris Chivers Reflects on the Mess in Zimbabwe
Above all, the crisis in church and state has invited everyone to deepen their faith and to rediscover the prophetic symbolism of the broken bread and wine at the heart of the Christian shared meal, in the presence of the one whose sacrifice enacts and enables real justice to be both seen and done. That may sound like pious old hat in a west so over-secularised it can’t see the cross for the trees. But in Zimbabwe, the shared reality of Jesus Christ is helping a whole nation to transcend tyranny. I found myself using as a prayer this short hymn, which a distinguished friend of mine, David Isitt, a former chaplain of King’s College, Cambridge, and canon of Bristol, wrote to help people grasp this hope of transformation.
Lord, we receive /Your body and your blood /And claim communion /in one bond of love. In faith and hope /For all your world we plead, /Where hungry children /Cry for want of bread. Take in your hands /Once more, O Lord of Life, /This broken bread, /this cup of sacrifice. So shall the world /In mercy find relief; /Your children make their /Eucharist in peace.
Read it all.