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Monday 23 December
Hannah’s prayer
By Joy Parke
Zephaniah 3:14-17
17 The Lord your God is with you…(NIV)
As we journey past the winter solstice, and the northern hemisphere slowly shifts its tilt towards the Sun, we are following the light - the Earth has turned.
Galileo, astronomer, physicist, and engineer was born in 1564 in Pisa. His views on Heliocentrism, in which the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun, differed significantly from those of the Church at the time and were viewed as heretical.
During the Inquisitorial commission of 1616, Galileo was forced to state that the Earth was the stationary centre of the Universe, however he allegedly muttered Eppur si muove! - Yet it moves!
Yet it moves! The authorities said one thing, but he knew another.
What I see and what I know can be different. I can choose to live with just what I see – in the immediate, superficially, unquestioningly in an unchallenged life.
Or, I can seek my knowing - or my 'nous', as the Greeks called human intuition.
Through prayer, attentive listening, I can know the constancy of God’s presence and through His presence, the constancy of His love.
By God’s grace, I can seek to follow the light and by grace receive God’s light – a light that can reach my very essence – my authentic being.
And to know that light is to know the love of God – God with us, Emmanuel.
I desired many times to know our Lord’s meaning. And…I was answered…Know it well, Love was his meaning. – Julian of Norwich (b. 1340s, Norwich)
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Zephaniah 3:14-17
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away the judgements against you, he has turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak.
The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
