Friday 25 February 2011

Jesus at St Just?


This week we have a Sunday service usually referred to as Morning Prayer. The last time I did this one I planned a Service of the Word. That was the Sunday it snowed and we had to close the church after a car got stuck on the lane! Hoping for better this time.
We are talking about the childhood of Jesus which is a subject which is wide open because no one knows anything about it but over the years there have been some lovely imaginative poems written which I can use, such as the one about the clay birds Jesus played with until He blest them and they flew away!
This service gives me the opportunity to play to the congregation in a shameless way when from clay birds we can move on to the time that Jesus came to Cornwall... It is possible!
At St Just we have a wonderful legend that as a boy Jesus with Joseph of Arimathea visited the pool protected by a sand bar beside the church. Joseph it is said was a tin trader who visited Cornwall often and they pulled into a safe place to moor during a storm. It was a place of calm and beauty and Jesus and Joseph stayed a while because there was a well of clean water..now our Holy well. This legend has captured the hearts of the Cornish and all our visitors for hundreds of years and who are we to debunk it?
What ever the truth St Just then found this beautiful place and settled here and his hermitage has grown into the church we have today. It's still a place of spiritual peace and great beauty and I thank God for being able to work in it.

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1 comment:

Ray Barnes said...

It sounds enchanting, the service and the place. If you were not so very far away I'd ditch St.M's just for this Sunday.
I hope it turns out as well as it promises to do.