The Winter 2020 edition of The Anchor newsletter of All Saints by the Lake Anglican Church is now available online. My editorial column is published below.
How times have changed in the short space of 12 months! Yet it seems to have been a very long year. The fatigue of having to comply with restrictive health regulations and the constant effort to remain hopeful are taking their toll.
For me, this has been a year of challenge and change.
Alleviating the impact of the pandemic on persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers and on health care professionals has been no easy feat. I am sure that many of you have witnessed the hardship and are experiencing the fatigue of this pandemic.
We are praying for those whose pain we feel and whose loss we share.
The important point to remember is that we are still here dwelling in hope. Real hope.
Rev. Grace, in a very moving sermon on December 7, reminded us that ‘’in the gloom of this COVID winter, the end is in sight. Deliverance is on its way. I can’t even imagine how miserable things would look if we hadn’t heard, over the past month, that the incredible global effort to produce a vaccine in record time has been successful. The first actual inoculations may have taken place by the time this sermon is delivered.”
Let us, this Christmas season, rejoice in the hope that is found in our God, who works through nature and through science. The dawn of a breakthrough of the anti-corona virus vaccine coincides with the celebration of the birth of the Source of our hope.
Let us share happy memories of times past, and begin to build new, shared traditions. Let us wipe away the tears of sorrow, even for a moment, from our own eyes and from the eyes of others who feel hopeless. Let us extend to the hungry, homeless and the dying, the joy of Christmas, spoken through words of hope and in the giving of gifts.
Jesus Christ our eternal hope is born!
Alleluia!
Christ in us…the hope of glory! That’s why glory matters.
Glory Matters 