Bishop Kieran Conry's Pastoral Letter for Advent
As promised (and with thanks to Prayers for the Bishop) here is His Lordship's pastoral letter for Advent...
'My dear brothers and sisters in Arundel and Brighton,
One of the most striking paintings in the Millennium exhibition of images of Christ was that of the English painter Stanley Spencer. It was an image of the resurrection of the dead on the last day. But it was taking place in his home village of Cookham on the Thames. It shows people waking and stretching, the joy in their faces as they recognise their family and friends, and the fact that they are alive again. They then walk down to the Thames and get into the boats that take them to the promised land of heaven.
You might say that this is a rather fanciful and even frivolous image, but it is one of the common Christian understandings of the experience of death, that one day the dead will all hear the call of the Lord and rise from their graves.This notion of a final day of resurrection is also expressed in today’s go…
'My dear brothers and sisters in Arundel and Brighton,
One of the most striking paintings in the Millennium exhibition of images of Christ was that of the English painter Stanley Spencer. It was an image of the resurrection of the dead on the last day. But it was taking place in his home village of Cookham on the Thames. It shows people waking and stretching, the joy in their faces as they recognise their family and friends, and the fact that they are alive again. They then walk down to the Thames and get into the boats that take them to the promised land of heaven.
You might say that this is a rather fanciful and even frivolous image, but it is one of the common Christian understandings of the experience of death, that one day the dead will all hear the call of the Lord and rise from their graves.This notion of a final day of resurrection is also expressed in today’s go…