Maundy Thursday: loving the dirty, smelly parts of me too.

Food is essential to human life and wellbeing. When our insides, our guts, let us down, food can become be hard to stomach -often literally. The pain associated with a diseased gut can have us writhing. A very powerful and external manifestation of when our gut lets us down is when things get so bad that a colostomy is the treatment. 

We don't find it easy to talk about such things which adds to the stigma of now having to handle in a new way what we rarely have to face head-on -our faeces. It takes a lot of getting to used to. Our faeces now leaves our body through our abdomen and is collected in a bag. 

It can have an enormous impact on our sense of being, our sexuality, our desirability, our body image, our confidence. Today as we hear again the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet let us give thanks for all our bodily functions. As Christ washed dirty, dusty feet so too today if you feel undesirable and self-conscious, feel the embrace and love of the God who adores you: all of you.

Heavenly Father,

your Son washed the feet of his friends,

help me to feel your warm and tender embrace today.

Help me to love my body even when it lets me down.
Even in illness your image shines from deep within me. Awesome! Amen


This reflection is to accompany the spiritual space and Lenten Reflection at the Chapel of Christ the Healer, Cork University Hospital.

If you are in the chapel when you click on this page please feel free to add your prayer to the prayer card on the altar.

If you would like us to pray for you at our Taizé Service of Prayer around the Cross, tomorrow,  Good Friday at 7:30pm please send an email to daniel.nuzum@hse.ie or tweet to @goodfridaycuh and use hash tag #goodfridaycuh or send a SMS to +353 87 3939142If you live in the locality of CUH you can listen in and join us for worship through hospital radio on CUH102FM

Tuesday in Holy Week: Save me from this suffering

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed that the cup of suffering might be taken from him. A very human response to an overwhelming pain that he was enduring. And yet deep down he knew that there was no way around what was a path of suffering but only a way through.

The diagnosis of illness can bring us to a 'Garden of Gethsemane' experience where we want to bargain with God to find an easier way. Yet, we know deep down, like jesus did, that there is usually no way around but only a way through. A way through that we somehow find the strength to accomplish despite the odds and our human fears.  While we may hold our hands up to our face to block the view ahead we know that it also opens our eyes to see that there is no other way but to journey on.

Dear Lord,

like you I want this cup of suffering to pass from me

yet I know that I must journey through.

be my companion, my strength and my guide

and walk beside me all the way. Amen.

This reflection is to accompany the spiritual space and Lenten Reflection at the Chapel of Christ the Healer, Cork University Hospital.

If you are in the chapel when you click on this page please feel free to add your prayer to the prayer card on the altar.

If you would like us to pray for you at our Service of Prayer around the Cross on Good Friday at 7:30pm please send an email to daniel.nuzum@hse.ie or a tweet to @goodfridaycuh and use #goodfridaycuh or a SMS to +353 87 3939142
If you live in the locality of CUH you can listen in and join us for worship through hospital radio on CUH102FM

Monday in Holy Week: fragrant love & anointing. Thank God for our feet

Our feet are often the most neglected parts of our bodies (especially for men!) and yet they carry our complete load and are our connection with the earth beneath us. Each of our feet has 26 bones, 33 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments. They are complex parts of our body that we are unaware of most of the time unless they become strained or damaged. As we wear shoes most of the time we have lost their sense of connectedness with the earth beneath us. We have lost the sense of how our feet connect us with the ground we tread on and in many ways we have dampened the ability of our feet to be sensory organs.

On this Monday in Holy week as we journey with Jesus towards the cross we hear again the gospel story of Mary anointing Jesus feet with perfume.  (Click here if you would like to view the reading) A beautiful act that in many ways points towards his death and burial. The feet that walked into jerusalem yesterday to the victory shouts of Hosanna and welcome are now set on a very different path where 'hosanna' will quickly become 'crucify'.


Dear Lord,
as you journey towards the cross this week
journey with me in my illness and pain.
As Mary anointed your feet with ointment and love
so please anoint me with your healing love and presence.
Amen

This reflection is to accompany the spiritual space and Lenten Reflection at the Chapel of Christ the Healer, Cork University Hospital.

If you are in the chapel when you click on this page please feel free to add your prayer to the prayer card on the altar.

If you would like us to pray for you at our Taize Service of Prayer around the Cross on Good Friday at 7.30pm  please send an email to daniel.nuzum@hse.ie or tweet name to @goodfridaycuh using hashtag #goodfridaycuh or send a SMS to +353 87 3939142

If you live in the locality of CUH you can listen in and join us for worship through hospital radio on CUH102FM

Maundy Thursday: Intimate beyond measure?

I was reflecting this Maundy Thursday about how we as a church have lost a sense of intimacy in our worship. We seem to feel uncomfortable about being intimate as a community when it comes to worship.

The liturgy of the evening of Maundy Thursday when we recall the institution of the Lord's Supper, or if you prefer, the Eucharist, the Mass, Holy Communion is the one service in the year where intimacy is key.

 At this service -which takes its name from the new commandment of Jesus Mandatum novum do vobis 'a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you...' (John 13:34)- we gather in a quiet and reflective way as the people of God to capture again something of the intimacy and tension of that Last Supper when Jesus in the midst of the political tension and rumblings around him sat down to share a life-changing meal with his disciples. It was Passover time. 

This particular Passover would be infused with meaning that would take a lifetime to unfold for the disciples. At this meal Jesus shocks the disciples when he kneels down to wash their feet. The lowliest of tasks. Jesus demonstrates a model of caring, loving, intimacy and service that would transform the values of the world. This meal would be the link of love, remembrance and presence for all who would choose to follow this particular Rabbi. And so when we gather on Maundy Thursday we travel back to this special evening. It is a service and ceremony that should make us tingle with awe. It is a service that should inspire in a way that leaves a mark of deep humility and sense of privilege on all who are called to ministry.

I miss being in a parish community in Holy Week more than any other week in the year. I am still nurtured and humbled by profound moments from the many Holy Week journeys in the parishes I have served in. Maundy Thursday was an evening when on many occasions the depths of communion, fellowship and ministerial care came together in a trinity of profound love. The poignancy of kneeling and washing the feet of those I had served, washing feet that had carried the burdens of their owners: feet that were rarely on view to the world. This was done in a quiet and intimate way at the person's seat rather than as a spectacle at the front of the church. That momentary glance and meeting of eyes as this short gesture came to an end held a sense of deep story when just for a moment each of us was acknowledging silently and fully the significance of what had just happened. In most cases those stories of ministry during the year were known only to us and God, and yet were part of who we were in the wider body and community of Christ.

Celebrating the eucharist on an altar in the midst of the people was another way we captured this intimacy and fellowship 'κοινωνία' . Bread and wine, simple elelemnts transformed with life-giving meaning, and so the description of this wonderful liturgy could go on and on...

How can we recapture a sense of intimacy in our worship? At a time when so many come to us seeking love and connection we fail to connect in a way that enables them to feel touched by the God who loves them utterly and unconditionally for who they are. 

I have been sharing in the Holy Week journey in a number of churches this Holy Week as a worshipper. Twice in the last week I was greeted at the door of a church with what I can only describe as a frosty reception: a sense of inconvenience.

On Maundy Thursday, perhaps more than any other day in the year God in Christ calls us to be intimate, to be warm to be loving. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another...