Weekly Reflection – Advent Reflections

Advent is a time of new beginnings and reflection. It is with this in mind that I write my last reflection during my time on placement at the cathedral. I would like to offer a warm thank you to the Dean and Chapter and all the community at Wakefield Cathedral. It has been a blessing to share this brief part of my Christian pilgrimage with you all.

My time at Wakefield Cathedral has made me reflect on what it is to be Christian in 2024. We can get so caught up in the here and now and the exceptionalism of modernity. We can assume that we are the first generation to have it so hard and that we, as Christians are being ceaselessly excluded from an increasingly secular society. However, at Advent we are reminded that God is our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and our end. It is because we live in the confidence that God is eternally with us that we live as Christians, firm in hope, firm in the love of God.

Cathedrals hint at this eternal relationship we have with God. There is a permanence to their great pillars reaching up heavenwards, pointing us towards God’s glory. There is something profound about the fact you are sharing the sacrament together as a community of Christians on a spot where this has been done for centuries. Cathedrals serve as a centre of worship and mission and a centre for the life and work of the Church. They have lived through wars, plagues, depressions, they are not buffeted by the latest crisis. Cathedrals simply are. They remain steadfast, humbly witnessing to the greater truth that God is with us, and therein lies our firm hope.

We wait at advent for the coming of the Christ child, knowing that God loves us so much that he had to be with us. Every time we see Wakefield Cathedral or any other cathedral or church we should be reminded of the permanence of God’s love for his people. God reminds us in the incarnation that he was, is and ever shall be with us in love and grace. So, as I return to my parish, I will take with me the memory of my time at Wakefield firm in the hope that I was a small part of the living witness of the centuries old Christian community in Wakefield. Thank you and my prayers and blessings be with you.

Fr Doug