Finis terrae
On a pastoral visitation this morning to the isle of Leka at the northern frontier of the prelature of Trondheim – an island over which sea eagles fly, whose strangely coloured rocks are of a kind otherwise only found in America – I remembered Christ’s injunction reported in the Acts of the Apostles, ‘You will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth’, and thought, ‘Well, here we are’. It is impressive to encounter the austere majesty of the scenery and the gracious, hospitable kindness of a small community determinedly making a living in this place, as people have done for ten millennia. How to respond and correspond to the Lord’s missionary call? By remembering, precisely, our smallness and God’s greatness; by being humbly mindful of the long history of which we are part; by listening in quietness to the Word by which all things were made; and by believing in the Word’s continued, effective power to make the weak strong, to create something out of nothing, to heal any wounds – as today’s collect reminds us in its audacious affirmation: ‘Lord God, you love innocence of heart, and when it is lost you can restore it.’
