24-hour Midsummer Prayers
A remote 800-year-old chapel in Dorset was the location for 24 hours of prayer this Midsummer.
Members from the churches forming the Benefice of St Aldhelm met between the 26 and 27 June for 24 hours of prayer at St Aldhelm’s Chapel, which is located on the remote top of St Aldhelm’s Head in Purbeck and occupies the site on an ancient Celtic Christian settlement.
The 24 hours of prayer focused on the needs of Purbeck, the mission of the Benefice, political complexities facing the UK - and our dependence on God.
James Mercer, the Associate Minister in the Benefice reflects on "A sense of the rootedness and the continuity of the Christain faith in this ancient place and God’s ongoing faithfulness to his people and their mission."
Liz Hoad, Churchwarden at St Nicholas Worth Matravers, comments: "This was a special time of silence and waiting -'be still and know that I am God'."
A meditation was recorded anonymously in a notebook during the 24 hours of prayer:
Is God…
In the timelessness of this place?
In the interrupted silence?
In the footfall of unsuspecting pilgrims seeking rest from cliff-top hikes?
In the swooping swallows nesting in the eves?
In the basking sun-seeking adder beyond the porch?
In the wind’s ceaseless shout?
In the tractors distant growl?
In the insistent susurrus of the dark closeness of the waves?
...God is.
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