14th March, 2021.
​
My dear friends,

As you may know, as well as being your chaplain, I am also the county hospitaller or representative of St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem. I must confess I am a passionate supporter of St John Eye Hospital – it is how I first became involved with St John – and I think it is a marvellous place. It is a Christian foundation, but offers eye care to Christians, Muslims or Jews, irrespective of faith, ethnicity, or ability to pay. If someone needs an eye operation and they have no money, St John Eye Hospital will help them.
​
St John Eye Hospital is an important link with the origins of the Order of St John in Jerusalem. In the 1040s some Benedictine monks in a monastery beside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre decided to devote themselves to the care of the sick and injured, especially pilgrims. They had a little chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist, and gradually they evolved into the order of hospitallers of St John.

In many ways they were ahead of their time. It is fascinating to discover that the medieval hospital cared for Christian, Muslim and Jewish patients. All were treated the same, with the single exception that Christian patients were encouraged to go to confession and receive absolution when they arrived: the hospitallers realised the connection between spiritual health and bodily health.
Nor were the hospitallers of St John above learning from Jewish and Muslim doctors. They realised the importance of cleanliness and of a good diet. They used silver plates because they had discovered, long before anyone knew anything about germs, that silver was much safer and healthier. We should recall that the knights of St John were also professed monks and kept up the regular round of daily prayer in their churches and chapel. They ate the same food as their patients, and sometimes slept on the floor in the wards beside their patients’ beds to make sure they were all right during the night. The great officials of the Order – and we are talking about men from some of the most aristocratic families of Europe – spent at least a day every month working in the hospital wards. A sick Christian pilgrim or Muslim or Jewish patient might find that he was being washed and nursed by the Grand Master himself.

The medieval hospital has long vanished – although, rather excitingly, part of it was rediscovered in Jerusalem a few years ago. St John Eye Hospital continues many of the traditions of the medieval hospital, and I am sure you will agree we can all learn much from the example and values of the original knights hospitaller of St John.

If during Lent you would like to make a donation to support the important work of St John Eye Hospital today, one way to do so is send me a cheque (The Vicarage, Braintree Road, Great Bardfield, CM7 4RN) made payable to Great Bardfield P.C.C. with Eye Hospital written on the back. We will add it to the money we are collecting in the parish for St John Eye Hospital in Lent, which we will send it off after Easter. Helping to pay for someone in need to have a free eye operation is a lovely and practical way of celebrating Easter.

​​With my prayers and all good and warm wishes,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
LENT 4/MOTHERING SUNDAY – 14th MARCH 2021.
​
Gospel: St John, chapter 19, verses 25b – 27
At risk of shattering your illusions, may I mention that Mothering Sunday as we know it today is not an ancient part of Christianity. Like Harvest festivals or the festival of nine lessons and carols at Christmas, Mothering Sunday is a modern invention – or perhaps re-invention.
​
            There has long been something special about today, the fourth Sunday in Lent. The Sunday mid-way through Lent was anciently known as Laetare Sunday, and on this day the rigours of the Lenten fast were relaxed. For one day, people could eat and drink all the things they had given up for Lent. They would often mark today with special processions to their parish churches. These sometimes turned into rather boozy occasions, and one medieval bishop of Lincoln had to reprimand his flock for brawling.

            In the United States, someone invented the rather different ‘Mothers Day’ in 1914 and it was observed in May. We owe ‘Mothering Sunday’ to a rather unlikely figure, Constance Smith, a chemist in Nottingham. She found the American ‘Mother’s Day’ to be rather narrow and secular. Out of curiosity, she researched what had happened on Laetare Sunday in medieval times. She discovered there had been a tradition of boys who were apprentices or girls who were domestic servants having Laetare Sunday off and going home to visit their mothers. They would sometimes go to church together, and perhaps take part in one of the processions, Often, they would have an extra-nice meal together with some of the things they had given up for Lent. Famously, simnel cake was often eaten on Laetare Sunday.

            Constance Smith popularised her discoveries in two books published between the wars and the idea of observing today as Mothering Sunday slowly gained popularity. After the Second World War, the Church of England issued special prayers and readings which could be used on Mothering Sunday.

            I think there are three themes we can identify in Mothering Sunday:
Firstly, we give thanks to God for our mothers – whether we still have them with us, or wait to be re-united with them in Heaven. We give thanks for their love, and for their many pains and sacrifices for our sake. Medieval Christians had a very strong notion that a baby was a gift from God and that mothers cooperated with God in a very special and unique way. So, today we thank both God and our mothers for the gift of our lives.

            Secondly, I have mentioned that medieval Christians went to church on Laetare Sunday, often with their children, and that they had special processions. These strands came together today in a celebration of the Christian Church as ‘our holy mother the Church.’ We often think of the Church as a purely human organisation. We need to remember that it was founded by Jesus Christ. The Church contains human beings, naturally, but it is Jesus’s Church: he created it, and he uses it for his purposes. Just as a mother feeds her children, wipes away their little tears, and encourages them to take the next step as they grow up, so Jesus likewise uses the Church on earth to feed us with Word and sacrament, to help us seek divine forgiveness, and to help us grow in faith.

            Thirdly, as I have said, Mothering Sunday falls half-way through Lent. Today, we have some relaxation. Tomorrow, we move on to the second part of Lent and we begin to focus on Holy Week and Easter. On Easter Day we shall celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Today, Mothering Sunday, we give thanks for the gift of life. On Easter Day we give thanks to God for the gift of eternal life.

            I am conscious, though, that we are keeping Mothering Sunday today during the Coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, last year we had to close the church for the first time on Mothering Sunday in the first lock-down. It seems a long time ago, and much has happened since. For many people, Mothering Sunday 2021 will be difficult time because they have sadly lost their mothers – or fathers, or children – to Covid-19. Others will feel sad because they are unable to visit their mothers today. We remember them all, and lift them up to God in prayer.

            Let the last word go to Mother Julian of Norwich. Some of us have been to the little ‘cell’ or room by St Julian’s church in Norwich where she lived as an anchoress in medieval times. Mother Julian would have known all about Laetare Sunday, and seen children going to church with their mothers on this day. She was a mystic and wrote about the love of God. She also lived in turbulent times: during her lifetime the Black Death killed half the population of Norwich, and the country was divided by the Peasants Revolt.

Despite this, Mother Julian focused her thoughts and meditations on the love of God, which, she came to see, in the end, takes care of everything. She distilled the insights of a life of prayer and contemplation into a few memorable words about God’s love and care which I share with you today:

All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well