Yesterday, today and forever

The other week, I was sitting in a parish office, waiting for the parish priest, with this poster directly opposite me. My first thought was Ah, Turvey Abbey art... Turvey being an Olivetan Benedictine monastery where two of my good friends (and fellow Nuns of Twitter) live; the art being religious images created in the community's art room, which I regularly see, as posters and banners, in churches and schools across the Diocese. There's always something rather lovely about spotting their unmistakable designs: their vibrant colours leaping out at me from across a chapel or room; their distinctive yet familiar style; their warm, underlying reminder of friendship, as well as imagination and creativity. 

But the other week, once I'd thought of my friends, I found myself focusing on the image itself, and its message. Jesus Christ, yesterday, today and forever. This line from Hebrews (13:8) tells us that Jesus Christ is the same - but I thought, more than the same, Jesus simply is. In an increasingly precarious, unsettled and volatile world, in which old certainties are no longer certain and 'truth' is questionable, Jesus is one of our few certainties; one of our few unshakable truths and assurances... because yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever, he is.

And then on Saturday I was with two of my sisters as they celebrated their Golden Jubilees of perpetual vows. Vows made in 1975, in a very different time in history, and in a Society and Church still in profound transition: vows made in a long ago yesterday, to be lived every single day, and forever, with and for the One who is, throughout all this time, and into eternity. And afterwards, holding this in my heart, alongside the stresses and storms and fragilities of life, and of our world, I remembered some lines from a poem by Janet Erskine Stuart RSCJ. I'll share them here, for anyone who needs to know that, in the crash of falling worlds, they are being held and heard, by the One who is, and is the same - yesterday, today and forever...

I know that when the stress has grown too strong

Though wilt be there,

I know that when the waiting seems so long

Thou hearest prayer,

I know that through the crash of falling worlds

Thou holdest me,

I know that life and death and all are Thine

Eternally