Virtual Methodist

Today's #EasterArt image was chosen by Jenny Meegan, one of our Lay Preachers on the South and Central Belfast Methodist Circuit. It is a decorated initial, from a fifteenth-century Italian  Latin choir book , in the Free Library of Philadelphia, which features an image of the conversion of St Paul. In the New Testament we have an edited selection of Paul's Letters, including the First Letter to the Corinthians, from which one of today's lectionary readings is taken. Indeed back in my college days I took a course on the so-called Corinthian Correspondence, overseen by one of my predecessors as Superintendent of BCM. One of the frustrations in that correspondence is that we only have the letters from "one side", but the following is a letter to Paul from Jenny Meegan: Dear Paul,  I was surprised when David told me our reading for today was from your first letter to the Corinthians. I hadn’t expected to find you at the end of the first week of Easter! I ...

This week's series of guest Lent Art posts continue with a reflection by Rev. Cheryl Meban, Presbyterian Chaplain to Ulster University on the illumination by Jean Bondol de Bruges of Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman, which asks questions of the artist, the text and us. One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.” One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there. He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite.” So he called her, and she stood before him. Elisha said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or t...

This week I'm trying something new... To lighten my load a little, and to bring a bit of variety to these daily posts I've asked a number of my friends and colleagues to share a brief reflection and prayer in response to my daily #LentArt posts. The first out of the starting blocks is my erstwhile ecclesiastical neighbour Rev. Elizabeth Hanna, who shares a few thoughts on this morning's sketch of "St Paul Restoring Eutychus to Life" by Taddeo Zuccaro.  The story illustrated is taken from today's reading in Acts, telling of an episode from Paul's ministry in Troas:  On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep,...