Prayer and Fasting, Sort Of

'We call upon the people of our congregations and all those of goodwill around the world to observe a Day of Prayer and Fasting' ran the letter from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, issued last Friday. More prayer can never be a bad thing, though only having got back to work (and found out about the letter) on Monday there wasn't time for me to organise anything collective. I put the appeal on the church LiberFaciorum page and prepared to keep the day in some way myself. 

You might ask what this actually means in practice. What it probably ought to mean is literally an entire day devoted to prayer about a particular matter, and a fast means abstinence from anything with any calorific value at least until the evening when, liturgically, the day is over. But I faced a number of problems. The first was that I'd come back from leave with a cold which first made itself known on Saturday/Sunday night: two covid tests have suggested it isn't that, in so far as you can rely on these things, but I do feel grotty, and prayer and fasting when you are ill are a particular challenge. The second issue was the number of other things I had to do - the usual midweek mass in the morning, a range of jobs mainly based on the computer, and a session at the Air Cadets in the evening. Prayer would have to fit around those.

So my fast was an etiolated observance which permitted some cups of black tea and dry bread until dinner-time, and prayer consisted of a couple of short interludes through the day when I laid the terrible current events in the Holy Land before the Lord. I got back from the Squadron where I discussed the deceptions and subterfuges of war to the news of the bombing of a hospital in Gaza, and not just a hospital but a hospital run by the Anglican Church. It seemed a sort of demonic mockery of any miserable prayers I'd been able to offer.