What a year! Just when we thought that putting the worst of the pandemic behind us might bring us some kind of normality, Russia invaded Ukraine, throwing economies around the world into turmoil, and creating financial havoc even for ordinary people.
At the Cathedral we responded by working with Peterborough Citizens on an initiative to support refugees from that war-torn land.
Summer arrived and we endured record breaking summer temperatures the Cathedral filled with dinosaurs and tens of thousands came to see them! The heat was also on at Westminster as three Prime Ministers came and went and if all this were not enough, having celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on a rainy day in June, only a few months later, we were mourning her passing and finding ourselves learning to sing God save the King! After the long hot summer, we now find ourselves anxious about the cost of heating our homes in the intense cold – and facing trouble and strife in some of our key public services. So, with all of this to contend with, will 2022 really be a Happy Christmas?
Well of course it was precisely to bring healing to such a wounded world that Jesus was born. We recently marked this “Beginning” with the beautiful images of Luxmuralis and we shall celebrate Christmas, not in spite of the world’s pain and suffering, but precisely because this was why the Christ-child came.
As we gather in worship this Christmas, we do so trusting in the promise of a world being redeemed, not through power but vulnerability, not through coercion but by love. That love is unconquerable; Jesus’ love can bear and endure all that the world can do. That is the “truth from above”; that is why we can - and will - sing for joy, this Christmas.
With every blessing
The Very Revd Christopher Dalliston
Dean of Peterborough
Photo of the Dean of Peterborough © Paul Marriott