Surrounded by the lifeof Christ in the place between my beginning and my end, held within The Beginning and The End of all time: There is stillness, there is eternity, there is Love’s embrace. In this Now of my life I hold, not grasping but as guest invited, the hand of a friend whose joy flows to me. The great and the small are welcomed here, our identity known and affirmed as a child of God. Maria, let your “Fiat mihi” be also mine, and the Son you bore be born in me.

Fr. Peter S. Midwood Rector of Romaldkirk and Area Dean of Richmond. Assisi, 2003