2016-02

Sunday March 20
Thursday March 24
St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, W odseats
Church Office: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffield S8 0GA
Page 17
Tel: (0 14) 274 5086
at St Chad’s
PALM SUNDAY
MAUNDY THURSDAY
GOOD FRIDAY
9am Traditional Co munion Service
1am Lifted Family Service
10am & Services of Holy Co munion
7.30pm remembering th events of
Maundy Thursday
Friday March 25
10am G od Friday Family Service
(especia for children)
1-3pm Meditations Around the Cro s
Sunday March 27
EASTER SUNDAY
9am Easter Celebration with
Holy Co munion
1am Family Service with
Holy Co munion
email: office@stchads.org
website: ww.stchads.org
My grandfather was an optician. Coming from
an East London working class background (no
schooling past the age of 14), a professional
optician was probably not on his list of
aspirational careers. The story goes that when
he was asked by a careers offi cer what he wanted to do
when he fi nished school, he replied that he wished to be
an electrician like his father. The careers offi cer was hard
of hearing and sent him to night school to study to be an
optician. This he did, and in fact became a rather successful
one.
February/March 2016
This meant that from my teenage years, when I fi rst
became short-sighted, until my twenties, when he retired,
I had an inexhaustible supply of free glasses and contact
lenses. Only later in life did I realise how many hundreds
of pounds this must have saved me. Such a benefi t was not always to my
advantage, however. In the 1980s I was one of the fi rst people I know to
get the new light-sensitive lenses. This mean that in the summer I could
play football outside with friends with “cool” looking shades on (banned in
school). Unfortunately the technology was still in its infancy and I would
usually spend the fi rst ten minutes back in the classroom being unable to
see a thing. School photos also show me looking far from the cool-shaded
dude that I thought I was. I hate to think what my classroom colleagues
thought of it all.
Many years later, as I considered my own response to faith in Jesus
Christ and the differing responses of my friends to my belief – some of
whom were sympathetic, some of whom were downright hostile – the
analogy of seeing through imperfect lenses would come back to me. We
all have our own set of lenses on our minds. In some circumstances these
lenses help us see clearly, and in some circumstances they obscure our
vision. Without the lenses of reason and logic we would understand nothing
of the workings of the universe, the marvels of modern medicine or the
delicate connections that make up an ecosystem. Yet these same lenses
can be limiting when we encounter human emotions, artistic endeavour or
faith in God. Too often I feel that I have walked from one environment into
another and my lenses have not suffi ciently adapted. I am
still in the dark.
St Paul in his famous poem on love spoke of how
we now see in a glass darkly but one day we will see
face-to-face. He is looking forward to a time when we
will be so enraptured with the wonder of God and his
new creation that there will be no need for lenses at
all. We really will see things as they really are. In
the meantime we perhaps need to ask ourselves
what lenses we are seeing through at the moment, and
whether they are enhancing or distorting our vision of
the world around us.
Rev Toby Hole,
Vicar, St Chad’s Church, Woodseats
Celebrate Easter
at St Chad’s
Details of our services inside
WOODSEATS • SHEFFIELD
Easter worship
Come and celebrate the risen Jesus!
Through a Glass Darkly
St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats
Church Offi ce: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffi eld S8 0GA
Tel: (0114) 274 5086
Page 3
email: offi ce@stchads.org
website: www.stchads.org