A church with a tree

The holidays are over and what did we do? Did we take time to reflect on what life is about, Did we take time off from our busy loves especially during the holidays to pray and come closer to God?
I was in Greece, as my husband is Greek and this summer found it very hard to take the time to pray.  It was only when I went to visit this small church in the western peloponnessos, high up in the mountains, that I really prayed.The church is dedicated to Agia Theodora a byzantine saint from the 10th century. The story of Saint Theodora, is that when the army asked the family for a boy to become a conscript in the army, Theodora came instead as her family had no boys and her father was too old and too poor. She was convicted and beheaded on wrong charges and as she died she said that god would bear witbess to her innocence and faith by growing treeswithin the church where she is buried. the miracle is that 17 trees grow in this tiny church with no visible roots and throughout the last 10 centuries the walls hve not fallen down.
Every year in September pilgrims make the journey through the mountains for a mass and celebration in her honour. You can leave pieces of paper with your prayer and the priest will say them for you.

To me this simple little church with its trees reaching out to the skies and its roots in our earth symbolises our faith and belonging to the christian community. It gave me back the power to pray.

We are all together in this world

Yesterday I was watching a programme on the confirmation process of a group of children in the Bordeaux area in France, on french catholic tv station KTO. It followed the preparations for their confirmation over a year. Just before their confirmation, the children meet over a lunch and prayers and discussion with children from the muslim and jewish faiths. They meet in turns every year at their place of worship and this year that was in a mosque. Each group prepared a presentation of a figure important to their faith and finally over lunch discussed their differences and similarities. What a wonderful iniative for children to learn tolerance and openmindedness, and above all not to be afraid of the different faiths!





It reminded me of a children's book by Peter Spier, called" People", which I think adults would be advised to read as well. It shows through some wonderful illustrations, that diversity is wonderful, we all have different colours, noses, shapes etc, but without diversity life would be monotonous!