This Tuesday – March 23 – marks a year to the day since the first Lockdown was announced by the Prime Minister. The year that has passed since has taken a terrible toll on many in loss of life, of health and of livelihoods and in huge strain especially on those who have been working in health and care and other key workers.
The charity Marie Curie has declared Tuesday a national day of reflection and the Church of England is among the many organisations that will be supporting the effort to use the day to reflect and remember.
Among events taking place to mark the anniversary, there will be a national minute’s silence at noon – if you are in St Peter’s Parish, we will be ringing our church bell at the start and finish of the minute to mark this.
At 8pm, there will be a national ‘share the light’ moment, when you are encouraged to put a candle in a window or stand at your doorstep for a few moments with a light – a torch, a candle, your phone – as a sign of communal support for those who have suffered loss and of hope for the future.
At St Peter’s we will be broadcasting a short service of prayer and reflection on our YouTube channel at 7.45pm on Tuesday on our YouTube channel, which you can join in before taking part in Share the Light, if you wish. You can download the liturgy here to follow long if you wish and you can watch the service here when it goes live at 7.45pm.
Please note the reflection service will replace our usual service of Evening Prayer on Facebook at 5.30pm on Tuesdays, which will not be taking place this week. Our other services of morning and evening prayer on Facebook Live will take place as usual this week – you can find out more about these over on our Daily Prayer page here.
