The Grapevine Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8)
Welcome ..………………….…………….....................4 Words that do not SHOUT .…..………………….......5 Making Hope Visible ……….......……………………..6 Divine Mercy ….……..…………….....……................7 Do we miss the Bigger Picture?...….……...............8 Shamed, Shaken and Stirred .....……………..........10 Support is flooding into Nepal ...….......................12 Reaching the World ..…..……………………...........14 Faith in Cyprus ……………………………………….15 Will you recognise HIM? ……..……………….........16 Sipped, Painted and Supported ……….................18 Loving Your Neighbour ….…...……………………19 Faith Hope & Love “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5)
light on the Church in the st 21 Century EDITORIAL TEAM: General contact & news stories: grapevinepublication@gmail.com Editor & Christian Community: Phil Burkhard philipburkhard63@gmail.com 3 Churches North Cardiff: Justin McCarthy jpmccarthy@btinternet.com 3 Churches North Cardiff: Madeleine Jeremy mj@madeleinejeremy.com Christian Community: Vacancy
Everyone Welcome to the 9th issue of The Grapevine! This is produced by the 3 Churches in North Cardiff with contributors and an audience from the wider Christian community – both near and far. The content reflects ‘faith, hope and love’, in the 21st century. Church is more than a building; it’s a community & it’s people. One body in Christ. This issue has a global theme: from the Logos Ship and Mercy Ships to our first US contributor, a Polish priest, faith in Cyprus, the Middle East, caves in Italy, Sri Lankan help & relief in Nepal. Contact us: grapevinepublication@gmail.com Prior issues are on: www.3churches.org or enjoy reading and sharing via the QR code. Eternal Wall Update See previous issues or www.eternalwall.org.uk for an overview. A Heritage Researcher has uncovered 4000+ answered prayers and individuals continue to add their anonymised examples to the website – it only takes 5-10 minutes to add yours! The first of the 188 tile segments has been produced. Click on the video to hear about the engineering progress and plan. A picture containing icon Description automatically generated 4
The modern world can be deafening. Fr. St Teresa of Calcutta has the line that sits Andrzej Kuklinski, of Our Lady of Margam at the top of the home page: “God is the Catholic Church, writes: friend of silence.” What you will find there does not shout. A few carefully chosen “People ask the same questions more than words, offered without urgency, for anyone once: in a hospital corridor, parish who still knows how to listen. Recent courtyard or at a kitchen table. Why does pieces include a plain account of Lourdes God seem quiet? How do I pray when I water and what the doctors actually say, have no words left? What is Lourdes water and a gentle look at the Five First actually for? What are those fifteen Saturdays and the quarter of an hour that minutes of the Five First Saturdays that is so often skipped. I did not expect the site nobody mentions? to travel. It has. Messages have come back from people I will never meet, I began to notice that the answers I gave in someone sitting with a dying parent, those moments were not sermons. They someone returning to the sacraments after were shorter, slower, and closer to ordinary years away, someone who simply needed life. Friends, parishioners and strangers a few honest sentences on a difficult started asking if I would write them down. evening. More than once I have been told So I did. Silent Homilies grew out of that a page helped. That is more than seventeen years of priestly life amidst enough reason to keep writing… laughter, tears, and the long patience of listening. It is a website that is not a news If these words can sit beside someone for site, and it is not high theology. It offers a while and make the presence of God feel quiet reflections, little-known Catholic a little nearer, they have done their work. treasures (for all Christians), and short You are welcome to come and read slowly books meant to be read slowly. - see www.silenthomilies.com ”. 5
Some of you may have seen a large ‘Making Hope Visible’ is also the mantra ship, during September, in Cardiff Bay. of a global Christian project, based in the The Logos Hope was touring UK and UK, called the Eternal Wall of Europe, in 2026, as part of Operation Answered Prayer (EWOAP) – see Mobilisation (OM) – a global Christian www.eternalwall.org.uk. Regular charity that has evolved since 1955. Grapevine readers will have seen previous issues that explain this physical landmark (2.5 times the size of the Angel of the North) and which has a growing archive of more than 150,000 answered prayers, from organisations and individuals in 125+ countries. In 2028/29 anyone globally, and for generations, will be able to search this database by It is estimated that there are three billion location or keyword, via a digital device, people in the world (1 in 3 people) who and be uplifted by God’s deeds. have limited access to the Bible or to someone who will share it with them.OM bridges this gap in a variety of ways. One of these is via the Logos Hope which has been visited by 11 million people since 2009. To find out more see: www.uk.om.org or the OM UK impact report at: https://bit.ly/3Uf7nc1. The ship OM and EWOAP are partners and were includes volunteers and an amazing on the Logos Hope. Surf both websites library all making hope visible. & see how you can come onboard, too! 6
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Douglas Vandergraph is a Christian Christians today encounter Scripture writer and Bible-study Creator and our everywhere. A verse appears on a first contributor from America! Douglas social post. A short clip quotes Jesus. A asks, in this article, whether or not we devotional pulls one sentence from Paul. see the bigger picture…like seeing a A graphic gives us a promise to carry single starling or a collection of them… through the day. There is nothing wrong with reading Scripture one verse at a time. A single verse can encourage, convict, comfort, or redirect us. But when we read the Ephesians is a good example. Many Bible only in fragments, we can lose the Christians know Ephesians 2:8–9: larger message those verses belong to. salvation is by grace through faith, not by works. But Paul immediately continues into verse 10, where believers are described as God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Grace is not opposed to a changed life. Grace creates one. The Bible was not written as a collection of isolated quotations. The Gospels tell The rest of the chapter goes further. Paul stories. Paul builds arguments. The moves from individual salvation to prophets speak into real historical crises. reconciliation between divided people. The Psalms move through emotion, Those who were far away are brought theology, memory, lament, and praise. near. Christ becomes our peace. If we Meaning often depends on what came stop at a favourite verse, we may miss before and what comes next. the full movement of the passage. 8
The same thing happens with This matters because context Ephesians 6 and the armour of God. protects us from making the Bible Those verses are often treated as a say whatever we want it to say. It stand-alone spiritual warfare checklist. also helps us see connections we But Paul has already spent the entire would otherwise miss. letter describing identity in Christ, unity in the church, holiness, Short-form media is not the enemy. forgiveness, love, wisdom, It can introduce people to marriage, family, and daily faithfulness. Scripture and send them deeper. The armour passage is not The problem begins when the disconnected from those themes. It is fragment becomes a substitute for the culmination of them. the whole. A simple habit can help us read A verse can open the door. Scripture more faithfully. Before But we should still walk asking, “What does this verse mean to into the room. me?” ask three questions: ABOUT THE AUTHOR (Ed.): What has the author already said? Douglas is building a long-form New What is the author saying here? Testament research library for ordinary readers. His main Christian What does this prepare the reader library and YouTube channel are: to hear next? www.douglasvandergraph.com/doug Those questions slow us down just las-vandergraph-master-index/ and enough to see the text as part of www.youtube.com/@douglasvander something larger. graph Thanks from across the Pond! 9
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