Dear Friends
Nearly thirty years ago I spent Holy Week staying with a small religious community at Firle in East Sussex.  The community in question was the Community of the Glorious Ascension, founded by Peter Ball, then Bishop of Lewes, and his twin brother Michael.  My stay with them in their little flint cottage proved to be a life-changing experience, and led eventually to my ordination as a priest by Fr Peter.  I still have fond and vivid memories of getting up at dawn to worship in the community's tiny chapel (a converted pig-sty), and of taking Basil, the episcopal dog, for walks on Firle Beacon.
One particular memory is of a visit one evening from a small group of Roman Catholic teenagers, who were passing through Firle on the South Downs Way, en route for the shrine of St Richard at Chichester.  Together with their youth leader they came to share a meal at the monastery, and afterwards relaxed in the tiny front room in front of a log fire.  They were tired after their long day's walk from Eastbourne, but before they left they suggested that we might worship together.  So it was that they led us in the singing of some simple choruses, interspersed by readings and prayers.  And among the choruses, one stood out as particularly poignant and meaningful - a chorus which, until that moment, I had never heard or sung before: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God'.
How strange it is to think of singing that familiar song for the very first time!  And yet then, in the late 70's, it was still relatively new, and certainly unfamiliar to the majority of congregations, still firmly tied to Hymns Ancient and Modern or the English Hymnal.  Now it sometimes seems almost banal as a result of its familiarity, and yet I have little doubt that it will stand the test of time as an evocative rendering of those words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount:  'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you' ('All these things' refers, of course, to our essential daily needs).
Lent is the time when we try to devote ourselves once again to the seeking of God's Kingdom, and when we are reminded that all our other needs and concerns are subordinate to that end. Most of us struggle to get our priorities right in the way in which we order our lives, and Jesus' words are a robust reminder of what we should prize above all else.  For me, the seeking of God's Kingdom will always be mysteriously associated with that eternal moment at Firle when some young people from another denomination introduced me to a new chorus.  For all of us, I suspect, God desires us to embrace something fresh and new, very different from the tired consumerism which saps our spirits and corrodes our souls.
With my prayers for you all,