1st June 2025

Dear Friends,

At the inauguration of a bishop, a child sprinkles them with water as they enter the cathedral, to remind them of their baptism (also known as Christening).

This shows that however high someone is elevated within the structure of the Church of England, their first task is to love Jesus and to keep turning to him, continually accepting his gift of baptism or Christening, the same as everyone else!

In baptism we gratefully accept Jesus’ washing away our mistakes and we resolve to do our best to follow him through the rest of our life, no matter where that takes us. In baptism we accept publicly that we need Jesus’ help.

When Bishop Rachel Treweek entered Gloucester Cathedral to be made its first female Bishop, the child drenched her with water, and as a result wet footprints were seen down the aisle, as she made her way to the front of the Cathedral!

Since then, she has often quoted modern theologian Michael Jinkins who said: “Our baptism in Christ drips from us...We trail wet footprints of this drenching wherever we go; we never dry off.”

If you have been Christened or baptised, there should be a trail where the waters that were sprinkled over us, drip off. Or in other words, our Christian faith, found in baptism, should shape how we live our lives and it should be recognised by those who know us.

At the end of each Communion service, when we share bread and wine, we are sent out with the words: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” Our relationship with God does not begin and end at the threshold of the church building, it is to be shared with everyone we meet.

How might you live this out more?

• Could you pray more for your family, friends and neighbours? 
• Perhaps you could do something new for your- self or for the benefit of others? 
• Or perhaps you could rethink what you already  do. Could you re-dedicate the things you al- ready do to God and/or the common good? 

If you’re still not sure, perhaps pray this prayer written by St Teresa of Avila.

Christ has no body but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with through which he looks with compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes and you are his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

If you haven’t been baptised and would like to be, please contact me. 

Love, Larissa 

[Larissa has been reading Rachel Treweek’s Encounters: Jesus, Connection and Story: Past, Present and Future. 2020. London: Darton Longman and Todd.]