September Newsletter

A Time of Turning

September always brings a change of rhythm. Children and young people head back to school or off to college for the first time. Holidays end, routines return, and the light begins, almost imperceptibly, to soften and shorten. It can be a season of mixed feelings. For some, there is real hope: new classrooms, new opportunities, new beginnings. For others, there is nervousness — a new school, a new job, a step into the unknown. Some of us mourn the passing of long summer evenings and find the turning of the year quietly sorrowful. Other’s long for the crispness of autumn, the cooler days and fresher nights.

Both responses are honest, and both are welcome. Change can be exciting, full of promise. It can also be disorientating, even painful, carrying its own small grief.

The sixteenth-century saint Ignatius of Loyola encouraged Christians to seek "God in all things" — not just in church or in prayer, but in the ordinary texture of daily life. Noticing God, for Ignatius, was less about looking for the extraordinary and more about paying attention: to what stirs us, what unsettles us, what draws us closer to life and love.

That practice of attention feels well suited to September. The changing of the seasons, in nature and in our lives, can be a place to notice God. In the dimming evening light and the turning leaves, in anticipation and hope, and equally in anxiety and loss, God is present. The Psalms are full of this same honesty — praise and lament sitting side by side, often in the very same breath.

So perhaps this September, whatever this new season holds for you, it's worth pausing each day to ask, as Ignatius might: where do I see God breaking through today? Whatever changes around us, we hold to this promise: seasons turn, circumstances shift, but God does not change — and God does not leave us to face the turning alone. This is the heart of the ancient Celtic tradition of prayer, echoed in the ancient breastplate prayer attributed to St Patrick, which speaks of Christ beside us, before us, behind us, beneath us and above us, in every direction and in every moment. Whatever this September holds for you — hope or hesita<on, excitement or grief — may you know that same presence: God with you, in all things, every step of the way.

Letter from Archdeacon Louise of Salisbury