18 November 2025

In his beautiful, ‘Steeple Chasing’, Peter Ross meets a hospital chaplain in London who began his chaplaincy work during Covid. He had a ministry of friendship towards those who didn’t have Covid but were in hospital for serious illness. They suffered huge levels of isolation and loneliness.

He also had a ministry to those who had Covid offering prayers and last rites with all his protective clothing, rubber gloves and mask. ‘The beds were a guddle of wires and machines.’ said the Revd. Jonathan Livingstone, ‘You couldn’t really see any flesh, any person. You could barely see their eyes.’

Ross asks the chaplain about the presence of God in these situations where ordinary contact was challenging. The chaplain argued that God’s presence was ‘apparent in the love, care and compassion shown by staff to patients and to one another’.

The chaplain’s most revealing insight was born out of the Covid crisis. Something new was revealed to him. As he said, ‘Human life was sacred and beautiful and worth fighting for.’ It is at the extremities of life – birth and death and all the suffering in between that we see the beauty  of our humanity.

‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ says Jesus. The beauty of the lily lies in its transience, here today and gone tomorrow. Its fragility and its vulnerability all contribute to its beauty. It doesn’t last and so needs to be enjoyed today.

The same is true for human beings. Seventy years or eighty if we are strong, sings the Psalmist. ‘They are soon gone and we fly away.’ he continues with this morning prayer, ‘Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.’

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