Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath is dead; the Black Country mourns… Regular readers of this column will be aware that my musical tastes veer towards Anglican plainsong not heavy metal and I have no idea what Ozzy and Black Sabbath actually sounded like. However, I know many people do admire their music and he and the band were cultural icons. He revelled in the title “Prince of Darkness”; perhaps more than anyone else he epitomised the life of the outrageous rock star with sex and especially drugs. Perhaps his excesses shortened his life. But, at the end, I was struck by one thing. One his coffin, as it was processed through the Birmingham and the Black Country was a cross, made of flowers. The Prince of Darkness, or at least his family, chose the symbol of the King of Heaven to be closest to him at that point. In interviews, Osbourne sometimes said that he believed in God, he was brought up a Christian and I do not think he ever renounced that faith. A fascinating commentary on his faith is at Silence in the Dark: Exploring the Faith of Ozzy Osbourne | by Alan Lechusza | Jul, 2025 | Medium This argues that he had a real faith, strong enough to ask hard questions, strong enough to live with uncertainty and his own failings, to explore answers in the poetry of song. That sounds rather like my faith; perhaps I need to listen to some of his records.

Earlier this month, reports appeared of an attack on a Roman Catholic church in Gaza. In response, this is the statement was issued by all the church leaders in Jerusalem including Archbishop Naoum, head of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.

“We, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, join together in profound solidarity with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the people sheltering in Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, as we bear witness to the heinous attack by the Israeli Army on the church compound there on Thursday morning, July 17, 2025. This attack not only caused damage to the Church complex, but also left three dead and ten wounded-with even the parish priest, Fr Gabriel Romanelli, being among the injured.

In unyielding unity, we strongly denounce this crime. Houses of worship are sacred spaces that should be kept safe. They are also protected under international law. Targeting a church that houses approximately 600 refugees, including children with special needs, is a violation of these laws. It is also an affront to human dignity, a trampling upon the sanctity of human life, and the desecration of a holy site.

We, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, call upon world leaders and United Nations agencies to work towards an immediate ceasefire in Gaza that leads to an end of this war. We also implore them to guarantee the protection of all religious and humanitarian sites, and to provide for the relief of the starving masses throughout the Gaza Strip.

Our prayers and support remain steadfast, calling for justice, peace, and the cessation of the suffering that has descended upon the people of Gaza.”

Caring for God’s Acre is an organisation that manages churchyards for wildlife. They help us at Billingsley; four times a year they come and cut back the grass and other vegetation with a scythe. This is a very traditional way of maintaining churchyards; once the vicar would have claimed the grass to make hay. It also promotes wildlife; flowers, birds and insects. How to look after churchyards is something that sharply divides opinion. At another of our churches, Glazeley, it is managed as a lawn with the grass closely cropped and immaculate flower beds. Neither style is right or wrong; Billingsley is aimed at wildlife, but Glazeley is preferred by many visitors, especially those with relatives buried in the churchyard. At Billingsley, we have now extended the area we mow to try and get a better balance. However it is managed, the churchyard is a sacred space where people can sit, stare and, whether they acknowledge it or not, be in the presence of God. It is no accident that in the creation poem in Genesis 2, God is creates a garden where he walks in, to meet Adam and Eve, representing humanity. That is exactly what takes place in churchyards, God’s Acre.

Last Saturday I went to Hereford Cathedral; a colleague was being ordained priest and I was there to support her. It was seven years since I was ordained deacon, six years since I was made priest, all in the same cathedral. I wasn’t really sure how I would react; this was the first ordination I had been to since my own. I robed and processed with the other clergy and then waited, to see if I would feel anything. The short answer was not much to start with. The singing was good, I think the sermon would have been good but I wasn’t properly listening to it. My fault, not that of the preacher. Then, suddenly it changed. There was movement, the people to be ordained came forward and the Bishop read the “ordination charge”; if you like, the job description for a vicar. It is lengthy and not for the faint-hearted. I remembered my own feeling when I was standing; inadequacy. But then the Bishop is up front; “you cannot bear this charge alone; pray for the Holy Spirit” and I realised I was fighting back my own emotion, just as I had been when I was ordained. After that it was a whirl as the service rapidly moved to the Bishop laying his hands on the head of each candidate, the moment of ordination. My colleague told be afterwards that, out of the blue, that is when the tears came to her; I told her exactly the same had happened to me. I’m not sure if there is any big message in all of this. All I can say is that I was moved and I felt humbled; I hope as I go about my work today as a vicar, I carry those feelings with me.

It is often easy to feel sympathy for someone, to recognise that they are in distress and feel sorry for them. Empathy goes beyond this; it is an attempt to (mentally) enter into their world and to share in their pain. It is a relatively recent word, first found in English in 1908 and being a translation of a technical term being used by German psychologists. However the deep sharing of another’s feelings is surely much older. It is perhaps something we need to be careful with; I try to avoid telling people I know how they feel, as it is unlikely that I fully know all the nuances of their feelings. I sometimes worry that it is used as a form of virtue signalling; the person declaring themselves as empathetic really just wants those around them to know what a considerate person they are. But those reservations aside, the ability to use our imagination to try and enter into another person’s broken life can help us understand their situation, even if all we can do is to sit in silence with them. At the heart of the Christian message is that God not only has sympathy, he/she has (uniquely?) real empathy through coming into our world through Jesus, both fully God and fully human. The carol, Once in Royal David’s City, written in 1848, has the lines “And He feeleth for our sadness, And He shareth in our gladness”. Perhaps had it been written a century later, the words would have been slightly different, to make it clear God completely feels and shares both in our sadness and our gladness. There are times when I think I can only worship a God who is truly empathetic with us.

The summer solstice, the longest day, is upon us.  Midsummer Day has always been celebrated; we are holding a concert in Glazeley Church as well a local history exhibition, as part of our festivities to mark 150 years since the church was rebuilt. In pagan times, Midsummer Day had particular significance for those who worshiped a sky or an earth God. Memories of the pagan significance were probably long lost following the conversion of this country to Christianity, but what was remembered was that the day was one to mark with a celebration. 

As far as I know, the Christian calendar is silent about Midsummer’s day; we have no special service. But, by coincidence, the New Testament reading appointed for it is Jesus’s teaching on worry and in this he uses a very appropriate nature image; “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these”. Perhaps that is a sufficient thought for the day.

This Sunday, 8^th June, the church celebrates Pentecost, or Whit Sunday to give it its traditional name. It celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit. In Christian belief, Jesus warned his disciples that he would be leaving them as he returned to Heaven, but he would send his spirit/the Holy Spirit/the comforter/advocate, depending on which passage from the Bible you read and how you translate the Greek. And again, depending on which account you read, he himself breathed the spirit on them, or it came as tongues of fire when the disciples were alone in a room in Jerusalem. Either way, the results were dramatic; eleven confused and timorous disciples and accompanying women became inspired witnesses to the teaching of Jesus, accepting persecution and even death for the cause of their risen Lord.

The marks of the Holy Spirit in Christians today are as varied as the New Testament accounts of him/her. Some claim supernatural powers in the name of the Spirit. I do not deny the reality of any persons experience but that is not what I know. Instead I have a different story, one I share with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, but also a Church of England vicar like myself. He spoke of how he flet his heart “strangely warmed within him”. And, in my better moments, at prayer, in our out of church,  simply living my life, I also know that feeling. That is what I call the Holy Spirit.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a service in one of the smallest of our local churches. Given the size of the village, I thought the congregation of five was quite respectable. Interestingly, it turned out that only two of us were actually Anglicans; one was from another denomination, two followed another faith. The Church of England is the established church of England. This means that, through the parish system, it is present in every community. The vicar is there for all in the community, the parish church is open to all regardless of their faith, or lack of it. It seems to me that one mark of a vibrant local church is that they provide a space and a service where those who are not members of the Church of England find it worth their while to come and simply be, in the presence of the God who they may call by many different names. We are open to all.

This coming Sunday, 25^th May, is Rogation Sunday. Historically this was a very popular festival. It probably has its origins in a Roman fertility festival, when the fields were blessed for a good harvest. This continued in the Christian version, where there would be a procession from the church, stopping to bless the fields in the parish as well as to ensure that all boundaries were in their right place. Alas, the popularity of the festival was less due to the pious prayers of  the parishioners and more to the amount of alcohol that was consumed; walking the bounds is thirsty work. Factor in the excitement when it was suspected that the neighbouring parish had pinched some land, which needed to be settled with fists, and perhaps it is not surprising that the church and civil authorities supressed the festival where they could. There has been something of a revival and some parishes now observe a more sober version of the custom.

Whilst I have never done a rogation walk from church, I like the idea of taking worshippers out of the church building into the outside world. At its best, the rogation walk is a symbol of how the parish church is there for the whole community, whatever their faith. The walking of the bounds shows that we pray and care for all who live or work within them. It is real expression of the claim of the Church of England, that we have a presence, through the parish, in every community in the country. I pray this may continue to be the case.