Women at prayer

My dear Friends
The Women's World Day of Prayer has now been going for over a humdred years. Every year, around March, women all over the world gather to hold a special service of prayer, centred round a particular country. This year it was Papua New Guinea and a few years ago I was invited to speak at the one for Poland.I talked about my Jewish and Catholic experiences there, with a little about Auschwitz and how we must be positive for the future.

It is great to gather for these services and feel in solidarity with women round the world. The services are often very musical with sometimes music from the country and this is great too.

Yesterday we had another service and meeting in Cambridge, all part of The Women's World Day of Prayer but held at a later date, called the 'summer meeting.' About 30 of us gathered in Westminster College, the United Reformed College in Cambridge, where they train people for ministry. After a brief business meeting, we went to the chapel where our theme was 'blessing.'

Our speaker took as her Bible readings the blessing of Abram in Genesis as he left his home to journey to a country he knew not, blessed to be a great nation, and the reading in Luke which are like the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 'Blessed are you who mourn, you shall be comforted' and 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for the cause of right, for great is your reward in Heaven.'

This last demonsrates a 'mixed blessing' - how it is not always through the good things that we are blessed. We sang several hymns about blessing and then went in for tea. This gave us all a chance to chat and get to know each other. A lovely way to spend a summer afternoon!

Shalom from
Sister Gila