{"id":4471,"date":"2026-02-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=4471"},"modified":"2026-02-19T19:52:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T19:52:02","slug":"loving-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2026\/02\/23\/loving-service\/uncategorized\/4471\/","title":{"rendered":"Loving service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Hc Digital unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s gospel is a very direct reminder that our faith is to bear fruit in our lives. Jesus illustrates this by telling his disciples a story of how his kingdom will be. It\u2019s an uncomfortable read, full of challenge.

It reminds us that having decided to follow Christ, and committed ourselves to his kingdom every aspect of our lives has to change. We have to change the way we see the world.

We are to discover Christ in everything, in creation, in our work and home lives, in the people we love, and perhaps most especially in the people we find challenging or difficult.

Jesus is very clear, when we encounter people in any sort of need, we encounter him. We are to treat them as we would treat Christ. This clearly surprised his first listeners, so much that he had to make it very explicit:

\u201cI tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these sisters and brothers of mine, you did it to me.\u201d
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We are so used to hearing this that it doesn\u2019t have much of an impact on us. We know it from the Gospels, we hear it echoed in the Rule of St Benedict. We often acknowledge the sentiment without pausing to examine how our behaviour matches it.

Lent is a good time to revisit our behaviour. There is the possibility of a new beginning here. We can choose to look for ways to help and support those in need, to ensure that they are treated with dignity and respect.

Where is Christ inviting you to begin to look for ways to support those around you this Lent?
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Today\u2019s gospel is a very direct reminder that our faith is to bear fruit in our lives. Jesus illustrates this by telling his disciples a story of how his kingdom will be. It\u2019s an uncomfortable read, full of challenge. It reminds us that having decided to follow Christ, and committed ourselves to his kingdom every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,356,544,461,239,271,336,246,1],"tags":[566,28,191,18,53,223,376,448,67,6,8,33,229,13,29,15,23,10],"class_list":["post-4471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-cross","category-discernment","category-divine-office","category-gospel","category-lectio-divina","category-lent","category-scripture","category-uncategorized","tag-beginnings","tag-benedictine","tag-blessing","tag-challenge","tag-christ","tag-christlike","tag-disciples","tag-discipleship","tag-fruit","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-service","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4477,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4471\/revisions\/4477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}