To view this page in Welsh, click here.
“I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.”
Jesus – John 10:10
On this page you will find some Bible Readings, prayers and a reflection based on the Bible Readings. These are often from a recent Sunday in one of our churches, for those who can’t attend on the day, but also to give you a taste of what happens in our worship and teaching on Sundays.
Sunday 1st June 2025 – Sunday after Ascension
O God the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: we beseech you, leave us not comfortless, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
The Collect for Sunday after Ascension
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.
But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Acts 16. 16-34
Reflections from Canon Tim Hewitt on the ways we use the word ‘save’
Based on the reading from Acts
The word ‘website’ is not found in the Welsh Dictionary that I’ve had from the Eighties or in the English Dictionary that I’ve had from the early Nineties. With new things arriving on the horizon, new words are being developed to describe something that is new, or existing words take on new meanings and words can mean a number of different things and how we use these words explains what they mean.
That is what happens in our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles where the word ‘save’ is used to mean different things. Paul and Silas are saved from prison; the prisoners are saved from escaping, and thus, we use the same word to describe two things that are opposite to each other. In his fear, the jailer wants to know how to save his life facing punishment for failing to do his work, but St. Paul speaks of spiritual salvation and being saved from losing a right relationship with God. Here, the meaning of the word ‘save’ is used in order to shed light on another meaning of the word for something else. Therefore, in our story of Paul and Silas being imprisoned, St. Luke uses the jailer’s fear for his own life to say something about people’s fear of what is going on in their lives in general. That’s why there are details that seem very strange to us in the story.
The jailer had been asleep when all the doors in the prison were opened. Sleeping on the job; that’s the problem; and he knows he’ll be punished for this by losing his own life. If he had been awake, he could have securely closed the entrance to the prison, and as a result, whatever happened inside the prison, no one would be able to escape out of the prison. Though he’s been sleeping on the job, he’s facing execution now. Perhaps the Romans would use punishing the jailer as a lesson to others, and perhaps the jailer would face being crucified, but there is no certainty about this. Who was condemned by the Romans as a criminal and was crucified? Jesus, of course. Perhaps St. Luke is comparing and contrasting what happened to Jesus with Paul and Silas and the jailer here. Also, if this story says something generally about our lives, there is no doubt that being asleep at the job is something that happens as we think about our attitudes towards life in general. With some things, there are times when we haven’t kept our eyes open to see what’s going on around us. Have we been like the jailer in the past, or are we like him with some of the things in our lives? When some unwelcome things happen to us, are they worse because we were asleep to the possibility of them happening?
Having said all this, unwelcome things can happen in our lives without warning, of course. Was the jailer expecting an earthquake that opened every door, opened the way for all prisoners to escape? No, he wasn’t. Did Paul and Silas expect to be released without anyone undoing their shackles? No, they weren’t. Not all earthquakes bring us freedom, and probably the opposite. Different things can shake the foundations of our lives, and like the jailer, suddenly, our lives are filled with fear of what will happen to us. Like the jailer, we feel like we don’t have good options. In the story, there are a few details that try to say something about our attitudes in general when the earthquakes of life happen to us. If we thought that the example of Paul and Silas is the thing for us to follow, always praying, always praising God, always making sure everyone else can see what we’re doing, I think we’ve missed the point of this story.
Although Paul and Silas were prisoners, they had the freedom to respond to being prisoners. They had choices in a situation that looked like they had no choices. That is the truth that St. Luke seeks to convey to us: We always have choice because we have inner freedom. Although our bodies have been imprisoned by various constraints, there is still freedom in our minds and hearts. That is why St. Luke describes how the prisoners had all been loosened out of their bonds, but no one had attempted to escape. They had a choice to do something or not. We don’t see a choice not to do something as an action in itself. Furthermore, we often see doing nothing as a failure, but choosing to do nothing can sometimes be a positive act. How do we see this story? How do we read the story? Did we find the idea that no one chose to escape hard to believe? Do we find the detail that every door and shackle was opened by the earthquake hard for us to believe? Is there a temptation for us to dismiss the story as not being true? In order to understand the story correctly, we have to remember that the people of the Bible wrote stories in a way that was completely different from our understanding today.
For us today, we see facts and truths as two things that are different by nature. For something to be true, something has to be fact. Nevertheless, the people of the Bible used details – which we regard as facts – in order to express truths. St. Luke tells a story with details of each shackle being unfastened in order to say something about the truth of freedom. We go back to what I mentioned at the beginning: The way that we use words.
The man who feared being crucified because of his failings has been saved by the Man who was crucified for us all, namely, Jesus Christ. The story uses what is important to us during this life as a reason to reflect on things in our lives that don’t receive our time because they’re unseen or because we don’t have a reason to think about them often. The story of the jailer helps us to look at our lives and to see if there are things in them that cause us to look further to our belief in eternal life and how this belief enriches our lives in this life.
Prayers
In the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ, let us pray to the Father.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, you promised through your Son Jesus Christ to hear us when we pray in faith.
Strengthen John our Bishop and all your Church in the service of Christ. In the Anglican Communion we pray for the Anglican Church in Korea. We pray for Christians in North Korea. In our Diocese, we pray for the Lay Reader in the East Radnor Ministry Area, Christine Gould. May those who confess your name be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Bless and guide Charles our King; give wisdom to all in authority; and direct this and every nation in the ways of justice and peace. We pray for peace and freedom for the people of Ukraine. We pray for people across the world who suffer hunger and homelessness because of war. May we honour one another and seek the common good.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray for prisoners and all who care for them. We pray for all who look at the world with hardness of heart. We pray for those who live their lives distant from the distant from the people around them. We pray for those who feel unworthy to be close to you or other people.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Comfort and heal all those who suffer in body, mind or spirit; Give them courage and hope in their troubles and bring them the joy of your salvation.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Give grace to us, our families and friends and to all our neighbours. May we serve Christ in one another, and love as he loves us.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Hear us as we remember those who have died in the faith of Christ. May those who are dying and who are fearful in their last hours trust in you. According to your promises, grant us with them a share in your eternal kingdom.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Rejoicing in the fellowship of all your saints, we commend ourselves and the whole creation to your unfailing love.
Merciful Father, accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Concluding Prayer
Eternal Giver of love and power, your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world to preach the gospel of his kingdom: confirm us in this mission, and help us to live the good news we proclaim; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Cwmtawe Churches 