September 2025

September is always a month of endings, as well as new beginnings. As the bright colours of summer fade into the oranges and browns of autumn, shiny new school shoes make an appearance, along with fresh notebooks as we head back to our desks after a break over August. We start again, carrying with us the feeling of a new year beginning.

September then is always a month of change, and because of this it can be unsettling. We reflect on or maybe grieve for that which is drawing to a close, and can feel a mixture of anticipation about what is new or next. It is likely that we feel this even more acutely this September, living in a world which feels increasingly insecure from the perspective of fast-changing global politics and conflicts around the world that show no sign of abating. All is changing; all feels very fragile and deeply uncertain.

One of this country’s much-loved hymns is ‘Abide with Me’, famous for being sung at every FA Cup Final since 1927. The words are based on Luke 24: 29 and were written by the Reverend Henry Francis Lyte, with one of the stories about this suggesting that he wrote them in September 1847 – just after he had conducted his final church service and when very ill with tuberculosis. He died two months later.

Putting aside questions of when Lyte wrote these words, the fact remains that they capture the constancy of God’s presence and love, even as the seasons change, our lives change, our world changes; in life and in death:

Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

This then is a beautiful reminder that even though we, and indeed our world, pass through times of change and can feel unsettled as a result, God goes with us. God in Christ abides with us, his presence and love unchanging in our ever-changing world:

“Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them. (Luke 24: 29)

Some of the joys of a bishop’s ministry are Confirmation Services, we have had a good number so far this year and many more in the diary. The service is both corporate, as the congregation prays for each candidate, and personal, as each candidate makes promises, is prayed for and is anointed with oil.

To St Andrew’s, Wootton Rivers, and an invitation to place the first signature in their new visitor’s book, after the sixty-year service of its predecessor.

We have been fortunate to celebrate a peaceful Easter in our land, we find Sudan and South Sudan in probably the most desperate state in more than 25 years of our half century of partnership.

‘Hope is the bird that waits for dawn and sings while it is still dark.’

Returning recently to my former parish in Crystal Palace, South London, I was reminded of the glorious glass edifice that once stood atop Sydenham Hill, overlooking the city.

At the west end of your cathedral, on the south wall nearest the main entrance, is a large slate stone which records all the names of the Bishops of Salisbury. Mine is the most recent to have been inscribed. I am number 79. Someone else will follow. It serves to make one feel small rather than important.

At the end of 1992 we all remember the late Queen describing the year as an Annus Horribilis. Well, in a way 2024 has been an Annus Horribilis for the Church of England.

December is not the best month for a birthday, believe me, I know. Having a birthday in December has always been a bit of an anti-climax for me, especially when one is a member of the clergy and there’s another carol service to do.

The Somme battlefield takes you by surprise. Visitors pull into a car park in a quiet lane and wander into what looks like a leafy National Trust property. A few yards in, though, and you see the trenches. Gently undulating now, softened by time, but unmistakably the dreadful, snaking pits of our imagination. The Somme, of course, is a river: but, for the last century, a name inseparable from the battle that claimed 60,000 young British lives on its first day.

We have just under four hundred active retired clergy in the Salisbury diocese.

Welcome to this most wistful month of the year, when we sense the shift of summer into autumn, notice the mellowing light and take stock before starting again. I do hope there has been plenty of sunshine for you between the showers!

From my bedroom window I have a great view of both Preston Hill and Hambledon Hill. The Wessex Ridgeway Path passes across them, which spurred me, during my period of study leave earlier in the year, to walk that entire path from Marlborough to Lyme Regis. It took me across many new horizons, across the Wiltshire Downs, around Salisbury Plain and down through the Marshwood Vale to the coast. It was a great walk albeit very boggy in places given the February rain.

This month marks two years since my service of inauguration in the Cathedral and so its two years since I first ordained people deacon and priest – a powerful and humbling experience.

May is exam month for my youngest daughter, who is undergoing her ‘A’ Levels this summer – the last of our three to pass through that ordeal. I still recall (as I’m sure many of you do too) the sense of elation – almost disbelief – when these were over and a new chapter of life could begin. Somewhere in my loft, I still have the ring file I flung into the air when it was all over!

At this time of year, we are beckoned outside after a long, cold and often wet winter. Spring has sprung and all creation calls us to go outside, to tend to our gardens and to admire the new life around us.

A century ago, the great journalist and Catholic provocateur G.K.Chesterton wrote a wonderful essay entitled ‘The Priest of Spring’ in which he considered the integration of the Christian seasons with the natural year – and referred to the “armies of the intellect who will fight to the end on whether Easter is to be congratulated on fitting in with the spring or the spring on fitting in with Easter”.

It won’t have escaped many of us that this year, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. This may feel like an uncomfortable union.

Praying for the People God Knows We Need. This autumn it has been a joy to institute and licence a record number of clergy to new posts and as well as being the beginning of new ministry for individuals, communities and parishes, these services represent the culmination of months of careful work.

In my former parish, there were various experiments we made to make the most of the unique atmosphere of preparation and excitement accompanying Advent.

October is one of those months when the leaves begin to change and fall, and somewhat comical excuses come into conversations about why things don’t work. Leaves on the line may well be a technical problem for the railways, but we all know it also means, somewhat ironically, why is it somethings just don’t work as they should.

Harvest, in the agricultural sense, is well past. All is safely (or soggily) gathered in and the appealing blocks of barley and hay baling our landscape into a pop-up sculpture park have all but disappeared. The Church’s Harvest celebrations

I write this at the end of no mow May, and during a week when we are remembering to care for God’s acre, so I am thinking about all those who serve in many ways tending our churchyards and enabling them to be places where God’s creation and God’s presence can be experienced. Thank you.

One year ago, I became your bishop with that great service in the cathedral. It has been the fastest year in many ways, with changes coming at us all with a post-pandemic pace that has somewhat stunned us all.

How does one crown a king? After much rehearsal and with a steady hand, I suspect – and bated breath around the globe in that solemn moment...

I wonder whether we can remember how we were feeling 3 years ago as we approached Easter? Lockdown feels a long time ago, however I was reminded through an article read recently that we have all experienced a major trauma in our lives which we have somehow lived through.

On Saturday 25 March, there are only 274 shopping days left until Christmas! This timely reminder comes not to send you to the shops, but to remember that there are nine months until Christmas comes round again.

I write this on an early wet dark evening in January. Candlemas marks the end of the Epiphany season and lights are once again lit reminding us to rekindle our faith as we enter the season of Lent.

The recent Census findings that Britain is now a minority Christian country has caused many in the media to reflect upon the declining significance of the church within our nation, not least as we approach a coronation service in which the Christian underpinnings of the monarchy and our nation state will be much in evidence.

Your kingdom come …

It has been so encouraging to see, following the death of our beloved Queen, people finding comfort and solace in our church buildings and within our liturgies. The ability to say a prayer, light a candle or remember a loved one are enabled by our open doors and warm welcomes.

"The momentous events in our nation during September have reminded us how elastic time can be" by Bishop Andrew Rumsey

Living costs by Bishop Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury

What is really important? By Bishop Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury

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