THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
11th September 2026
Greetings,
The Sunday in mid-September is Battle of Britain Sunday. It's not a major observance in the church calendar, and it is increasingly remote from the experience of current generations, but it is right that we take a little time to remember that great sacrifice of the few for the many and not least because freedom is never won once and for all time. The struggle for freedom goes on and not only in the various theatres of conflict in the world today but in the less obvious realms of global media, international finance and digital technology. The rapid development of AI and current warnings about its autonomous capabilities are unsettling to say the least. Are we set to become prisoners of our own ingenuity, facing an enemy of our own creating, far more deadly than anything we faced in those dark days of 1940?
Well, whatever the degree of our captivity, freedom in Christ can never be taken from us. This is the good news and joy of the Gospel. This Sunday is the Fifteenth after Trinity and in the reading from St. Matthew (18.21-35), Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive the brother who sins against him. As many as seven times? Jesus says in response, not seven but seventy times seven implying that forgiveness is infinite. It is only infinite because of divine grace, that ultimate love which comes from God, which triumphed over the suffering of the Cross, and is the enduring gift of the Holy Spirit. The great poet William Blake said Christianity boiled down to one word, forgiveness. Irrespective of our moral record, good, bad, or indifferent, forgiveness is a basic human need. In the knowledge of it, we flourish because the soul is free, and in the practice of forgiveness - the testing ground of faith - we grow closer to the heart of God. May God give each of us grace to grow in the knowledge of forgiveness and the freedom of faith.
Every blessing,
Charles Booth
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