Dear friends.

During a holiday week early in June I took the opportunity of a sunny day to visit Rievaulx Abbey. It is a ruined Cistercian monastery in North Yorkshire and is a beautiful and peaceful place. Although much of its original splendour has been destroyed, the structures that remain have taken on their own beauty.

Unsurprisingly, it’s also a great place to explore with a camera and I’m really pleased with the images I found. But there was one little detail in particular that really caught my attention and I stopped for several minutes to reflect before I photographed it. The item in question was a stone step leading between the dormitory and the cloisters. The step was really worn down in the middle and I was left wondering about how many footsteps of the faithful over the centuries it must have taken to erode such a solid chunk of stone. I expect a lot of the wear was from tourists and rainwater too, but in that little detail I felt a sense of history and connection to the original residents and their lives of devotion. Just as we read in Psalm 37: 23 “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.”

It is fascinating to be reminded of the history of our faith, but we are the ones called to our own paths of faithful discipleship each day of our lives. May we continue step by step to ‘walk the way’.

John