Date: Saturday November 29th, 2025
Venue: St Bride’s Hall, Derryvolgie Avenue, Belfast BT9 6FP
Time: 2.00pm – 4.30 pm
Facilitator: Rev Dr Ruth Patterson
ALL ARE WELCOME
Title: The Wayless Way
As people of faith, how can we live with hope and integrity in these times of uncertainty and chaos? On the cusp of Advent 2025 we will reflect together on the direction we might take. Where is the guiding star?
Dear Friends,
As we enter this special season, I am sending this
poem/reflection that I wrote quite some time ago
but seems to me to be particularly relevant to the
living of these days, when we can feel so
confused, frightened, anxious and despairing.
Perhaps, as you question where hope can be found,
you may find the last three short paragraphs a
helpful prayer to pray during this Holy Week.
Have a blessed Easter.
Ruth
ECCE HOMO
Here is the man
scourged and beaten,
mocked, derided,
purple robe
and crown of thorns.
Alone he stands
before the judgement seat
and waits,
the verdict written
on the aching
heart of God
before the world
began.
No advocate
to plead his cause,
no word of comfort
or of hope.
Only the raucous cries
of those who,
hungering for blood,
cry, ‘Crucify!
Crucify this man!’
Here is the man,
The One whose hands
stretched out to heal,
to touch, to bless,
the One who calmed
the storms of nature
and of troubled minds;
whose words reached
deep into their
fearful, tortured hearts
and brought new life
and hope.
Here is the man
who broke the bread
for multitudes,
and to one single
human soul
spoke words of pardon,
‘Neither do I condemn you.
Go in peace!’
Here is the man,
condemned and sentenced
by fanatical religion
and by secular power,
self-centred and
self-seeking,
that down through
centuries
still drag
a God of love,
of mercy and of peace
before the judgement seat
of a world
gone crazy,
hungering for blood.
Yet still he stands
and waits
as the world
he loves and died
to save
still crucifies itself,
still cannot see how hatred
can be turned to love,
despair to hope,
and war to peace.
Is there then
for us
no hope,
no remedy
for fear,
no advocate
to plead
our cause,
no word of
comfort,
no guarantee
of safety
as frantically
we seek to guess
where terror next
will strike?
Jesus, Lamb of God,
Conqueror of death,
Vanquisher of evil,
you take away
the sins of
the world.
Have mercy on us.
Jesus, Lamb of God,
Wounded Healer,
arms still outstretched
in blessing.
You take away
the sins of
the world.
Have mercy on us.
Jesus, Lamb of God,
majestic in love,
glorious in resurrection,
you take away
the sins of
the world.
Grant us peace
Here is the man!
©Ruth Patterson
.
Dear Friends,
As we approach Advent 2024 there is within many a sense of hopelessness and
powerlessness, a feeling of being overwhelmed by bad news. It is a little reminiscent of the covid years when we wrestled with fear and with the unfamiliar. We had never been in such a place before, and so often the cry was ‘When will get back to normal?’ But part of the two-edged ‘gift’ of those years has been to show those who have sought to be awake and aware that we cannot go back to the way things were. That holds no life or promise for us. If in some shape or form we have been given an insight (a sight from within) that is gradually shaping us, reforming or even transforming us, then we know that we cannot go back to the way we used to view things.
Lynn Ungar has written a poem entitled Passover in which she describes the journey of the Israelites through the desert, following new laws to an unknown land and the
temptation to go back to the place of slavery, pretending that there was safety in the old
familiar. She then speaks of the ‘terrible blessing of the journey’ and ends by saying, “God did not promise that we shall live,/but that we might at last glimpse the stars/
brilliant in the desert sky.” There are many today who, because of the terrible and
fearful uncertainties in the world, are actively seeking to go back to a place of slavery,
pretending that regimes in both church and state that tell them exactly what to do, what to believe, and how to build walls between themselves and those who are different from them are the only means to protect and safeguard themselves from the threatening shapes they see all around. They are taken in by the trappings of power and control and the flattery and subtleties of all the many ‘Herods’ who are only seeking to bolster up their own positions. They have no time for star gazing and have chosen to settle for less, unaware that there could be a journey to make and a new world to discover.
But if we dare to follow the longings and the ‘homesicknesses’ of our hearts, as we choose to embrace mystery and be embraced by mystery, as, for the sake of something more that we cannot yet define but know is throbbing with expectancy, as we set out on an unfamiliar path, then we, too, will experience the terrible blessings of the journey. Often it will seem like an unlearning, a dispossession, a letting go. Lest you think it’s all intensity, and harrowing, and too risky and full of angst, most of the time it will still apear as ordinary, as we attend to the day to day tasks of living, of the earthly journey.
But when we least expect them, there can be these moments of joy when we, too, glimpse the stars brilliant in the desert sky – perhaps one of them betokening the insight for which we have been waiting for so long. We will actually begin to feel a strange
belonging on this unfamiliar way. We will even, perhaps, have a dawning awareness that the journey itself can be home.
Advent is a time for journeying, for being vigilant, for mystery, for hope against all seeming
evidence to the contrary. Dear friends, this is the time we have been given to live. We have no other. Let’s seize the moment – and do some star-gazing!
Ruth
ADVENT REFLECTION DAY 2024
Title: LOVE WAITING TO BE BORN
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and
faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. (John1:14)
On the cusp of Advent 2024, come and reflect with us on the mystery of an infinite,
indestructible love, the very heart of God. This Love is past, present and future and comes
together in a timeless way at this special season. In that sense we can truly say that Love is waiting to be born in this moment.
Date: Saturday 30th November
Venue: St Bride’s Hall, Derryvolgie Ave, Belfast
Time: 2 – 4.30pm
Facilitator: Rev Dr Ruth Patterson
Dear Friends,
In the prayer that Jesus prayed before going out to Gethsemane to subsequent arrest and crucifixion, (John 17), the two verses that we always highlight are 21 and 22 as our justification for promoting unity among Christians. “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one – as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” The fact that in that moment Jesus was and is praying not only for his disciples back then but for us, right here and now – that we might be one – is something that still ‘blows my mind’ no matter how often I read these words. Throughout my life they have fed the conviction that our primary identity is who we are in Christ. Everything else, including our religious persuasion or denomination or political stance, our gender, our occupation or calling is part of a secondary identity and cannot be the sole definer of who we are. This particular conviction was nurtured over a number of years by many experiences and different people, including you, the friends of Restoration Ministries. We have journeyed far together over 36 years, never feeling we have arrived but always lured on by that sense of something more. And that continues. But as the years have passed I am coming to see that our interpretation, worthy and inspiring as it is, perhaps falls far short of what Jesus was really praying. We have come to accept that unity is not uniformity but rather diversity embraced by love. In the beginning when God ‘spoke’ what came into being was diversity – huge diversity – and God saw that it was good. What a risk God has taken and continues to take. Diversity, including humankind, is given the freedom to evolve to its full potential and to bear witness to that goodness. Sadly, as we too well know, the one species, the one nearest to God’s heart, the pinnacle of creation, is the one who betrays the dream. Since the beginning we have taken that freedom not to nurture beloved community but to grasp to ourselves whatever safeguards and promotes our particular secondary identities often with horrendous consequences – even now. We see it in the emerging rebirth of a right wing nationalism that declares any action legitimate in order to enhance uniformity, power and control. We see it in the religious domain including, tragically, Christianity where legalism, self-righteousness and power games are launching full scale attacks on the wide open spaces of God’s love and mercy, causing many to turn away from the institution. Those who faithfully and courageously have not equated God with the image presented by some are a sign of hope, people who know they are on a journey. As I tentatively tiptoe into a deeper awareness I feel the key to the living of these days is here in Jesus’ words. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could all come and stay together in harmonious unity, but the witness that will quietly and steadily bring about the transformation we say we long for in ourselves and in the world is the realisation that Jesus was/is praying that each of us might reach that oneness that he has with the Father, a unity within each pilgrim soul. It is awesome and extremely challenging, and will involve a huge letting go, a deeper trust, a greater ‘unknowing’ than we have ever experienced before. The world ‘will believe’ through the witness of such Love inspired oneness. This is our only hope – and it is a glorious one. Ruth
C0NGRATULATIONS RUTH -MEMEMBER OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY 2024
CITATION
Ruth Patterson, the first woman to be ordained in Ireland, is director of Restoration Ministries, an organisation committed to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. She was named the University of Edinburgh’s Alumna of the Year in 2000 and in 2003 received an OBE for her reconciliation work. She has authored some six books, and served for several years on the Northern Ireland Memorial Fund for victims of violence.
Reflecting on Matthew 17: 1-8
I’ve been wondering as I read Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration, what if! What if Jesus is asking us to dare to see more; to risk venturing with him beyond the well-established borders of familiarity, not for an esoteric experience, but because in this moment, in our day (which is all we have and is crucial for this planet) he needs people who are open enough, humble enough, scared yet courageous enough to see more, not for ourselves alone but for the world? On February 10th I read these words from Pope Francis’s daily reflections, “Today’s drama in the Church is that Jesus keeps knocking on the door, but from within so that we will let him out.” Dear friends, we cannot box and contain all that we are being given to see within the confines of what we have heretofore known. This does not mean that we reject all that his good and lovely from our current traditions and belief systems, but that we trust that these will be deepened and enhanced and transfigured the more we open ourselves up to the ongoing revelation of the mystery of Infinite Love. We will not understand it with our minds. We will be tempted to stop, feeling we’ve gone far enough, institutionalising only what we feel we can cope with, and so the world is robbed of what in essence it is yearning for. We can then demand that the world listens to us, because we have the truth. But there are also times when we long to hear the unmistakeable voice of God, in a deep challenging way that at the same time assures us of our belovedness. It is such assurance that, paradoxically, we are terrified of and so we tend to hide our faces. It is that assurance that gradually beautifies, glorifies, and makes more spiritual these earthen vessels (that is, you and me) so that we open the doors and the Jesus who dwells within us, this treasure, is released to be out there as well as ‘in here’. The Jesus we know and the Jesus we don’t yet know are one and the same being, mysterious yet known, the one who touches us and tells us not to be afraid. Only Jesus, yesterday, today and forever, transfigured yet ‘known’, linking heaven to earth and earth to heaven who calls us to climb with him, to watch with him, to dare to see and to listen with him, to be willing to let go enough so that the process of transformation or transfiguration can take place within us for the sake of out there, the ‘out there’ that desperately needs ‘only Jesus’ also.
Ruth Patterson
2024 Lenten Day of Reflection -Saturday 17 February at 2 – 4.30pm
Title: The Mystery of Faith.
Facilitator: Rev Ruth Patterson
Venue: St Bride’s Hall, Derryvolgie Ave, Belfast
All are Welcome
Title: Advent – The Moment when ‘Before turned into After’ (from the poem BC: AD by Ursula Fanthorpe)
Mark 1: 1-14.
Facilitator: Rev Ruth Patterson
Date: 2 December 2023
Venue: St Bride’s hall, Derryvolgie Ave, Belfast
Time: 2 – 4.30pm
Rev Ruth Patterson – Facilitator
Adventure into God
24 -30th June 2023
ISBN: 978 1 80097 016 8
Price: €9.99/£8.99
‘A Traveller Passing Through is more about an inner journey
by a pilgrim to sacred places, recalling people and events in the
Holy Land and then interpreting them in a creative,
refreshing and prophetic way as good news to our modern world.
The transforming word of God, which is challenging, is incarnated
in the human story calling for growth in inner freedom and to
awaken a vision that sees beyond the ordinary to welcome and
live the deeper gifts of unity and peace that the Lord desires for us’.
Father Michael Drennan
A Traveller Passing Through
Reflections from the Holy Land
Ruth Patterson
About the book
In A Traveller Passing Through, Ruth Patterson invites readers to
accompany her on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the sites of
significant moments in the life of Jesus. This book enables
readers to journey through these experiences and, in doing so,
opens a door to a deeper appreciation of our own brokenness
and belovedness and to the gift of exploring the mystery and
wonder of the spiritual journey.
Year : 2022
RM Chairman Mr Michael Fitch speaking at the launch
Restoration Ministries 