Sermon on the Feast of Corpus Christi in a time of coronavirus

A Virtual Service for Corpus Christi in the Diocese of Cape Town, June 11, 2020

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba

1 Corinthians 10: 16-17; Psalm 146

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to these midday prayers on this wonderful Feast of Corpus Christi. Thank you to the Vicar-General, Father Keith, for convening us, and to the Liturgy Team for developing the form of service for us. Thank you, Archdeacon Mark, and all the readers.

Today we gather online to give thanks for the institution of the Eucharist, the Sacrament in which Christ is made real among us, in which we identify ourselves with Christ's obedience to God and in which we find fellowship with another and are then sent out into the world to be God's instruments of love.

It goes without saying that it is a strange time in which to be commemorating the institution of the Lord's Supper, a time – unprecedented in the last 100 years – when we can't gather together physically to do so because of a pandemic. For Anglicans, it is especially disconcerting, since for us, as Archbishop Rowan Williams has said, ”the Church is most truly itself when it is engaged in sacramental worship; that when above all it meets for the Eucharist, it… expresses its deepest identity.”

Archbishop Thabo's message on returning to worship

Dear Parishioners, Clergy and Bishops

It is with awe and trepidation that I welcome President Cyril Ramaphosa’s acceptance of the representations made by religious leaders that faith communities will be responsible and careful enough to return to worship under conditions which will not allow the spread of the coronavirus.

In the next few days, once the government has published its new regulations, we will, with the help of our COVID-19 advisory team, consolidate the regulations and the guidelines that religious leaders have drawn up and update our own ACSA guidelines accordingly.

Archbishop's Eastertide News & Reflections – May 18, 2020

(Credit: Nelson Mandela University)

Dear Parishioners, Clergy and Bishops

With no end in sight to coronavirus lockdowns, we are having to plan ahead for Provincial meetings to take place online. Already, retired bishops are communicating on WhatsApp, as are members of the Synod of Bishops. Other groups are being encouraged to connect and pray together online, and Liaison Bishops are meeting with bodies such as the youth, Provincial organisations and the like.

Archbishop's Eastertide News & Reflections – St Joseph's Day

With KK after presenting him with the Archbishop's Peace & Justice Award.

Dear Parishioners, Clergy and Bishops

Today being St Joseph’s Day, we remember and pray for all the workers of the world, particularly because of the anxiety so many are experiencing as a result of the coronavirus, their loss of income and even their jobs. Pray especially for essential service workers who are caring for COVID-19 patients, emergency workers, the police and army and those who continue to grow, harvest, deliver and sell food to us. We also give thanks for the great epidemiologists and other medical exports which we have, and for the acquisition of supplies of personal protective equipment for our health workers.

[VIDEO] Reflections on keeping a balance in a time of coronavirus

Speaking from the chapel at Bishopscourt in Cape Town, Archbishop Thabo shares his thoughts on the principle, learned from his experience of centring prayer, of balance in processing what is happening to us. He reflects on four broad categories of applying balance. He also explains his focus on providing midday prayers in as many languages of the Province as possible.

Archbishop's Eastertide News & Reflections – Wednesday in Low Week

Dear Parishioners, Clergy and Bishops

In our multi-lingual Province, it is important that we share worship resources in as many languages as we can during the coronavirus lockdowns. It's for this reason that in the past few days I've reached out to isiXhosa- and Sesotho-speaking listeners to SABC radio stations in South Africa, seeking to minister via uMhlobo Wenene and with the popular host, Thuso Motaung, on Lesedi FM.

You can hear the interviews below:

[VIDEO] Archbishop Thabo addresses the trauma of COVID-19 & lockdown

The Archbishop responds to a request to make his latest Eastertide reflection available for viewing and listening:

Archbishop's Eastertide News & Reflections – Thursday in Easter Week

Dear Parishioners, Clergy and Bishops

Amid current controversies around the coronavirus lockdown, I want to look at a new topic today: our mental health.

Archbishop's Eastertide News & Reflections – Tuesday in Easter Week

A Zoom meeting with young people

Dear Parishioners, Clergy and Bishops

On Easter Monday I had a wonderful discussion with the youth of our Province, from Angola to South Africa to Mozambique, which they joined on the Zoom video-conference facility.

The young people, including those involved with the Provincial Youth Council and the Anglican Students' Federation, as well as others, were exuberant and irreverent, demonstrating a sense of purpose and energy. They believe this time of the coronavirus will come and it will go, and that it will in the end be resolved. I was also touched by a number of their concerns – for example, that priests will continue to be paid despite lockdowns, and that parishioners ought to keep up their giving.

Three Archbishops - Desmond Tutu, Njongonkulu Ndungane & Thabo Makgoba issue unprecedented joint statement on coronavirus

17 March 2020

Joint statement from Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane and Archbishop Thabo Makgoba

The three living Archbishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa have issued an unprecedented joint statement appealing to people across Southern Africa to beat the coronavirus by working closely together.

The text of the statement follows:

The three of us, as former and current Anglican Archbishops of Cape Town, welcome and encourage the strong evidence we are seeing of all Southern Africans working together to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus across our sub-continent.

If proof was required of the oneness and interdependence of the human family, the threat posed by this virus – and people's response to it – is providing it. To stop the virus spreading will demand fundamental changes in the behaviour of all of us.

The virus has no boundaries – it cuts across all communities, rich and poor, in north, south, east and west. Only mutual love and care for one another will get us through the crisis.

But there is no need to panic. As President Ramaphosa has said, we do have the knowledge, the means and the resources to fight this virus, and if we act quickly and collectively, we can limit its effects. We are resilient and in the past we have overcome challenges by remaining calm and being strategic in our responses.

To young people we say we know you are not scared for yourselves, and some of you may feel that coronavirus is not an African problem. But you might be carriers of the virus without even knowing it. So we appeal to you not to put at risk the lives of those who cared for you when you were children. We know that you are being asked to sacrifice the most for your old people. But please protect those of your parents' and grandparents' generation.

Let us take the opportunity to respond by choosing life over death; by choosing knowledge over ignorance; by sharing that knowledge; and by caring about others through taking care of ourselves.

As President Ramaphosa has also said, this epidemic has the potential to bring us closer together. But, in his words, it demands  “cooperation, collaboration and common action. More than that, it requires solidarity, understanding and compassion.” We know that we can rely on people of all faiths and of none to bring those qualities to this struggle.

May God bless Southern Africa, and God bless all her people,

The Most Revd Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

The Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

The Most Revd Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town

* Distributed for the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, on behalf of the three Archbishops, by Oryx Media.

LATEST GUIDELINES on novel coronavirus - from Bishopscourt

Archbishop Thabo's latest guidelines on measures to curb the spread of the corona virus are being posted at this address on the Province's website.

https://anglicanchurchsa.org/coronavirus-updated-guidelines-from-the-archbishop/

Visit the page regularly to see updates -- the time and date of each post will be noted to ensure you are seeing the latest information.

Archbishop Thabo issues special appeal on coronavirus

Archbishop Thabo has recorded a message to parishes updated with the latest advice from the Synod of Bishops and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on responding to those issues arising from the spread of the coronavirus which are most relevant to parishioners at worship.