A Reflection for the Month - July 2026 

The Saint, the Sausages and the Storm

From Rev'd Ella Harris

Dear Friends,
July is wedding season, which means flowers, readings, rings, confetti and of course, for us Brits, an anxious eye on the forecast. One of my brides last week told me she had buried sausages in the garden to keep the rain away! I cannot vouch for this theologically, meteorologically or culinarily, but I understand the impulse; on my wedding day, it rained so torrentially that I ended up barefoot, because my heels were sinking into six inches of mud. Not quite the look I had imagined, but certainly memorable! Perhaps that is why this time of year, brides and vicars alike become amateur meteorologists.

So it is fitting that, in the middle of the wedding season, the Church remembers St Swithun on 15 July. As the rhyme goes: St Swithun’s Day, if thou dost rain, for forty days it will remain. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862, remembered as a humble man, caring for the poor and building churches. When he died, he asked to be buried outside the Old Minster, where worshippers would pass by and where his grave would be open to the “sweet rain of heaven.” More than a century later, his remains were moved into a grand indoor shrine. According to legend, Swithun was not pleased. The heavens opened, and the rain continued for forty days and nights. From this came the old rhyme. There is a local thread too. St Swithun’s Church in Great Chishill bears his name, and in 1136 that church was given to the monastery of Walden.

Of course, Christian faith is not a guarantee that the skies will clear just because we have prayed hard enough, planned carefully enough, or buried enough sausages in the right flowerbed! And yet Christians do believe in a Lord who has authority over wind and waves. Jesus could rebuke a storm and walk on water. Yet here is the wonder: the one with power over even the weather chose to give up control over his own life. In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done.” At the cross, he was mocked, “Save yourself.” But he did not. He stayed. He gave himself. That is why the Song of Songs is so powerful at weddings: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” Rain may fall. Plans may change. Mud may rise. But the costly, self-giving love of God in Christ is stronger than the storm.

With Blessings, Rev’d Ella – Team Vicar