The Shalom House of Prayer community was privileged to host well-known songwriter/singer Peter Kearney on the 12 March with his concert Ashes to Easter which was held in the Church of The Immaculate Conception, Carcoar.

Peter is a rare master at crafting music, drama, poetry and song together to tell a story or message. The sensitive message from Peter’s Ashes to Easter is one of a personal Lenten reflection beginning from Ash Wednesday through to the Passion of Jesus and His Resurrection on Easter Sunday. The concert reflected Peter’s own deep reflection of what the Lenten experience is about and was a pure gift to those of us in the audience who desire to slow down in Lent and take time to journey closer and deeper into becoming more of the kind of person Jesus leads us towards. It was a concert that challenges our response to this thought with a reconnection to who we are in the sight of God as God’s beloved child and how we treat all of God’s children and our world. Peter’s ‘bard like’ folk style of a concert, which he does so well, engaged his audience with the simple use of voice and guitar. Perhaps the most well-known of Peter’s sacred songs were Fill my House and The Beatitudes.  His folk oratorio Good Morning, Good People, about the life and spiritual journey of St Francis of Assisi, has inspired some people towards becoming tertiaries of the Third Order of St Francis.

The Shalom House of Prayer community hosted an alfresco long lunch, provided by chef John Hansen, after the concert under the trees in the backyard garden.