Rogation – an ask for the future
‘Rogation – an ask for the future’
Revd Kenneth Padley
Sunday 10 May 2026
John 14.15-21
Jesus enjoins his followers to ask, seek and knock. And any such act of asking looks to the future with hope and confidence.
In today’s gospel Jesus leads by example. He says that we are to love him and to keep his commandments [verse 15] – and that to help with this [verse 16] he will ask the Father for the support of the Holy Spirit. So, as Jesus prepares for his Ascension (which we celebrate on Thursday), his ask for the future is for flourishing of his followers on earth.
Today is a day for asking, and asking with a view to the future. That is because today is Rogation, the sixth Sunday of the Easter season, the traditional date of prayer for agricultural fruitfulness. Back in the Middle Ages, when the whole of society hung on the success or failure of the farming year, Rogation was far more important than Harvest Thanksgiving. Harvest Festival is a glance in the rear-view mirror of the agricultural year. Rogation by contrast is a steady focus through the windscreen, an ask for the future. Praying for agricultural productivity has renewed seriousness in 2026, given the pressures on farmers from increased costs of fuel and fertiliser.
The word Rogation comes from the Latin ‘to ask’. Ultimately of course this lends itself to themes much wider than agriculture. We should pray for safe, happy workplaces and a productive economy – not the chasing of cheap and unsustainable bucks but building skills and resources to support our communities and country for the long term.
And because flourishing communities in the broad sense is central to the ask of Rogation, the Cathedral is also using today for our annual giving campaign. We are updating our congregations on the mission that we share together, giving thanks for what has been achieved in the past year, and asking for your new or renewed financial support in the twelve months ahead.
Let’s start with the good news by reviewing 2025. Many of the indicators on our dashboard are flashing green.
Worship is at the heart of what we do, and we rejoice at having seen increases in regular Sunday and midweek attendance for each of the last five years. This has returned us not just to levels seen before the decimating coronavirus restrictions but to levels last seen before the Novichok attack of 2018. Festival attendance at Christmas and Easter is similarly buoyant and almost back to pre-Novichok levels.
Alongside worship, the hard work of our volunteers and staff are supporting a visitor base that has now exceeded pre-Novichok levels for three years in a row. Visitors are the largest income stream for the Cathedral so play a crucial role in underpinning our overall witness and ministry.
In 2025 we also enjoyed extraordinary creativity from across our teams with a wide range of musical concerts, topical films and book tours, artistic and archival exhibitions and theological talks. Last summer’s flower festival was an exceptional highlight.
Physically, your Cathedral is in the best condition it has been for seven hundred years. And considerable investment and conservation excellence continue to enhance the built environment of the Close, both individual properties and the shared space which we enjoy together. By this time next year there should be only one property in the Close awaiting significant restoration work.
If you have been part of this in 2025 through your gift of time as a volunteer and / or financial donations to the Cathedral (or linked charities such as the Friends and Girl Choristers’ Fund), thank you. The financial output of this shared task will be a deficit of around £100K in the financial year which ended last month.
Please do not be downhearted to hear a negative figure of this size: this result is ahead of budget and is a small proportion of our overall turnover. And there is no leakage: your Cathedral has excellent financial controls and monitoring. That said, deficits are a warning sign and the budget for 2026-27 indicates that things will get notably tighter in the short term. Robust measures are being put in place by the Cathedral’s Finance Committee to turn this curve over the next three years but we need everyone to play their part if Salisbury Cathedral is to continue to thrive as a beacon of liberty, creativity and eternity.
In the year ahead, in addition to the familiar cycle of inspirational worship and world class music, the Cathedral will be continuing projects to enhance the energy efficiency of this building, initiating a youth partnership to make a real difference to the lives of vulnerable young people in the area, undertaking preparatory work for conservation of the Jesse window (our oldest stained glass), and anticipating our involvement in the 800th anniversary of Salisbury’s city charter next year.
To help us progress all of this, our ask for the future this Rogationtide is threefold.
- If you are a regular worshipper here, please join our regular giving scheme. This can be accessed through an online search for ‘PGS Salisbury Cathedral’. PGS stands for the ‘Parish Giving Scheme’. PGS is the Church of England’s Direct Debit platform. It reliably channels every penny given to a donor’s designated church or churches. If you are a regular worshipper here and already support us by standing order, card of cash, I encourage you to come over to PGS. PGS has particular benefits especially around Gift Aid that no other method provides. Most of those who once supported the Cathedral through standing order have now come over to PGS. Please join us.
- Secondly, there is no formula for how much anyone should give and individual giving will vary hugely. Each must determine what is right for their present circumstances and involvement. I am also mindful that many give to specific projects such as music and maintenance or have split commitments between the Cathedral and other places of worship. With these caveats, I would note that the average weekly donation excluding Gift Aid through PGS by worshippers in this diocese in 2025 was £18.02 – and in the country was £19.35. Regular unrestricted giving in the Cathedral per average adult Sunday worshipper remains considerably below this. In short, our pattern of giving does not yet reflect the same levels of financial support seen, on average among our brothers and sisters in other churches.
- Thirdly, as you reflect on regular support, I would also encourage you to think about legacies. Would you consider leaving a gift to the Cathedral in your will? Legacies and gifts in memoriam are a huge windfall blessing that enable us to do things which would otherwise be just aspiration. Of course, we rely on regular faithful giving day by day, but legacies are a further and unforeseen blessing, helping to provide security for the Cathedral’s future.
Full information about all of this is on a letter from the Dean which the stewards will give to every adult as you leave. This information will also be circulated electronically to our worshipping community roll in the days ahead. For those watching online, details about giving support can be found under the ‘More’ tab of the Cathedral website.
Finally, if you are a visitor here today, please forgive me for using this pulpit slot to discuss our internal life in this way. But your local church will have equivalent needs: please use this Rogationtide as a prompt for reflection on how you support the Church in your local setting. Whether here or elsewhere, thank you heartily for your regular faithful giving.
Back in the day, many villages marked Rogationtide by a ceremony known as ‘beating the bounds’. Parishioners would walk the edges of their parish, whacking it with willow boughs. Their intention was to mark community limits and pray for protection. We won’t be whipping our extremities today, but I encourage you to reflect on what this tradition symbolises: a concern of the community for its preservation and flourishing, and an ask for the future which is at the heart of today’s festival.