Start:Stop at St Stephen Walbrook enables busy people to start their day by stopping to reflect. Ten minute reflections are repeated on the quarter hour, from 7.45am until 9.00am every Tuesday morning, beginning with a reading from scripture, followed by a reflection based on an event from this week in history, with space for silence and prayer. 

Two hundred years ago today, a brilliant French linguist, Jean-François Champollion, announced in Paris a breakthrough in translating the Rosetta Stone. His discovery allowed scholars to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, transforming the western discipline of Egyptology and turning the Rosetta Stone into an icon of our attempts to understand other languages and cultures – and decoding just about anything.

The 27th September also marks the day the church remembers St Vincent de Paul, a French priest who decoded the purpose of his life and calling when he was summoned to hear the confession of a dying servant. Ten years after he was ordained, Vincent came to understand God’s universal language – of love.