Dear Friends
I can't really write in this newsletter without giving thanks for our Celebration of St Michael's Day and the Harvest.
The Church Council had thought long and hard together about how to put a new slant on the celebrations whilst holding the tradition in focus i.e. Thanksgiving for the Parish Church at Whitewell together with Thanksgiving for the Harvest, which of course constitutes many peoples' livelihoods in our area. We also had an offer from Canon Thomas Woodhouse from the King's Chapel of the Savoy in London to come and preach in the Autumn.
The result was a very well-attended Parish Eucharist with Thomas as Preacher, the church decorated beautifully and a wonderful Bring and Share Lunch, with more food than we could all eat, but the most important thing after the worship was the effort put in by everyone and the great sense of 'community together.'
Our first venture into bringing people together to eat was 'The Big Lunch' for the Queen's Jubilee, and the second was Harvest and St Michael's tide.
Besides the Worship of God our Father in Christ, part of the church's task is to build relationships and community, and both of these events did just that.
Someone said to me that she felt a sense of togetherness and companionship as she drove home as indeed I did .Indeed I hope that we all see and feel a positive 'knock on effect' from our 2 celebrations, after all, the Church is about 'people'...the LIVING STONES and there was certainly plenty of life on Sunday 25th.....It was lovely to stand for a while in the vestry after the Eucharist and hear the merry voices exchanging good wishes and raising a glass!!
Long may such events continue to bring us together in the name of The Lord.......Alleluia!
Yours in Christ
Roger.
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Readings for October and November.
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ADVENT SUNDAY
The 27th November sees the start of the Church's Year with Advent Sunday. We celebrate the start of this penitential season with The Eucharist of the Advent Ring when we remember the build up to the coming of Jesus at Christmas. A crown of 5 candles stands within the church. Each candle stands for a particular aspect of the Advent theme...The Prophets of Old, John the Baptist, The Blessed Virgin Mary etc all leading up to the central candle which stands for Jesus’ coming into the world at Christmas Tide.
We will also have a Baptism that Sunday when a new member of the church joins with the new Church Year.
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Collect for ADVENT SUNDAY
Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
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Advent Calendar - Rowan Williams
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like a child.
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Baptism
14th August Maxwell Willis
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Holy Matrimony
6th August – Thomas Conway Hill/Sarah Fort
13th August – William Joseph Steele Addison/Emma Jane Sharples
11th September – Charles Richard Tresham/Deborah Jayne Maclennan
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I'm 75 next birthday!!!
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Old age is when you’re faced with two temptations and you choose the one that will get you home by nine o’clock.
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When you’re young you make a lot of noise just having fun. When you’re old, you make even more noise just bending over
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