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News Bulletin week commencing 6th August 2022

8/10/2022

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Services
Thursday 10th August 10.00am Mass, St Clare.
Sunday 14th August 9.30am Parish Mass, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Thursday 18th August 9.30am T2 Mission Area Morning Prayer St Thomas's Worsbrough.


Coffee Morning from 10.am every Tuesday, all are welcome.
Offering from the sermon 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
“You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what hour the burglar would come, he would not have let anyone break through the wall of his house.”
Having our houses broken into is a prospect we don’t really want to contemplate.  But it would be a foolish householder who would ignore the need for security and for contents insurance.  We hope that we shall never need it.  House burglars tend to try to be unpredictable.  If we knew when their arrival would be, then we might be able to catch them out, but it doesn’t tend to work that way.
 
The disciples of Jesus were often eager to know when God’s glory would be fully revealed.  Jesus tells them not to be concerned with the time or the season, but he does tell them to be ready.  It might seem to be a strange comparison that Jesus gives between himself and a burglar.  No one welcomes a burglar, but for anyone of faith the arrival of Jesus should be a joyful prospect.  Jesus knows how to make an impression and to get the attention of those who hear his words.  In this image of the unexpected visitor, Jesus shows us that God does not operate according to our own timetables or expectations.  It is those who are prepared who will be able to rejoice at his arrival.
 
The New Testament was first written in Greek.  The Greek language makes the distinction between time as something ongoing and time in terms of an important moment.  You may have been watching some of the sporting events that have taken place recently.  There have been some dramatic moments and memorable achievements.  We have seen the joy and surprise of those who have succeeded.  But we know that those key moments don’t just come out of nowhere.  The athletes themselves will be more aware of that than anyone else.  Without all those weeks and months of dedicated practice and training it would never happen.
 
I think that something similar is true of our faith.  We all long for those special moments of consolation and of wonder.  Yesterday was the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.  We see how the disciples were in a state of awe and wonder as they saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain, shining with God’s glory.  It was an unforgettable experience.  But their journey as disciples was not always like that.  There would be times of frustration and uncertainty, times of doubt and times in which they would lose faith in themselves. Their faith in God would take a battering too.  Jesus gave his disciples those glimpses of glory not to make them think that faith is always like that, but to give them the vision that would guide and encourage them along their way.
 
Sometimes our own personal faith can grow weary.  Life can take a lot out of us, especially in these recent difficult times.  We can wonder what God is doing.  We may sometimes feel that our worship has become a bit too routine or that our prayer life is not all that it should be.  Sometimes we might prefer to lose ourselves in more worldly consolations that give us a more fleeting kind of comfort.  These are all very human experiences.  But it is only our faith in God that will give us the strength to become all that we are created to be.  Only God can bring us lasting peace and joy.
 
Like the disciples of Jesus, Abraham would have been encouraged through his life journey by those glimpses of glory and that personal sense of being called by God.  When our faith is young it may seem more vivid.  Even so, we can recapture that joy and that newness by continuing to find our own place in the Scriptures and through being honest and open to God in our daily prayer.  We don’t have to do it alone.  I don’t think that any of the Lionesses in their recent victory would have claimed that they did it alone, but as part of a team.  For the same reason God calls us together as his Church to worship and to encourage one another as we work for the coming of the kingdom.  We find strength in God and we should find support and understanding from one another too.
 
In all these ways we make ourselves ready for the God who cannot be controlled by us.  The Jesuit spiritual writer, Gerard Hughes, spoke about the “God of Surprises”.  As the gospel today reminds us, “the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”  It also says: “Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.”  In terms of faith, being awake means the opposite of being complacent.  If we know Jesus in the Eucharist and in one another, then he will not be a stranger to us.  The more we are acquainted with God’s ways and the more we live by the example of Jesus, the more ready we shall be to receive him.  He comes to us even now in all kinds of unexpected ways.  We also proclaim in the Creed that he will come again in glory.  Let us not be strangers to his presence so that we may be ready to share that glory.

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Newsletter 1st August 2022

8/3/2022

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​Notices
Mass Thursday 4th August 10.00am
Parish Mass 7th August 9.30am

Coffee Mornings every Tuesday from 10.00am every-one welcome.

Advance Notice: The next T2 Mission Area Service is on Thursday 18th August at St Thomas's Worsbrough.

Sunday Thoughts (18th in Ordinary Time
It’s holiday season and many people are making for the coast.  One of my favourite places since childhood is Whitby and I know I’m not alone in loving the place.  It has been in the news recently for a different reason - the number of second homes in the town.  The sad thing for many ordinary residents in places where people buy extra houses is that it makes life more expensive for the less well off.  Some local people are beginning to find themselves excluded. 
 
Jesus uses a parable in the gospel today, telling of a man who stockpiled more crops than he needed and who built bigger barns to store the goods.  The setting might be less familiar to us than a northern English seaside town, but it would have been very topical for people in Galilee at that time.  Rich absentee landlords lived in great comfort in Herod’s new cities on the rents and quotas levied on the ordinary workers on their estates.  They helped themselves to the best of the crops, whilst the ordinary workers had to subsist on a much poorer diet.  Those who did all the work could find themselves excluded from the benefit of this, whilst the wealthy built bigger barns to house all the excess.  It was far more than they could use for themselves.  No doubt those who heard the parable would have known exactly what Jesus was talking about.
 
It seems unlikely that Jesus was telling this parable in an angry way or trying to incite the people he was speaking to.  People were used to the wealthy having more than enough.  They were also used to their own lives being a struggle to get by.  Jesus seems to be indifferent to the authorities.  Instead of anger in his parable, there was probably a note of wry humour.  The man was preparing to enjoy his vast riches and to find his security in new and bigger barns, but then off he pops.  His barns and crops are of no use to him anymore.  As in the words of the psalm:
“You sweep men away like a dream
Like grass that springs up in the morning.”
Even stories and humour can be dangerous and can provoke a strong reaction from the authorities.  The emperor doesn’t like to be reminded that his new clothes are a bit on the skimpy side.
 
So Jesus is not trying to start a revolution.  The parable is not really aimed at the wealthy man at all.  In fact, the man appears in the end as a tragic figure and we are invited to feel sorry for him despite his greed.  Jesus is really pointing to the futility of putting all of our work into building up treasure on earth.  There are things we need to live a good life, but there comes a point where stockpiling can be of no real use to us.  Psychologists tell us that hoarding things can sometimes be a denial of our mortality – a way of fooling ourselves that we can find the security we long for in having all these things.   The parable reminds us that this kind of security is an illusion.  So too is the striving to find happiness in building up more and more possessions.
 
In our anxiety about what we have and what we want, we can forget where our real treasure lies.  St Paul shows us that it is better to aim for higher things – for the things that last for eternity.  He tells us:
“Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven.”
This is not about pie in the sky, but a recognition that when we love God and when we grow in faith, in generosity, in compassion, we discover true riches.  The desire for more and more can make us meaner and more fearful.  Ecclesiastes has some words to say about this: “Vanity of vanities.”  We cannot take any of these things with us in the end, but lives that are rich in love for God and for other people are lives that store up treasure in heaven.
 
Jesus gives us the bread of eternal life.  We receive in the Eucharist this food for our journey.  What we receive from God in faith will never leave us hungry or thirsty.  So let us pray that God may help us to let go of all that enslaves us here on earth.  May we discover the true value of our lives and know where our real treasure is kept.

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Newsletter 3rd July 2022

7/3/2022

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News
There will be no Service this Thursday and the Parish Mass on Sunday will be held at St Peters at 10.30am.
The coffee morning will take place on Tuesday from 10.00am as usual.

Sunday Thoughts (14th in Ordinary Time)
I can see why Jesus sent his disciples out two by two.  Mutual support is very important in unfamiliar situations.  He tells them that he is sending them out “like lambs among wolves”.  A bit of a scary prospect, but at least the feeling of vulnerability could be shared.  Sharing the message of Jesus was going to be a challenge, but all the more so in the Samaritan territory between Galilee and Judea.
 
Perhaps we too do not find it easy to share our faith with others.  We wouldn’t normally face the kind of danger that the disciples faced in Samaria, or the later apostles in the Roman-occupied parts of the Middle East and Europe.  But we live in a very secular context.  People are often resistant to religious belief, even if they like to believe in something more than just the here and now.  Many people are indifferent and this too can be a hard thing to break open.
 
Mission can often seem like a scary word.  It seems to demand of us something that we feel unable to give.  We may be drawn to faith because it brings us peace and comfort, but trying to share that with others might seem like a step too far.  I have often heard people speak about “taking Jesus to other people” or “taking Jesus out into the world”.  But the thing that seems clear to me from the gospel is that Jesus is quite capable of making his own way out into the world and making contact with all kinds of people.  He sent his disciples out ahead of him but he would then go out and visit those places himself.  Jesus entrusted his disciples with the special mission of preparing the way.
 
We don’t know what those disciples said to people when they went out into the towns and villages.  But we do know that they were travelling light.  Jesus told them just to take themselves, with just the bare minimum of props.  It was perhaps their attitude rather than their words that mattered.  They were to expect hospitality but to move on when that hospitality was lacking.  They were called to be a peaceful presence in the places they visited.  They were also called to be a healing presence.  What they had witnessed in Jesus themselves they were to share with others in whatever way they could.  Jesus does not expect people to do the impossible, but to live out their faith in whatever way is right for them.
 
People know when our faith is genuine, because it shines through our words and our actions.  If we sow seeds of hope, of compassion and of reconciliation, then people can begin to see the person in whom our faith is based: Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Conversely, if they see Christians sowing discord, judgement and cynicism, they are hardly likely to want to stick around and see what comes next.  The good thing is that Jesus does work through human weakness.  We are not an indispensable part of the mission of God, but Jesus chooses us to work with him in showing people the kingdom of God.  What could be more special than that?
 
So that we can share what the seventy two disciples shared in St Luke’s gospel, we need to come to know the Lord as they did.  We don’t have him among us in the same form, but we know him through the words of the Bible and in the sacraments of the Church.  We can come to know the same spiritual liberation experienced by the disciples.  It mirrors the liberation depicted in that beautiful poetic language of the prophet Isaiah as he spoke of the peace and the freedom that would be experienced by the people of Israel as they emerged from captivity in an unfamiliar land.
 
St Paul also, in the letter to the Galatians, writes about the way in which the believer is set free from the constraints imposed on us by those who would stifle our true identity.  Christians are called not to live by law but by grace.  The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus are the cornerstone of our faith.  When we know our limitations and our need for God’s mercy, then we can witness to others by the words we speak and the life we live.  There are no magic words, no props, no gimmicks.  Jesus sends us out and calls us to be ourselves.  All he asks of us is that we proclaim not ourselves, but the love and the peace of the one who has called us and who sends us.  We have his promise that he will be with us wherever we go.
 
Let us pray:
Stay with us, Lord Jesus,
be our companion on our way.
In your mercy inflame our hearts and raise our hope,
so that, in union with our brothers and sisters,
we may recognize you in the scriptures and in the breaking of bread,
who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

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News Items 20/06/22

6/20/2022

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Forthcoming Events
Services at St Andrews
Thursday 23rd June 10.00am Combined T2 Mission Area Service
Sunday 26th June 9.30am Parish Mass
Summer Fayre
Saturday 2nd July 10.00 - 12.000  St Andrews Community Centre
​Coffee Morning
This Tuesday and every Tuesday from 10.00am all are welcome
Corpus Christi
Jesus looks to us for solutions.  It’s easy to think that it should be the other way round.  After all, he is God incarnate – the Word made flesh.  When his disciples are ready to disperse the hungry crowd which had come to hear the teachings of Jesus, he says to them: “Give them something to eat yourselves.”  I can imagine a pregnant pause as the disciples look at each other, wondering what on earth to do.  It is a surprising and perhaps annoying response for them to hear.  They are acutely aware that they do not have the resources to meet the needs of all these people sitting or standing around them.  “We have no more than five loaves and two fish,” they reply rather feebly, “unless we are to go ourselves and buy food for these people.”  It didn’t look at all promising.
 
Then we see Jesus taking charge of the situation.  He doesn’t leave his disciples to struggle all by themselves.  He shows that their faith in the Son of God is not misplaced.  With God all things are possible.  Human strength has its limits, but by faith in God those limits no longer have to determine what can be done.  Somehow, those meagre resources of five loaves and two fish become enough to enable the feeding of this multitude of people.  We don’t really know what happened there, but we do know that God was at work in that situation, among those people.  But still those words remain in the minds of the disciples and also in the gospel for us all to hear: “Give them something to eat yourselves.”  Jesus meant us to hear this for a reason.
 
As the Church we are called to continue what we see and hear in the gospel.  First of all, our calling as God’s faithful people is to deepen our faith through prayer, through pondering the message of Jesus and through our reception of the Eucharist.  But we are also called to go out into the world.  We are constantly reminded of just how much need there is in the  world.  We live in a world of need and in a country of need.  People hunger and thirst.  There is longing for peace, for release from oppression and for relief from material poverty. We all need food and all the other things that keep us healthy and enable us to live in dignity.  We also hunger and thirst for what can bring us inner peace and connection with each other.  Most of all, whether we are aware of it or not, I believe that we all hunger and thirst for God.
 
As we meet together here, our purpose is to do what we hear in St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  We hear the words of Jesus as he takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it and shares it.  This is the Eucharistic action and every time we meet before the altar, we eat this bread and drink this cup, proclaiming the saving death of Our Lord.  By his death, Jesus has left us a lasting memorial, not just so that we can remember the past, but so that his presence can become the centre of what we do here and now.  What we prepare to receive is not just a bit of bread or a sip of wine, but the Body and Blood of Christ.
 
As we reverence these holy gifts, let’s also hear for ourselves those words that Jesus said to his disciples: “Give them something to eat yourselves.”  Jesus gave the gift of his presence to the people around him and he is present among us now.  What we are called to do is not something we do alone or merely in our own strength.  Just like the disciples we offer our own ordinary lives and our own limited gifts.  Christians can make a huge difference through the part they play.  This may be in material ways through foodbanks at a time when so many people are struggling.  It can also happen though being in touch with the people who need a listening ear.  We can encourage one another with our faith, so that people do not go away hungry and empty.  We can offer the little that we have.  Like Melchizedech in the book of Genesis, our offering can find favour with God and can become a blessing for ourselves and for others.
 
In this time of pandemic, our gathering at the Eucharist has been severely disrupted.  There have been months where we have been unable to gather.  Some people who were with us physically before are no longer able to return.  During the pandemic people have also become more used to engaging digitally and have become unused to taking a full part in the Eucharist.  There is no doubt though that the Eucharist is our identity.  Jesus meant us to do this in memory of him.  He intended us to receive the sacrament of his Body and Blood, so that we could continue his work in the power of the Holy Spirit.
 
As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, today’s feast reminds us that in the Eucharist there is no separation, no lockdown, no self-isolation.  This is the sacrament that unites all people, wherever they may be.  It feeds us so that we may reach out to others who need to be fed, either physically or by the comfort of sharing our faith.  Let us give thanks for so great a gift and pray that we may receive it in the spirit in which it is given to us.

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Newsletter week commencing 5th June 2022

6/6/2022

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Forthcoming Events
Services:
Feria Thursday 9th June 2022 10.00am
Parish Mass 12th June 2022 9.30am
 
​Coffee Mornings
Tuesdays from 10.00am everyone welcome

​Pentecost Message
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire
and lighten with celestial fire
Thou the anointing Spirit art
Who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.
 
You may recognise this opening verse of a beautiful, ancient hymn which may be sung at Pentecost or at any occasion when the Holy Spirit is especially invoked.  These might include Confirmation and Ordination, but also the Coronation of kings and queens.  A couple of days ago I watched some footage of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, from 1953, more than a decade before I was born.  It was a moving service, especially at the point of the anointing, when that hymn was sung, originally known by its Latin title Veni, Creator Spiritus.  It continues:
 
Thy blessed unction from above
Is comfort, light and fire of love
Enable with perpetual light
The dullness of our blinded sight.
 
The hymn was sung as our Queen prepared herself for her anointing, and all those present prayed for the gift of the Holy Spirit:
 
Anoint and cheer our soilèd face
With the abundance of Thy grace
Keep far our foes, give peace at home
Where Thou art guide no ill can come.
 
I saw how the anointing took place away from the cameras, as a golden canopy was placed over the monarch’s head.  It was a deeply personal moment and an encounter with the Holy Spirit, without whose aid there would be nothing except limited human strength.
 
I imagine that Queen Elizabeth has never forgotten that moment all those years ago.  It is likely to have served as a source of strength for all the events she has lived through and all the times - good and bad - that have affected our nation over those many years.  There are certain special moments that can inspire us for a lifetime.  It is deeply personal, but the grace that is given is not just for us alone.  It is given so that we might make a difference in the world, just as our Queen has touched so many people’s lives over those 70 years.
 
As a priest, I have never forgotten the laying-on of hands and anointing, nor have I forgotten the sense of smallness that contrasted with the weight of the calling.  I’m sure it is the same for any other priest.  If that is how that moment of anointing felt for me, then how much more so for our Queen.  After all, there are far more priests than there are kings and queens.  It is a lonely vocation indeed and that moment of anointing with the Holy Spirit would be a reminder that there is a far greater power at work here – one that sustains and inspires and strengthens – a strength that could only come from God.
 
I wonder how those first apostles must have felt when they were in one room on that first Pentecost.  There they heard what sounded like a mighty wind from heaven and become aware of a warmth and light like tongues of flame resting upon each of them.  They could really only describe this experience of the Holy Spirit in terms of its effects.  These apparently ordinary men were making themselves understood to complete strangers of different languages.  The devout men were amazed, not least because they couldn’t get their heads around how these country bumpkins from Galilee were able to do the things that they themselves had never achieved.  They thought they were under the influence of alcohol, but it was in fact a different kind of spirit that was empowering them.  Anyone who has felt themselves unequal to their calling can look to this as a reminder that you do not have to be born special.  It is the Holy Spirit that enables ordinary people to do the extraordinary.
 
Before Jesus was crucified, he spoke of the promise of the Paraclete – the one who is sent to be alongside us.  The word “Paraclete” is often translated as “Advocate”, as we see in our gospel passage from St John.  An advocate is someone who speaks up for us, or who pleads on our behalf.  It is also connected with courts of law, where a lawyer – an advocate – speaks on behalf of someone else.  I have seen the advice given to people who decide to represent themselves in a court of law: “Don’t do it!”  There are people who know what to say and how to say it – to speak the words that we cannot find ourselves.
 
Jesus told his disciples that they would be witnesses in his name.  They were not to be afraid about what to say when the time came.  In St Luke’s gospel, Chapter 12, verse 12, Jesus says to them: “… the Holy Spirit will teach you at the hour what you ought to say.”  They went on to amaze themselves by going out into the world and proclaiming the word of life, bringing a welcome message of forgiveness and opening up spaces in people’s lives where the Creator Spirit might flood in.  Jesus had promised them that when he was no longer physically there to tell them what to do and how to do it, he would be with them in a new way.  They would perform even greater works in the power of the Spirit.  They were not disappointed.
 
You don’t have to be a king or queen or a priest to be anointed with Holy Chrism and with the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Most of us are too young to remember our baptism, but perhaps we can remember Confirmation.  Maybe we can cast our minds back to that awesome moment when we are told: “God has called you by name and made you his own.  Confirm, O Lord, your servant with your Holy Spirit.”
 
Jesus has told his disciples, and he tells us, that the Holy Spirit would remind us of all that he has taught us.  The Holy Spirit overcomes our fear, removes the divisions that keep us apart and puts a new heart within us.  We are still limited by our own weakness and we each have our own particular gifts and calling.  But through all of this, the Holy Spirit that we celebrate at Pentecost is our inspiration, our strength and our guiding light.  Through that gift we become witnesses and apostles to reflect to the world the presence of Christ among us.  We and others then begin to glimpse possibilities for our humanity and for our world that we would never have dreamed possible.
 
Queen Elizabeth makes no secret of her trust in God and of the faith that continues to inspire her after all these years.  The anointing and the invocation of the Holy Spirit at her Coronation continue to give the strength and endurance to live out this singular vocation.  Whatever our own particular gifts and calling may be, today is a day on which we thank and praise God for giving us the gift of his Holy Spirit, to dwell with us and to show us the way.  In the final verse of that wonderful hymn:
 
Teach us to know the Father, Son
And Thee of both to be but one,
That through the ages all along,
This may be our endless song:
Praise to Thy eternal merit,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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Jubilee Week

5/31/2022

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See the gallery for the start of Jubilee Week
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News & Musings 15th May 2022

5/16/2022

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Coffee Mornings
Tues 17th May Coffee Morning from 10.00am - all are welcome. Watch this space for a special Jubilee coffee morning being served up very soon.
Services
Thursday 19th May 9.30am Mission Area Morning Prayer at St Thomas's Worsbrough Dale.
Sunday 22nd May 9.30am Parish Mass.

Sermon from Easter 5
Jesus Said “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’”
   At this time of year, late in Eastertide and close to the Ascension, the scripture readings take us back to what are known as the “farewell discourses” of Jesus.  In the events that took place before the crucifixion, Jesus is preparing to take leave of his disciples.  Of course, he wants to leave them with something to remember.  Jesus came into the world for a reason, and he called his disciples for a special purpose.  He was not just about to leave them without any thoughts to guide them in the time ahead. 
   Today’s Gospel reading is no exception. It is the last supper, Judas has already departed and we are told that Jesus is contemplating the Cross and what lies before him. The apostles cannot follow him yet, but he gives them a new commandment by which the world will know that they are His follows – his disciples.
  If we were approaching the end of our life in this world, what would we want to say to the people who had shared our lives?  I suppose most of us find it too hard to contemplate putting these things into words.  Even so, we would want to feel reassured that we had been able to pass something on that was worthwhile – something that could be remembered.  I guess the most important thing is not our academic achievements, our wealth or success, but rather who loved us and who we loved.
   When Jesus talks about commandments we need to know that he did not leave behind a set of rules that we have to live out with only our own human strength to rely on.  There was really only one commandment:
       “Love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.” 
   It is a very easy commandment to remember, but can be a difficult one to live by, with lots of false starts and good intentions that run into the sand.  But it is not a commandment that we are expected to keep just in our own strength.  It comes first of all as a pure gift from God: a gift of grace.  It is love that enables us to become instruments of God’s grace in the world. Our love, if it is genuine, becomes the channel through which people can experience something of the love of God.
   There is a wonderful story of an American Journalist who was watching Saint Mother Teresa caring for a man with gangrene. The journalist remarked “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars, to which Mother Teresa replied “Even I wouldn’t do it for that amount. However, I do it out of Love for God.”
  Like Saint Mother Teresa, we Christians live out the story of Jesus in our own particular lives in all sorts of different ways.  We can live it more fruitfully when God makes his home in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. 
   As we approach Pentecost let us pray that the gift of the Spirit may be renewed in our own lives and that we might be open to receive what God is longing to give.  It is only through the gift of the Holy Spirit that we are able to see the love of God in our lives and find the strength to love other people as Jesus loves us. 
  We might not always live out that commandment perfectly, but the love of God is all that we need to see us through.  Those who seek true love rather than revenge or hatred open themselves to the possibilities of greater happiness. As one commentator put it; “while faith makes all things possible, love makes all things easy. Love heals everyone – both those who receive it and those who give it.”
True love which is of God brings out the best in those who dare to do so… people are at their best when they love.
  For as another scripture reminds us
“God is love and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them.”
  And as I say to wedding couples
“Love and be loved… forgive and be forgiven.
Amen.
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Easter Message

4/19/2022

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  Today the whole Church proclaims: “Christ is Risen!”  The traditional reply to this is: “He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!”
   But let’s go back a moment to the gospel reading from John.  At the centre of this story is a Jesus-shaped hole.  All that the disciples first knew is that he was not there: there was no sign of his body and the stone had been rolled away from the tomb.  There was an empty space except for the linen cloths which lay on the ground.
   Despite all this emptiness and absence, we are told that the disciple who first went into the tomb “saw and he believed.”  Something about that scene must have triggered his memory, otherwise all he would have seen would have been that empty space. 
   How we see things often depends on our state of mind.  In the darkness and emptiness of a tomb, the disciple saw the beginning of a story of faith brought to its fulfilment.  It might seem to us a strange way to announce that Jesus was alive.  Perhaps we might think that if we had been Jesus, one of our first actions might have been to creep up on the chief priest and frighten him out of his wits.  Or maybe we might go up to the disciples who deserted him and say: “I told you so!”
   This is not the way Jesus chose.  His disciples begin to see him once again, but in the least expected ways.  “Seeing” is a word that rings through all the resurrection stories.  But ever since then we have been asked to believe without the evidence of our own eyes.  Believing in these distant events can be difficult.  Believing in the difference it has made can be hard too, whether we look at the world, or the church, or at our own lives.
   Where there should be faith, there can sometimes be an empty space, rather like the scene that confronted those first disciples.  On Good Friday, I was listening to a meditation on the radio, where a priest was describing the experience of her son taking his own life.  She spoke of the emptiness, the “gone-ness” that she felt when she saw his familiar possessions in the house.  He was not there and there would always be a space.  But she also spoke about how she had been able to connect with some of his friends and to offer them something of the care and support that she could no longer give to her son.  Nothing could replace him and the scars would remain, but there was life once again.
   In every word of forgiveness, in every good action that is done in someone’s memory, we see a sign that points us towards the resurrection.  Good Friday is still a reality, but Easter did not happen despite Good Friday – it happens because of it.  Through the Cross comes life.  As Christians, our faith calls us to do what St Paul encourages us to do in the letter to the Colossians: to seek the things that are above, even as we live our lives in this world.
   As we look at our world we can see plenty of empty spaces and absences.  We see the terrible losses people are still suffering in Ukraine.  Perhaps we are reminded of our own losses too.  There is no easy way to explain these things away.  But in the darkness and emptiness, people of faith and of goodwill are reminding us that Christ is risen.  They do this not by just saying the words, but by living lives of forgiveness, of compassion and of hope.
   As we look at the empty spaces in our own lives, we have a choice.  We either focus on the loss and on the ending, or we see the signs of a new beginning.  Sadness and loss will always be a part of human life, but what we see makes all the difference.  The hope that arises in our hearts is the fruit of the Resurrection of Our Lord.  Jesus is inviting us to choose life.  When that light of Christ enters our lives then the world looks different and we ourselves are changed.
   Christ is risen because love is stronger than death.  The powers of darkness have done their worst, but the love of God has overcome them all.  In the risen life of Jesus, we too are raised to life.  We can look to the time when all tears shall be wiped away and when everything that is good and beautiful in the lives we live shall be brought to perfection.  Jesus lives, and we live in him, now and for ever.

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Holy Week

4/13/2022

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We begin Holy Week on a note of celebration with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  Despite being acclaimed as a king, Jesus makes sure that he doesn’t play up to the people’s expectations of power.  He enters the city on a donkey to fulfil the words of the prophets, but also to make a mockery of earthly power.
   We see how the celebrations begin to turn darker as we hear the words of the Passion according to St Luke.  The crowds become fickle and the cheers turn to jeers.  The religious authorities become determined to do away with him because he is prepared to speak truth to power.  In the end the Roman authorities, fearing a rebellion, send him to be crucified.
   Throughout this week we witness how the one who is Lord and God is subjected to the worst that the world can throw at him.  Yet, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, we also see how he met that rejection and abuse with gentleness and refused to play the same game.  He trusted only in God.
   On Maundy Thursday we come to see how Jesus gave the example of sacrificial love and of servanthood.  We also see how he came to be denied and rejected by those who were closest to him.  Then on Good Friday we journey with him to the Cross and to his words of mercy: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
   There is a time of waiting and of preparation, before we commemorate that first Easter, when the disciples first became aware that the life that seemed to have been destroyed was still with them.  Hope would rise again and love would triumph.
   We live in a world where there is much violence and where the voices of good people often seem to be drowned out by hatred.  We live in a fickle world, where commitment is often laid aside for convenience or for personal gain.  Holy Week reminds us that despite the worst of our human nature, God’s love will overcome that darkness within us and around us.
   We are invited to walk the way of the cross with Jesus – the path that leads to eternal life.  In the meantime, let’s learn how to serve our King.  In the words of St Andrew of Crete, we are invited to lay ourselves, instead of palms, at the feet of Jesus.  In serving him we love both God and one another - and love is stronger than death
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Lent 5 News and Musings

4/3/2022

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​Forthcoming Events
Services
​Thursday 7th April 9.30am, Stations of the Cross followed by Said Mass at 10.00am.
Sunday 10th April Palm Sunday will be a joint Benefice service at St Peters commencing at 10.30am.

Coffee Morning

As usual from 10.00am on Tuesday, every-one welcome.

Sermon for Lent 5 
  Two women were brought in to stand before a young king.  They were prostitutes and they shared a house. Both had given birth and the son of one of them had died.  Now they were both trying to claim the living son as their own.  This was in the days before DNA testing, so there was no conclusive proof as to who was really the mother.  It was one person’s word against the other’s, but the king had to make a judgement on this. 
   Bring a sword, he said, and cut the boy in two.  Each woman could have half of him.  The immediate reaction of the two women told him the truth.  One of them agreed with the verdict whilst the other begged that the boy might live, even if the other woman was allowed to keep him.  There was no doubt as to who was the true mother.
   You may well by now have realised that the king was Solomon.  The story is told in the first book of the Kings.  This was just one example of the ways by which King Solomon earned a reputation for wisdom. Those who first heard the account of the woman caught in adultery may well have been reminded of this passage about Solomon.  Although the circumstances were different, Jesus, like Solomon, found himself on the horns of a dilemma and it wasn’t immediately obvious how he would resolve it.
   The Jewish religious leaders tried hard to catch Jesus out and here they were trying to set him up once again.  Having caught a woman out in an adulterous affair, they wanted to know whether Jesus would uphold the law of Moses.  These men were unlikely to stone the woman because the Jews were forbidden under Roman law from applying the death penalty.  Only the Roman authorities could do that, which was why the Te mple authorities would have to appeal to Rome to put Jesus himself to death.  It seemed that Jesus had to choose either to condemn the woman and to fall foul of Roman law, or otherwise to declare her forgiven and to be seen not to observe the Mosaic law.  Either way he would be trapped.
   So Jesus takes a different approach.  If the woman had been caught out in adultery, it seems fair to say that the men who brought her in had been caught in the act of hypocrisy.  The challenge that Jesus gives them seems to cut through their judgemental and self-righteous attitudes: “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  One by one, beginning with the eldest, they walk away.
   We see a striking contrast between the condemnation offered by the religious elite and the compassion and mercy of Jesus: “Has no one condemned you?  Neither do I condemn you – go away and don’t sin any more.”  Jesus knows that sin is real and that it can have destructive effects in our lives.  He does not condone sin or try to minimise it, but he meets the sinner with God’s redeeming love.  The woman is set free from her accusers and from the burden of guilt and is able to go away and begin a new life.
   The words of Jesus hold up a mirror to us too.  This is not a message of condemnation for the ways in which we have stumbled or lost our way.  It is a reminder that when we point a finger at other people, we have three fingers pointing back at us.  It is so much more tempting to project our own darkness onto other people than it is to recognise it in ourselves and to bring it before God so that he can shine his light and warmth into it.  Pride is the obstacle that prevents us from seeing ourselves as less than perfect and in need of forgiveness.  Let’s remind ourselves that our attitudes and our words as well as our actions have consequences for ourselves and for others.  We don’t have to pick up stones to throw, because our words can be damaging enough.
   Jesus shows us a better way, in which we leave behind our human judgements and instead look to Jesus as the source of forgiveness and new life.  The woman in the gospel expected to be condemned but instead of this she encounters forgiveness and grace.  Lent, especially Passiontide, is a wonderful opportunity to seek these gifts for ourselves in the sacrament of reconciliation.  It is never easy facing up to our own sinfulness, but the freedom that lies on the other side of this is far greater than our own wounded pride.  No one has the right to judge another person when they themselves are in need of forgiveness.  God gives us the channels of grace in which we find freedom from the tendency to judge and to be condemned ourselves.  How wonderful to hear those words of Jesus echoing through our own lives:
“Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more.”

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