Here we are at Pentecost already, 50 days since Easter, and we gathered this morning to celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit into the world, as Our Lord told us. The Eucharist was celebrated by Father Stephen, who in his sermon told us about the gifts of the Spirit or Char-isms, from which the word charismatic comes. These gifts are many, and we often do not know we have them, but with Faith we can use them for the work that we are sent to do.
The choir sang 'I will sing with the Spirit' by John Rutter at the end of the Communion.We were treated to the first use of our new sound system, which made the whole service much clearer and is a great improvement,Thank you to those who helped select and organise this new and much welcome replacement, a great help to all hard of hearing or not!!
There was coffee after the service.
Next week  we reach Trinity Sunday, and the week after the 7th of June will be our Rogation Walk.

Red for the Holy Spirit!

Last Thursday was Ascension Day, which we celebrated with a Eucharist at 7:30 in the evening, Despite a cold and rainy day a few brave people came out to celebrate the ascension of Our Lord, and to anticipate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
On Sunday we continued to think about the events of the ascension at our Matins service.Father Stephen spoke about the Old Testament lesson from Isiah, and the New Testament lesson from St John. There is no description of the ascension in St John, but there are many references to the coming of the Spirit and the return of Our Lord at the end of times. We were treated to a solo by Lucy our senior young Chorister, who is working towards her next award.
The Choir sang 'God has gone up with a merry noise' by Croft. There was coffee after the service.

We look forward to Pentecost next week.

This Sunday, the first of the month, was our Family Service. We had a special theme for this service, Baptism. We had invited the families of those who have been Baptised at St Mary''s over the past few years to join us, and several did. Many of the babies were now quite big!!!  The service included a demonstration of Grafting plants from Gloria, involving quite a few of the children and some mud in the process. Then Father Stephen talked to us about the symbolism of Baptism, and how we are grafted to Christ in this sacrament.. We then renewed our Baptismal vows and were sprinkled with holy water. The Choir sang a communion hymn, 'loving Shepard of thy sheep' and the 23rd Psalm setting by Howard Goodall. There was coffee after




the service.