24 March 2021
11:19 | 
Posted by
Dr Platts |
I was listening to the Archbishop of York today on the radio (what a lovely man). After his Covid 19 vaccination, as a way of saying thank you, he made a donation so that other people around the world could be vaccinated. My husband also heard him and said what a good idea, so we made our donation this morning.
You can do this easily via Christian Aid »
Don't forget to tick the box so they can get Gift Aid, making your donation even bigger.
We are lucky in the UK as our vaccination programme seems to be streaks ahead of most other countries. The vaccines currently in use are both highly effective and very safe. The poorer countries will struggle to pay for the much needed vaccines. We can all help the world get back to normal by helping us all to be vaccinated.
21 March 2021
‘THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK’ FROM THE REVEREND STEPHEN GUISE, PRIEST IN CHARGE – SUNDAY, 21 MARCH, FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT – PASSION SUNDAY
‘The Taking of Christ’, Caravaggio, 1602,
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Dear Friends
On this Passion Sunday, for which the lectionary readings are Hebrews 5:5-10 and John 12:20-33, we are invited to meditate once more upon the obedience which Christ offered to the Father in accepting crucifixion and death for our sake, and especially upon the love which impelled that acceptance. So I would commend, for your personal reflections and devotions, the following collection of Scriptural sentences and prayers which offer a memorial, entitled Ad Crucem, of the crucifixion:-
‘When I am lifted up, I will draw everyone to myself.’
‘Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
‘This day you will be with me in paradise.’
‘You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.’
‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’
‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’
‘Truly this was the Son of God.’
‘O Lord Jesus Christ,
who promised to refresh all who come to you in travail,
we offer you our prayer
as we approach the time of your most bitter passion;
mercifully grant that all we have begun in your strength
may be finished for the glory of your Name. Amen.’
‘We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you
because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.’
And, as we hear again on this Passion Sunday the invitation to in the Gospel to follow Jesus like faithful servants, we can reflect, too, upon our own obedience to God, and that this is simply a response to and of the love that has already been shown to us – as the hymn puts it, ‘love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.’
Fr Stephen
Collect
Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Hebrews 5:5-10
A reading from the letter to the Hebrews.
Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest,
but was appointed by the one who said to him,
“You are my Son, today I have begotten you”;
as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
according to the order of Melchizedek.”
In the days of his flesh,
Jesus offered up prayers and supplications,
with loud cries and tears,
to the one who was able to save him from death,
and he was heard because of his reverent submission.
Although he was a Son,
he learned obedience through what he suffered;
and having been made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,
having been designated by God
a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
John 12:20-33
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.
They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and said to him,
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Very truly, I tell you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a single grain;
but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Those who love their life lose it,
and those who hate their life in this world
will keep it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there will my servant be also.
Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled.
And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?
No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven,
“I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder.
Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Jesus answered,
“This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.
Now is the judgment of this world;
now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
will draw all people to myself.”
He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
20 March 2021
Unless there is a very sudden change in circumstances , we are delighted to be able to say that St Mary's will be restarting services on Easter Sunday.
We will be holding a l0am service every Sunday and on the third Sunday of the month when this is a Mattins service, we shall also be having an 8 am Holy Communion service (Please check the Calendar here for more detail). The regulations for social distancing, the wearing of face masks, hand sanitising, no singing will all still be in effect. We will also still only be able to receive the bread and not the wine at communion and the ‘one- way system’ for communion will continue to apply - up the centre aisle and back by the side aisles. We must also continue to minimise the use of microphones and movement and so sidesman duties and reading will continue to be carried out by the churchwardens. Regrettably, we will still be unable to meet for coffee after the service. But, it is another small, but very important, step towards ‘normality’!
14 March 2021
‘THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK’ FROM THE REVEREND STEPHEN GUISE, PRIEST IN CHARGE – SUNDAY, 14 MARCH, FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT AND MOTHERING SUNDAY
‘Christ on the Cross with Mary and St John’, Rogier van der Weyden, c1443-1445
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Dear Friends
The readings provided for today represent an embarrass de richesses since not only do we have those for the fourth Sunday of Lent, but also a number of alternatives for Mothering Sunday which, of course, falls on the same day. I am tempted to pick Exodus 2:1-10, the story of the birth of Moses and his adoption by Pharaoh’s daughter, who calls him Moses because, as she says, ‘I drew him out of the water’ (according to a popular etymology the name was derived from the Hebrew mosheh, ‘to draw out’). She is duped by Moses’ mother and sister – but, in this case, happily so, and as quite often in biblical narratives, circumspection and even cunning can be used by God to bring about good. ‘How can this be so?’ our more self-righteous self may ask, but it is, nevertheless the case that this is reflected in many of the most pivotal Scriptural narratives.
In one of the epistle readings allocated for today, Colossians 3:12-17, St Paul insists, nevertheless, that, as Christians we are called to a higher standard: ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’
For the Gospel there is a choice between Luke 2:33-35 or John 19:25b-27. In the first, the story of the presentation of Christ in the Temple, Simeon addresses Mary and prophesies that ‘a sword will piece your own soul too’, which brings us back down to earth and recalls us to the message of Lent and Jesus’ life-long preparation for his passion, cross and resurrection – and that we, his disciples, will have to share in his suffering if we are also to share in his resurrection.
The other Gospel reading is the exchange at Calvary when Jesus addresses his mother Mary from the cross: ‘Woman, here is your son’ (indicating John, the ‘beloved disciple’) and then to that disciple: ‘Here is your mother’. We are told that ‘from that hour the disciple took here into his own home’ – a foretaste, perhaps, of the embryonic Church?
Fr Stephen
Collect for Mothering Sunday
God of compassion,
whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary,
shared the life of a home in Nazareth,
and on the cross dew the whole human family to himself:
strengthen us in our daily living
that in joy and sorrow
we may know the power of your presence
to bind and to heal;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
1 Samuel 1:20-28
A reading from the first book of Samuel.
Hannah conceived and bore a son.
She named him Samuel, for she said,
“I have asked him of the Lord.”
The man Elkanah and all his household
went up to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice,
and to pay his vow.
But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband,
“As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him,
that he may appear in the presence of the Lord,
and remain there forever;
I will offer him as a nazirite for all time.”
Her husband Elkanah said to her,
“Do what seems best to you, wait until you have weaned him;
only—may the Lord establish his word.”
So the woman remained and nursed her son, until she weaned him.
When she had weaned him, she took him up with her,
along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour,
and a skin of wine.
She brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh;
and the child was young.
Then they slaughtered the bull,
and they brought the child to Eli.
And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord,
I am the woman who was standing here in your presence,
praying to the Lord.
For this child I prayed;
and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him.
Therefore I have lent him to the Lord;
as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.”
She left him there for[m] the Lord.
Luke 2:33-35
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.
The child’s father and mother
were amazed at what was being said about Jesus.
Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary,
“This child is destined
for the falling and the rising of many in Israel,
and to be a sign that will be opposed
so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—
and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
07 March 2021
‘THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK’ FROM THE REVEREND STEPHEN GUISE, PRIEST IN CHARGE – SUNDAY, 7 MARCH, THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
‘Christ Driving the Money-Changes from the Temple’, El Greco, 1568,
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Dear Friends
The three readings set for this Sunday (Exodus 20:1-17, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 and John 2:13-22) are linked particularly by the theme of obedience. The first gives the Ten Commandments in the version provided by the compilers of the book of Exodus. In the second, St Paul emphasizes that, for Christ, the cost of obedience was the Cross, a ‘stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God’, demonstrating that God’s ‘foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’
The passage from the Gospel of John describes the confrontation between Jesus and those who were using the Temple as a market-place – selling cattle, sheep and doves, and acting as money-changers. It is to be noted that Jesus uses the whip of cords for the animals alone. The episode is placed early in the Gospel, and immediately puts Jesus at odds with the Temple authorities (a central theme of the rest of the Gospel), whereas the synoptic accounts include it towards the end, as a prelude to the final confrontation with Pilate and the Jewish religious leaders. Even in John, however, that final confrontation is hinted at when Jesus responds to the question, ‘What sign will you give us for doing this?’, by speaking of the temple of his body: ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up’ – in other words, Jesus’ obedience to his mission, which will lead him to the Cross, will be vindicated at the Resurrection.
In the Johannine account, too, there is an emphasis upon the way in which the episode impressed itself upon the disciples, who came to understand it more fully only after the Resurrection – ‘After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.’
During Lent we, also, are invited to enter more fully upon the way of obedience – obedience not only to the Ten Commandments (which emphasize the wrong we should not do rather than the good we are created to do) but to sharing in the way of the Cross, in whatever way that presents itself to us in our current circumstances – trusting in God’s promise that, ultimately, this is the true path to life, peace and joy.
Fr Stephen
Collect for the Third Sunday of Lent
Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
1 Corinthians 1.8-25
A reading from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians.
The message about the cross
is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written,
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God,
the world did not know God through wisdom,
God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation,
to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom,
and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
John 2.13-22
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
The Passover of the Jews was near,
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves,
and the money changers seated at their tables.
Making a whip of cords,
drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.
He also poured out the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables.
He told those who were selling the doves,
"Take these things out of here!
Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!"
His disciples remembered that it was written,
"Zeal for your house will consume me."
The Jews then said to him,
"What sign can you show us for doing this?"
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple,
and in three days I will raise it up."
Then they said,
"This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and will you raise it up in three days?"
But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
After he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this;
and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
03 March 2021
The Sunday School continues its work on line, and have sent some pictures of their activities in the last 2 weeks. For the first Sunday in Lent they studied the Old Testament reading about Noah's Ark, and looked at the theme that God Loves us. Here is the rainbow that is the sign of the covenant between God and his People.
This week they learned about trust and that we can put our trust in God. One family played the trust game of falling backwards and trusting some one behind us to catch us. Some of the Children weren't too sure about trusting their siblings!!
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