All Saints congregation celebrated the renewal of their church building, and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The service involved people of every generation, with anointing with Chrism oil for the power of the Spirit, lively singing of hymns and songs old and new, and the Eucharist offered at our experimental free-standing Altar - with plenty of incense and flags for good measure!
The church building has a new roof, has been fully painted white and blue inside, and the floors have been scrubbed and cleaned. A new AV system has been installed so we no longer need to rely on service and hymn books although booklets are available for those who need them
Many thanks to all who made such a wonderful homecoming possible.
The service involved people of every generation, with anointing with Chrism oil for the power of the Spirit, lively singing of hymns and songs old and new, and the Eucharist offered at our experimental free-standing Altar - with plenty of incense and flags for good measure!
The church building has a new roof, has been fully painted white and blue inside, and the floors have been scrubbed and cleaned. A new AV system has been installed so we no longer need to rely on service and hymn books although booklets are available for those who need them
Many thanks to all who made such a wonderful homecoming possible.
Dear Friends“But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. So I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord said to my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’”
1 King 5:4-5
According to the bible king Solomon’s temple took 7 years to build and involved thousands of labourers. Up to that point worship of god in ancient Israel had been in a tabernacle or tent. Which makes All Saints’ brief time meeting in the parish centre seem very civilised!
There are elements of the temple that we might recognise in our own church buildings.
Outside there was an Altar, and with it a ‘sea’ 15ft in diameter in which the priests washed themselves, just as we are all washed in baptism. Inside in the sanctuary the bread of the presence was kept, just as we reserve consecrated bread as a focus of prayer and for communion of the sick. Here too in the sanctuary was an altar to burn incense, also a part of our worship today.
This brings us to what is so different about our worship to Solomon’s temple. In the old covenant only the high priest would enter the holy of holies to make a blood offering. Now through sharing in Holy Communion we not only enter the holy of holies, but all become living arks carrying Jesus out into the world, just as Mary did.
Reading the book of Revelation we find a heavenly temple greater than Solomon’s. The signs and symbols of Solomon’s temple are seen in John’s vision of heavenly worship, but all together in one sacred space. It has to be said that many church buildings built through the centuries have tended towards the shape of Solomon’s temple with its exclusive areas, rather than the open temple found in heaven!
It is my hope and prayer that as we return to our historic building for worship that we seek to shape the building around heavenly worship. Maintaining the richness of sign, symbol and sacrament, that are not only part of All Saints’ tradition but rooted in scripture, and doing so in a way that is open and inclusive to all.
God bless,
Eddie
It has been a real privilege to journey through Passiontide and Easter together, and now we look towards Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and God willing, our first service back in the Church building.
In this season our hearts and minds are turned towards closeness with God. Thomas, who although he doubted was the only one to place his hand in Christ’s wounds. The disciples who recognised Jesus in the breaking of bread on the road to Emmaus. The sheep who know the Good Shepherd’s voice. Jesus’ plea “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” And his promise of the Spirit, the comforter.
Through the history of the Church people have had profound experiences of holy intimacy. But there is none who could have been as close to Jesus as Mary his mother, who is described in the bible as having been highly favoured by God – full of His grace. As the mother of Jesus she carried God within her, and the Holy Spirit filled her.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan, a Catholic Priest, who volunteered to die in the place of a stranger in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. He wrote passionately of Mary’s relationship with the Holy Spirit.
In Luke’s Gospel we read of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist:
Mary had such a closeness to God that at her greeting others were filled with the Holy Spirit! Which is one reason that Mary has always been recognised by the church as an inspiration to all Christians. In her perfect humanity and her profound spirituality.
Julian of Norwich is one of the best known English Medieval Mystics. Julian wrote of her ‘Revelations of Divine Love’, speaking of God’s love with joy and compassion when much of the world around her was suffering. In the time of the peasant revolts and the Black Death she wrote:
As St. Paul wrote about Christ being the head and us being the body of the church, Julian understood this not just in terms of a command structure but as a wholeness. We are then as close to, as much a part of Christ, as our own body parts are as close to, as much a part of us.
As we celebrate this Easter season let us then long for a closer walk with God.
In this season our hearts and minds are turned towards closeness with God. Thomas, who although he doubted was the only one to place his hand in Christ’s wounds. The disciples who recognised Jesus in the breaking of bread on the road to Emmaus. The sheep who know the Good Shepherd’s voice. Jesus’ plea “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” And his promise of the Spirit, the comforter.
Through the history of the Church people have had profound experiences of holy intimacy. But there is none who could have been as close to Jesus as Mary his mother, who is described in the bible as having been highly favoured by God – full of His grace. As the mother of Jesus she carried God within her, and the Holy Spirit filled her.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan, a Catholic Priest, who volunteered to die in the place of a stranger in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. He wrote passionately of Mary’s relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Among creatures made in God's image, the union brought about by married love is the most intimate of all. In a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the Immaculata (Mary), in the depths of her very being.
In Luke’s Gospel we read of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist:
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Mary had such a closeness to God that at her greeting others were filled with the Holy Spirit! Which is one reason that Mary has always been recognised by the church as an inspiration to all Christians. In her perfect humanity and her profound spirituality.
Julian of Norwich is one of the best known English Medieval Mystics. Julian wrote of her ‘Revelations of Divine Love’, speaking of God’s love with joy and compassion when much of the world around her was suffering. In the time of the peasant revolts and the Black Death she wrote:
For all humanity that shall be saved by the sweet Incarnation and blissful Passion of Christ, all is the personhood of Christ: for He is the Head and we are His members.
As St. Paul wrote about Christ being the head and us being the body of the church, Julian understood this not just in terms of a command structure but as a wholeness. We are then as close to, as much a part of Christ, as our own body parts are as close to, as much a part of us.
As we celebrate this Easter season let us then long for a closer walk with God.
Holy and Divine Spirit!
Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Your Spouse,
bring the fullness of your gifts into our hearts.
Comforted and strengthened by you,
may we live according to your will and die praising your infinite mercy.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
If you are between 11 & 18 and are part of the church - or know someone who is, then please download and fill in this quick survey - or pick up a paper copy from church!
As passiontide approaches I share a reflection for the coming days.
His father was a carpenter. Not that carpenters, know each other, certainly not from Jerusalem to that rural backwater. But I knew of the family. Generations of carpenters, not from the backwaters but from Bethlehem. A proud family, a good family, and with connections to merchants that traded to the ends of the earth. Craftsman, good work.His mother, well she was young when she married I hear. From a family with good connections too, relatives who served in the temple.
It must have been a shock to his father, not the events that took place in which I had a part, but his son not following the family trade. Closer to his mother perhaps. A very different apprenticeship training to be a Rabbi. And the desert too - they say he spent time with John, that strange teacher whom Herod had beheaded.
It must have shaped him all the same, just as a carpenters shapes the wood. The asking of questions, the learning of the law and all the teachings of the rabbi’s that had gone before. There is plenty to learn as a carpenter’s apprentice, but the Rabbi’s they have to be able to speak the words of Moses and the prophets off by heart.
All that shaping, that working, ended in a terrible way.
He had made quite a stir of course, going through the regions, visiting Jerusalem. They say he healed the sick, spoke words of life. But I never heard him.
I did see him though, coming into the city, riding a donkey. Crowds around him, shouting, praising, waiving branches. His disciples were with him, and he was with them - Not distant from them like some Rabbi’s. He had the care a carpenter would have for his apprentices. He had a carpenters look about him too, it’s hard to explain, a keenness of eye.
And as I stood at the back of the crowd our eyes met, just for a moment. Like the acknowledgement between two craftsman.
Thing is times have been hard. I may be a carpenter but the work I have been doing is nothing like the work of His family. And so when the work came up I took it. I know what we all think of the Romans, but we needed to money. A simple job, no craft or great skill. Rough wood hewn and shaped, two parts one up and one across. And then they take them, make a condemned man carry them and nail the man to them, standing them upright to die.
When I saw him, when our eyes met I had no idea what would follow, of the arrest, of the crowd turning against him. But they took him, they crucified the son of a carpenter, nailed him to the wood that I had crudely shaped.
Perhaps it was because our eyes had met that for the first time I went to the place where the work of my hands was turned to execution. I saw from a way off what only the women would see close up. They were there, with the Romans. His mother and some others.
The men were further away. Some mocked. Others were quieter, I recognised them. Some had been his followers.
I cannot bring myself to say much more about his last hour. There was pain, pain that I was in part responsible for. But something else. It was a death, but not like any other. When a carpenter looks at a block of wood we can see all the things it can become. As He died it was like that, somehow it was like every death – that has been and could be. Like death itself was dying.
Afterwards some said he was a prophet. Some said he was the messiah. Others said that he couldn’t be. That no messiah could come from the rural backwaters. But I knew of His family. Generations of carpenters, not from the backwaters but from Bethlehem. The City of David. The City of the Messiah.
I found his disciples, asked the questions.
I no longer do the work I did.
The wood of death is behind me.
I did see him though, coming into the city, riding a donkey. Crowds around him, shouting, praising, waiving branches. His disciples were with him, and he was with them - Not distant from them like some Rabbi’s. He had the care a carpenter would have for his apprentices. He had a carpenters look about him too, it’s hard to explain, a keenness of eye.
And as I stood at the back of the crowd our eyes met, just for a moment. Like the acknowledgement between two craftsman.
Thing is times have been hard. I may be a carpenter but the work I have been doing is nothing like the work of His family. And so when the work came up I took it. I know what we all think of the Romans, but we needed to money. A simple job, no craft or great skill. Rough wood hewn and shaped, two parts one up and one across. And then they take them, make a condemned man carry them and nail the man to them, standing them upright to die.
When I saw him, when our eyes met I had no idea what would follow, of the arrest, of the crowd turning against him. But they took him, they crucified the son of a carpenter, nailed him to the wood that I had crudely shaped.
Perhaps it was because our eyes had met that for the first time I went to the place where the work of my hands was turned to execution. I saw from a way off what only the women would see close up. They were there, with the Romans. His mother and some others.
The men were further away. Some mocked. Others were quieter, I recognised them. Some had been his followers.
I cannot bring myself to say much more about his last hour. There was pain, pain that I was in part responsible for. But something else. It was a death, but not like any other. When a carpenter looks at a block of wood we can see all the things it can become. As He died it was like that, somehow it was like every death – that has been and could be. Like death itself was dying.
Afterwards some said he was a prophet. Some said he was the messiah. Others said that he couldn’t be. That no messiah could come from the rural backwaters. But I knew of His family. Generations of carpenters, not from the backwaters but from Bethlehem. The City of David. The City of the Messiah.
I found his disciples, asked the questions.
I no longer do the work I did.
The wood of death is behind me.
