Gentleness

Dear All Saints and St Marys

How do we live well in a world that marks many different life defining moments, almost simultaneously? The last 48 hours has brought us the news and horror of an attack on a synagogue during the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur. The news has also brought again a week of witnessing to continued bombing of Gaza and the subsequent loss of life. It has also been a week when a cure for Huntington's Disease is seemingly possible, and one when the Church of England has made a historic appointment of the first woman to be the Archbishop of Canterbury.  There are things to mourn, times to weep and yet also things of thanksgiving and wonder and celebration. Is it okay to celebrate one thing at the same time as feeling aggrieved in prayer at another? How do we square that? Should we even try to make sense of it? Can we find genuine joy in one thing when it sits alongside tragedy in another? 

Today, the 4th October, is the day the church remembers St Francis of Assisi. A Saint whose story filled both extremes of wealth and chosen poverty. He may not have been aware in the 12^th century of global news from around the world, but he did experience the extremes of both sorrow and joy. One of the striking things about Francis is perhaps once he had made his choice about how he was going to follow God, he appeared to have made peace with that decision, and in that he became a man of peace. A gentle, simple appreciative life was lived in the service of others and the created world. It was his intentional living in this way that perhaps gave rise to some of his more famous moments of compassion. No doubt he continued to have the same human responses of anger and injustice as others around him at what he saw and experienced. Yet he practiced peace. And for that I am truly grateful.

SERVICES THIS SUNDAY 5^th OCTOBER

10am - St Marys - Creative Church - Looking at Eve

10.30am - All Saints - Harvest Festival Holy Communion Celebration with Band and Junior Church and Harvest Lunch

6.30am - Choral Evensong for Dedication at St Marys

THE WEEK AHEAD

Mon 6thOct 10:30am – Tiny Tots, All Saints

Tue 7th Oct 10:30am – M4T, St. Marys Parish Rooms

Weds 8th Oct 9:00am – Celtic Morning Prayer, All Saints

Thurs 9th Oct 10:00am – Holy Communion, St. Marys

Sat 11th Oct 12:00pm - 1:30pm – Saturday Lunches, St. Mary’s

Sun 12th Oct 8:00am – Holy Communion, All Saints

                          10:00am – Holy Communion, St. Mary’s

                          10:30am – Pet Service, All Saints

                           7:15pm – Generations, The Wood

Please find attachments of readings and weekly sheets - of events and services this weekend and next.

Peace.

Revd Lizzie