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The Priory and Parish Church of St James, Deeping
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At Easter, at the very beginning of next month, we celebrate new life, both in the resurrection of our Lord and in our own lives made one with his in Holy Baptism. This is the very heart of the faith, and I do urge everyone to do their best to attend worship in Holy Week and at Easter, particularly on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Eve and Easter Day. Details are available elsewhere.
It is also the time of year when the local church takes stock and starts a new year with its annual meetings, taking place this year on Sunday 25th April after the 10am Sung Eucharist. The meetings are to elect churchwardens and representatives of the laity in the deanery synod and in the parochial church council, as well as to receive the accounts and reports and to discuss the way our church is run. If you are to have your say, however, you must be on the church's electoral roll (except that anyone on the civil register of electors can take part in the election of churchwardens).
Prior to the meeting the roll will be revised and if you are not on it, please take a form and submit it to the Vicar or to Bob Leatherbarrow between 20th March and 3rd April. Not only does membership of the roll entitle you to take part in the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, but it ensures that I have your correct name and address in my own records so that you do not miss out on anything! This is separate from the civil register and being on one does not mean you are on the other!
I look forward to seeing a lot of people at worship this Holy Week and Easter, and to seeing new members on the church roll.
7th, 3rd Sunday of Lent
10 am: Exodus 17: 1-7; John 4: 5-42
6 pm: Joshua 1: 1-9; Ephesians 6: 10-20
14th, 4th Sunday of Lent,
Mothering Sunday
10 am: 1 Samuel 1: 20-28; John 19: 25-27
21st, 5th Sunday of Lent
10 am: Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11: 1-45
28th, Palm Sunday
10 am: Isaiah 50: 4-9a; Mark 14: 32 - 15: 39
Institutions, including the Church, have a lot to answer for and many of us have suffered at their hands from time to time. So we need to remember that Christ died and rose again not just to bring redemption and new possibilities to us as individuals, but to our world as well, and to its structures and institutions. Let me explain.
If there is anything contemporary biblical scholars agree upon, it is that Jesus' life and ministry, his preaching, his teaching in parables, his healing, his sharing of meals with sinners and outcasts, and finally his passion and death, all revolved around the reality called the Kingdom of God.
And by Kingdom of God four things are meant: the Kingdom of God has come; evil is not the final answer; the spirit has returned: and the poor and marginalised have the Good News preached to them. It is the forces that opposed the Kingdom of God that murdered Jesus; it is the anti-Kingdom that was responsible for Jesus' crucifixion. To be more precise, it was those who were opposed to Jesus' message about the Kingdom and his activities to bring the Kingdom to the poor and marginalised that sought to put an end to Jesus' life because the Kingdom of God was contrary to their various interests. Jesus willingly and freely accepted his death because he was faithful to his Father's Kingdom of freedom, justice and love. His death on the cross was not "willed" by God the Father, as if the more atrocious were Jesus' pain, the greater would his redemptive power be; rather, his murder was planned and executed by the enemies of the Kingdom.
So it was not his sufferings as such, immense as they were, that brought redemption to the world. Suffering, of whatever form and origin is evil and must be removed; by itself, it has no intrinsic meaning whatsoever. It must not be "accepted" and "offered up" to God as if it were something valuable to God, especially if the sufferings of others are at stake in a kind of perverted apologetics for God's justice. What made Jesus' passion and death redemptive was the Kingdom of God which his death ushered in, and not his pains and sufferings, dreadful though they were.
29th, Monday:
9.30 am Holy Communion
30th, Tuesday:
7.30 pm Holy Communion
31st, Wednesday:
9.30 am Holy Communion
1st April, Maundy Thursday:
7.30 pm Sung Eucharist with Stripping of the
Altar and
Footwashing
2nd, Good Friday:
9.30 am Children's Service
10.30 am The Good Friday Liturgy
3rd, Easter Eve:
8.30 pm The Easter Vigil
4th, Easter Day:
8.00 am Holy Communion
10.00 am Sung Eucharist
6.00 pm Festal Evensong
If you would like to receive Holy Communion this Easter but are prevented from coming to Church by sickness or infirmity please do let Mark or Sonia know as soon as possible so that arrangements can be made to visit you.
The Church Coffee Group, chaired by the Vicar, will be holding its Annual General Meeting in the Church Hall at 10.15am on Thursday 4th March.
Venezuela, on the north coast of South America is a country of great contrasts - beaches, rivers, forests, mountains and jungle teeming with many flowering plants, flora and fauna. Oil took over from agriculture in the 1920's as the major source of wealth but the country was severely hit by the fall in prices in 1983. Inflation (currently running at 70%) and unemployment are major problems for its booming population (67% are currently under 30 years of age). Confidence in the love of God gives hope in desperate situations...
Come and join in this ecumenical service, held this year at St. Guthlac's, Market Deeping. The preacher is the Rev'd. Janet Beadle of the Ness Group.
Please note that there will be no evening service this year.
This month begins with the celebration on 1st March of St. David, patron saint of Wales. Why not make these simple and delicious Welsh Cakes for tea?
1. Place flour in a bowl and rub in margarine until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Add sugar and currants and mix well. Add eggs and mix to a soft dough.
3. Knead lightly and roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 6 mm (¼ inch) thickness.
4. Cut into rounds and cook in a preheated lightly greased griddle or heavy based frying pan until browned on both sides. Dust with caster sugar.
Makes 18 - 24 Preparation time 15 mins. Cooking time 10 mins.
This recipe can easily be halved for less amounts
A joint venture of the Deepings churches to be held on the weekend 31st July/1st August will include open gardens and other floral activities and attractions. If you would like to open your garden or be involved in some other way, please contact Judy Robinson on 343383 or Judy@georgians.demon.co.uk
The annual Spring Clean of the Church building will be from Monday 22nd to Wednesday 24th March. If you can spare some time to help with the cleaning, please sign your name on the notice board at the back of Church.
This year's Mothers' Union Banner Service will be held at 7.30 pm on 25th March at Morton Church.
An evening of activities for all ages based on the Christian Aid theme 'Drop the Debt' The evening will include quizzes, games and other activities exploring the causes and effects of Third World debt and what can be done about it.
During my life I have been fortunate enough to have travelled in many countries in the world.
I have visited most Western European countries, even lived in two, and travelled to countries in North Africa, and to Kenya twice to see wild animals in their natural habitat. Another trip included a stop over in Canada, a day or two in San Francisco, going on to Hawaii, the Pacific island of Guam then to Hong Kong, a city that never sleeps. From there I made a brief stop in Singapore and a night in Cyprus before returning to Britain.
But all of the above did not leave such a lasting impression on me as the recent two weeks spent living and working in India.
After an 8½-hour flight from Heathrow I landed into a foggy Delhi airport and was collected and taken to my hotel for an overnight stop. During the short journey the volume of traffic surprised me at 11.30 at night, especially the lorries. This I was told was due to the fact that heavy transport is banned from the city highways during the hours of daylight owing to the crowded roads.
I was duly ensconced in a luxurious room on the ninth floor and looked out of my window only to be confronted by the thickest fog that I have ever encountered. I could not even see the edge of the balcony! I found out the following day that Delhi airport had been closed to aircraft one hour after I landed. This apparently is not at all unusual.
Following a night's sleep I awoke to a glorious sunny morning and looked out of the window. The view across the city really could have been any large city in the world, tall buildings, small buildings, mosques and temples. This with parks and green areas made a quite attractive cityscape.
But then I was taking a wide-angle vista of this city. What I had failed to do was look closer to home, that is immediately below my room. Nine floors below were a family living on the pavement. I could see granddad, father, mother and son of about fifteen years literally living on the pavement with no overhead shelter at all. Their wardrobe was the hedge. There were two home-made bed frames with no mattresses or covers, one of which was occupied by granddad. I assume that they had chosen that particular spot because of the water tap that sprouted from the wall. From my lofty view I could see no visible signs of food or the means to contain it.
The thought that went through my head was that the cost of one night in my hotel would have fed the whole family for a year. It also started my thoughts on how I would remember India. It was four 'P's. People; Poverty;Pollution and paper.
to be continued
The Vicarage now has a separate number for facsimile transmissions, so the sending of faxes will be very much simpler in future, not depending upon someone being there to receive them manually.
The new number is 345877, and should only be used for fax, please. The telephone number continues to be 345890 and should only be used for telephone calls.
We commend to God's keeping:
whose funerals were held at Peterborough Crematorium on 12th, 21st and 25th January respectively,
and also Frances-Anne McBride (42), for whom a memorial service was held at the Priory Church following a funeral in Scotland.
This is only an extract from some of our magazine. Residents of Deeping St James can subscribe to the printed version.
Back issues are available on line as follows:
November 1997;
December 1997;
January 1998;
February 1998;
March 1998;
April 1998;
May 1998;
June 1998;
July 1998;
August 1998;
September 1998;
October 1998;
November 1998;
December 1998;
January 1999;
February 1999.