Seasonal News from St. Cuthbert's...

... can be found in the December-January double issue of our Parish Magazine. It's now available in print - or you can find it online by clicking here. I'm copying the "View from the Vicarage" page into this post, but do have a look at the rest of it.

Our main services for the end of Advent and Christmas-tide are listed on the right-hand side of this blog - full details also in the Magazine, on our website and on the Parish Christmas Card, available both online (so you can print your own) and on heavy paper! For good measure here's the Christmas advertising poster too (in duplicate!).

Meanwhile, from the Magazine -

Christmas…

… started early for me this year. I try to resist singing Christmas Carols as long as possible - not because I’m a natural curmudgeon, but to save myself up for Christmas when it comes. I really do enjoy making a real start with our Christmas Eve Carol Service when we bless the crib, going on to celebrate the First Eucharist of Christmas at the Midnight Mass.

But this year the lighting of the Shotley Bridge Village Christmas Tree was accompanied by Carols. I turned up to bring the carol sheets and to shout out which we’d sing next. I needed to shout. The crowd was well into three figures - and enthusiastic. “We’ll treat this as a rehearsal,” I yelled. “Come back and sing some more nearer the time!” So I hope the outdoor singers will be back at the tree on Tuesday 20th December - and giving them old copies of a Christmas Eve Carol Service, I hope they’ll note the time and day to turn up in church in droves for the Christingle!

It was great fun. And continued throughout the “Victorian Christmas Spectacular” the next day - with many turning up to make our Christmas Fair so successful.

Now for Advent! That’s the real time of expectation - the not-just-yet of Christ’s coming… And what do we expect of him? So much about the Church seems bad news, at least when the media lays hands on it. So I’m pleased to carry the item on page 19, examining some statistics which bear on the Church’s life: finances and ordinations are holding up, which doesn’t mean we can be complacent, but which is evidence of faith in hard times.

Christ’s is a birth in hard times. And through it there comes hope for a troubled world. The candles we use in the darkness of Christmas services are a sort of symbol that glimmers of light may shine brightest.

A very joyous and holy Christmas to you all, and a blessed and peaceful New Year!

Homily for Remembrance Sunday

I'm getting ahead of myself - and have actually posted my offering for tomorrow before preaching it.

It can be accessed through the Homilies page, and directly via this link.

Commitment and Faith

Giles Fraser, former Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral, has been much in the news recently. But for a long time he'd been booked to take part in Radio 3's "Free Thinking" Festival of Ideas at The Sage, Gateshead. He honoured the booking last Sunday and delivered an excellent lecture on the nature of commitment, taking as his starting point the differing callings of farmers and gunfighters in the film, "The Magnificent Seven." The Hall in which he spoke was packed - a rare occasion when someone can develop a cogent intellectual argument - and get listened to.

The lecture itself wasn't distracted by the events at St. Paul's, but a time for interview and audience questions gave us the opportunity to see how theory and practice relate - and the centrality of Christian faith.

The lecture was broadcast last night on Radio 3. You can listen to it on I-Player and to a podcast version - just follow this link and either play or download.

I didn't tackle "commitment" explicitly on Sunday morning - but it had its place as I tackled the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids; the homily is on this link.

Caught in a Trap?

That's how it seems for the Bishop of London, and the (former) Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral. What started as a protest against financial structures and the banking system has turned into a huge embarrassment all round. It's not as though it's getting the real aims of the camping protestors heard - the news is simply focussed on the fall-out all around them. What's the message that's going to be heard as we approach Remembrance-tide. That's what I ask in the article below from our new Parish Magazine.

You can read the whole magazine here. And there are also new links to what's been preached during the last couple of weeks on Bible Sunday by Rosie Junemann, our Reader, and for All Saints by our Vicar, Martin Jackson.

Here's this month's View from the Vicarage, as it appears in the new Magazine:

Remembrance…

November is the month of remembering. Acts of Remembrance will take place nationwide as well as in our own church and village on Remembrance Sunday, 13^th November. Armistice Day is now restored as a national occasional for silent remembering. This year it will be at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month of the 11^th year of this millennium - but more than an exercise in numbers as we recall the many millions who have died as a result of war.

We can’t avoid the huge losses and wounds of war. When the people of Wootton Bassett turned out in their hundreds to stand silently as the bodies of those killed in Afghanistan were brought home, it wasn’t a repeated empty gesture - it was to say this is about us, here and now, and about what the failure of people to live in peace has brought to us. Silence is perhaps the most appropriate response.

As I write, protestors are camped outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, demonstrating their feelings about the financial institutions and structures of the world we live in. They may have a point - many people say - but what can they hope to achieve? Some of them go off from their tents to work in offices in the very institutions they are protesting about. We are all a part of this mess.

Some have asked if they will clear the camp away before Remembrance Day - a day when we give thanks for those who gave their lives so that people today might be free to demonstrate and protest; but if we fought for that freedom, should we deny it on the steps of that Cathedral?

Freedom and Sacrifice go together, and we do well to remember that. Sacrifices need to be made for the right cause and in the right way; freedoms need to be cherished and used appropriately. And Christians should be able to stand witness to that.

November begins with another remembrance - on All Souls Day as we remember the departed who are dear to us. They are our loved ones. Love is the way we need to do our remembering; it should be the motive for sacrifice; it’s the cause for which our freedom needs to be employed.

And the end of November brings us to Advent - the time to recognise the Coming of Christ, his call to welcome him who is Love himself.

Not so much a post as two links...

... the links being the last two occasions for preaching at St. Cuthbert's (mine technically a repeat because I preached it earlier in the morning at St. John's, Castleside).

You can read both sermons from links on our dedicated Magazine & Homiles page on the Blog. Or go direct: Last Sunday Rosie Junemann asked whether leopards could change their spots in a sermon linked here. This morning I got to deal with civil authority, God and tax - the homily is here.

Updated at last

Life is proving exceptionally busy at the moment - hence the lack of posts on this Blog.

This one is appearing simply to say there have been some updates on the other pages of this blog (accessed by the tabs further up the page) - including the Calendar and Magazine link. The new October issue of the Parish Magazine can be accessed directly by this link; there's lots to read! And our original parish website is also up-dated here.

9/11 - and a fresh start

Yesterday was a strange day for me: the regular pattern of services at St. Cuthbert's, but with the unavoidable recognition of the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks upon the United States; and then in the evening my licensing to an additional new ministry as Priest-in-Charge of the Parish of St. John the Evangelist, Castleside.

You can read what I preached in the morning by clicking here. Sorry I don't have the Bishop's excellent homily to share. But the licensing went well - the only hiccough being an opportunity for a slight detour into Music Hall mode. I was grateful for all the support - and there was a marvellous spread at the Reception. Thanks to all concerned.

Service times at both churches need to change with immediate effect - check this blog page and the links to our websites.