The monthly Newsletter is now included in the new Benefice Magazine called "The View"
This excellent publication is packed with information about all activities of the four Churches in the Benefice: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary.
The monthly magazine, priced at 50p, is available at the back of each of the Churches and at numerous outlets (Pubs, shops and Post Offices) throughout the four parishes. The magazine also contains numerous useful advertisements for products and services available.
Well worth every penny - buy one today !!
Monday, 19 March 2012
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Newsletter January 2012
All the festivities are over for another year. Some of us will be hoping that the winter
won’t be too long, and that soon the daffodils will peep through giving us a
glimpse of the coming spring. I foundthis poem that I would like to share with you. It’s based on the magi that travelled so far to worship the Christ Child. They are warned in a dream not to return to King Herod, and to go home another way.
After the star, the dim day.
After the gifts, the empty hands.
And now we take our secret way
back to far lands
After the cave, the bleak plain.
After the joy, the weary ride.
But journey we, three new-made men,
side by side.
Came we by old paths by the sands.
Go we by new ones this new day,
homewards to rule our lives and lands
by another way.
Author unknown
January is a time when we remember the old, and look forward
to the new. What will this New Year bring? You may not see me as much during January and February as I am working a placement at Madron and Gulval Parishes as part of my training towards Ordination. It will be interesting to see how life and worship goes on in these places and to take an active part in the services.
In the light of all the celebrations and worship we have shared together this last Christmas, I hope that the Christ Child has inspired us to live ‘another way’, just like the magi. May God be with us as we face all the challenges that 2012 may bring.
Blessings,
Annie
Friday, 2 December 2011
December Newsletter
Holding onto the Divinity of Jesus
Now it is truly winter, our season of celebration is about to begin. We have lots of great events to look forward to: ‘Christingle Services’ at Ludgvan & Perranuthnoe, the lighting of many Christmas trees and ‘The Christmas Tree Festival’ at Marazion, many, many Carol Services and Nativity Presentations in churches, school halls and pubs to enjoy, as well as our own preparations, card, food and present-buying to accomplish by December 25th.
In recent years much stress has been placed in theological circles on the ‘humanity’ of Jesus: ‘He was just an ‘ordinary’ baby, born to an unmarried teenage mother, in a cold, out-house stable’. Indeed, the birth of the Christ-child prefigures and sanctifies the coming of all new human life into the world (in whatever circumstances – however ‘poor’ or ‘mean’ or ‘lowly’) and the Nativity Story provides us with a template for our own private ‘nativities’: how many grandparents have not made long journeys bearing gifts to welcome a new child into a family?
However, all our ‘coo-ing’ and ‘aaah-ing’ at Nativity plays and Children’s Services of Light should not lull us into a feeling that we are just welcoming ‘another’ baby into the world: Jesus is not an ‘ordinary’ baby: he is the Divine ‘Son of God’, the ‘True Light’, ‘The Word made Flesh’ as the opening Chapter of St John’s Gospel informs us. John, Chapter One will surprise us once again as it is read out at many Carol Services in the Christmas Season and as it elucidates the sheer scale, grandeur and poetic vision of Who it is we are celebrating coming to us at Christmastime: the Christ-child is the pre-existent ‘Word of God’, who has been with us since the dawn of time, he is our God made human, come amongst us.
The wonder of God trapping himself in human form is enough to behold, but Jesus comes into the world not only with a need to be loved and cuddled and provided with a ‘baby-grow’ (he gets ‘swaddling bands instead!): the Christ-child comes to us with a challenge. As we read the predictions of the prophets Isaiah, Zephaniah and Malachi in the Advent lead-up to Christmas we learn how Jesus comes with ‘the zeal of the Lord of Hosts’ to challenge rulers and to judge the world, ‘to bring down the Mighty from their seat’ (Luke 1:52) and bring in and establish his reign of justice, righteousness and peace: the prophet Isaiah tells us the Messiah is ‘Mighty Counsellor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace’ (Isaiah 9:6).
In all our joyful Christmas celebrations let us keep hold of the majesty of the Event we are celebrating: God coming to be made with us in the Christ-child, to bring challenge and Light to ‘the principalities and powers’ of this ‘present darkness’ and this ‘passing age’ (Ephesians 6:12), to establish his rule of justice, mercy and peace forever.
I very much hope to see you over the Christmas period, (and, not forgetting, our celebrations in the Benefice continue in January, with the Celebration of St Hilary Feast on 15 January, Ludgvan Feast on 22 January and Candlemass on 29 January).
May all your own preparations and celebrations go well and may your hearts be made ready this Advent to welcome Jesus, the Divine Son of God.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay
(Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Newsletter November 2011
What a day we had with Bishop Tim on 4 October. His visit was accompanied with the hottest weather in October for many a year and provided us with the best of all worlds to walk the Pilgrims Way from Ludgvan, where he blessed the magnificent mural in the Murley Hall, then on to Marazion for the wonderful 150th anniversary celebrations and then, after a splendid lunch, some of us walked on to Perranuthnoe for tea and cake and blessing of the Church Rooms.
From there we all moved back to Marazion to the School where we had a great deal of fun in our outdoor worship with the Bishop (who remembers the Superman Grace he taught us?) parents, children and staff in their new outdoor facility. Well done Dom for creating this worship time.
Not to mention….more lovely cake and scones and cream and jam and tea and coffee and ……….I am sure you get the picture!
I unfortunately was unable to do the walk because someone had to carry the Bishop’s jacket! (That’s my excuse and I am sticking to it) but well done those who did do any part of the walk).
During the service in All Saints Marazion the Bishop blessed a newly restored alter frontal, a whole lot of new pew bibles and he also licensed me as Associate Priest in our Benefice.
So what does “Associate Priest” mean? And why wasn’t Lilian made “Associate Priest?” Why was Lilian a perpetual Assistant Curate? I have been asked.
The answer lies in the new – since February of this year – Common Tenure for all clergy in the Church of England.
Under Common Tenure my old 5 year Licence, given at my priesting in 2008, has been revoked and my new Licence has been granted. My new Licence from the Bishop is given because I am now deemed to be fully trained in the ways of the priesthood so no longer a Curate but a fully fledged Priest.
Dom will remain a Curate until he too has completed his training then he will, in all probability, leave us and take on his own Parish where he will be the Associate Priest, or Vicar or Rector or whatever.
Annie will also become a Curate next year and she will then start her next phase of training with Nigel and Dom.
If all of this sounds very “Church of England” then please be assured – it is! I had thought all this through and researched as best I could when I came across the fact that “Associate Priest” isn’t a new title - there have been Associate Priests in the Diocese for many years – long before Common Tenure was thought of but I have no explanation for that – maybe they’re not as Associate as I am!
So your clergy team now consists of our Rector Nigel, House for Duty Priest Noel, together with Reader Lesley, Associate Priest Beth, Assistant Curate Dom and Ordinand Annie along with the indispensable retired priests John, Frank, David and Leslie who do so much to help in the Benefice and without whom the whole thing couldn’t work.
I do hope that clarifies the situation – just a little bit anyway.
Having sorted out what we are called, we now have to put our vision of the future forward – much more important.
Who knows – except God Himself – what the future will bring but some of our plans for the next exciting year in our Benefice for 2012 are:-
the Easter Celebrations – watch this space, the Benefice visit to Westminster Abbey on 17th June, the Ordination of Annie and the Priesting of Dom the following day at the end of June followed in October by Dom and Hannah’s wedding.
We journey on with God and while He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow I am very pleased to say that our God also delights in doing a new thing. I hope and pray that we do too.
All love, from your new and very excited Associate Priest, Beth xx
Friday, 30 September 2011
Newsletter October 2011
HOPE
A dictionary definition of the word ‘hope’: is a small bay, an inlet; a haven – perhaps a suitable description for parts of our United Benefice here at Mounts Bay.
A further definition is: a desire of some good, accompanied with an expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable; an expectation of something which is thought to be desirable.
This time of year we are all filled with hope, we hope for a good harvest and for not too harsher winter. We hope that the children get back to school ok and we look on during the coming months for those who face uncertainty in their jobs as they hope for clarity and those that face difficulties with finances as they hope for some ease to help them.
As I move around our benefice I too am filled with hope because there is so much happening:
·Today I have left the Murley Hall at Ludgvan, which was filled with people eating bacon butties and buying fruit and veg at the autumn fair.
·There is a real sense of excitement in the air in Marazion as preparations pick up a pace for the Bishop’s visit on the 2nd of October.
·St. Hilary’s heritage centre is thriving with the hope that this will continue and grow
·Perranuthnoe are filled with expectation at the launch of the new churches together youth group ‘Alive’ and
·We approach our home group with hope that we can come closer to our Lord Jesus through his ‘I am Saying’s.
Hope: a desire of some good, accompanied with an expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable.
But what do we do when hope dies?
Our hearts and prayers go out to the community and families in Wales as the BBC headlines read ‘Welsh mine tragedy: Hope ends in tears for families’ and the country reflects on what for them must seem like a hopeless situation.
Christians have a sure and certain hope, the hope of resurrection through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Another word for ‘hope’ is ‘confidence’. By substituting this word we have: Christians have a sure and certain confidence, the confidence of resurrection through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Those of you that are attending the home groups will be spending time looking at Jesus’ saying in John, chapter 11: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me, will never die”.
I don’t want to spoil the home group for you, but just to say that this is the saying that we hinge our hope, expectation, and anticipation on, this is an amazing claim to hear from Jesus, both in its context after Lazarus’ death but also today in 2011.
I pray that the families, friends and community of the Welsh miners may find hope and comfort in these words and my brothers and sisters, Jesus’ words of hope and resurrection are for you also.
As we enter this next month in the life of the benefice there is lots to be hopeful for, a lot to be confident in and a lot to look forward to - but can I urge you to take a moment to stop and remember those who have trouble in finding this hope. Pray for them to seek and find the hope of Jesus Christ our Lord.
When the headlines speak of hopelessness and the world seems a dark place, remember that Christ is our light, our hope, our confidence and our courage.
Revd. Dom Jones
Assistant Curate The United Benefice of Mounts Bay (Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
Friday, 9 September 2011
Newsletter September 2011
‘May we live simply so others may simply live’.
Jesus seemed oddly interested in our storage arrangements too, how we keep and hoard so many possessions that we have to build bigger extensions and barns to house it all (Luke 12:16-30). Jesus instructs us to sit lightly to all we own, otherwise ‘rust and moth decay’ and ‘thieves break in and steal’, as the big stores of our land (the ‘Sony Warehouse’s and ‘Staples Superstores’) recently discovered.
A contrasting picture that has haunted me over recent weeks was the picture of young men lifting a plasma television screen out of a ‘Currys’ shop-front window in Clapham Junction and a woman in Ethiopia carrying all the wood she could manage on her back to a refugee camp to escape from her village and the famine in the Horn of Africa. Both were carrying what they saw as ultimately valuable.
The pictures from the Horn of Africa are once again shocking. Even after so much effort was poured into relieving the situation there, despite all the emergency relief aid given in the 1980s and the long term development aid, the area remains resolutely poor, the need is too vast and huge, and the population dependent upon subsistence farming. Due to the recent drought (which has now lasted for three years) the region has once again plunged into famine.
There is such a disparity between these two pictures, isn’t there? Between the fortunes of our own society obsessed with the collection of the latest consumer durables (sometimes at any cost) and needing ‘Storage Solutions’ and my Ethiopian woman with her pile of wood and the millions who have lost everything: farm, home and village. Perhaps we can bear them in mind as we are coming to the time of Harvest Celebrations, as the season turns, and as there is a nip in the evening air and the nights noticeably drawing in,.
We pray that our own local farmers may have good yields but we also pray for those in our world who have little or nothing, and we pray that we give generously to alleviate their need. ‘To us to whom much is given, much more is expected’, Jesus says (Luke 12:48). A Prayer written by a Parishioner for our recent ‘Sacred Space’ Prayer on the theme of ‘the healing of the nations, captures this for me:
‘For ourselves that each in our own place that we may be people of peace and well-springs of hope.’
This Harvest-time, as we give thanks for all God’s gifts around us, may we too think about our own acquisitive needs and chose to live more simply so that others may simply live.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay
(Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
Monday, 1 August 2011
Newsletter August 2011
Most of you know that I am now about to begin my second year in training with the South West Ministry Course and a number of you have helped me over the last year by filling in questionnaires relating to a local survey, assessing my sermons and leading worship. Thank you for the time you have taken over this and also, for all the encouragement and support.
This week, I was asked to take my first funeral with Beth at my side, and I thought I would share the latter part of my address with you. I think we all need reminding sometimes how awesome, wonderful and BIG the love of our God is.
“As a Christian I believe in heaven. It’s hard for us to imagine, but I believe that heaven is just like coming home, where everything is perfect – just like God always intended our world to be. Jesus tells us that He is the Way and that he will come and take our hand to lead us home – home to the Father God.
God’s love is SO BIG, and that - for us mere humans, is also hard to imagine. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, not even death. God’s love is like a river that flows on from this world to the next. God’s love is so big that he can hold everyone in it. Even those who may not think they want to be held in it. God’s love is so big that he loves us just as we are, warts and all! And God loves us all far too much to ever, ever let any of us go.”
Love and blessings
Annie
Saturday, 25 June 2011
July Newsletter
‘Welcome’ & ‘Hospitality’
‘Welcome’ said the mat on the floor, and the ‘Welcome’ really was a genuine one, as I was greeted with a smile, a handshake and made a warming cup of tea. ‘Welcome’ and ‘Hospitality’ are what the Cornish do well, and, if you are visiting Cornwall for the first time, a lot of preparation has already taken place prior to and in preparation for your visit: house and shop-fronts have been painted and much tidying up and sprucing up has taken place. As well as the readiness and preparation of shops, campsites, pubs, hotels and B & Bs, those traditionally involved in providing ‘hospitality’, many residents in Cornwall will also be preparing to welcome friends and family to their homes in the next two months. And as well as providing a genuine ‘Welcome’ we hope to learn and gain from our visitors, from their own insights and pilgrimage through life.
‘Welcome’ and ‘Hospitality’ are very much Christian virtues. Jesus enjoyed the hospitality at many peoples’ homes: at Mary and Martha’s home (Luke 10:38-42) and at Zacchaeus’ home (Luke 19:5), and Jesus could soon detect whether the ‘welcome’ was genuine, as he did when he visited Simon the Pharisee’s home (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus told his disciples that when they visited a town or village, they were to look for someone to welcome them and stay with them. Jesus said: “When you go into a house say, ‘Peace be with you’. If the people in that house welcome you, let your greeting of ‘Peace’ remain there”. (Matthew 10:11-12).
If you are visiting us, we hope that you will find a genuine ‘Welcome’ in this traditional place of Christian Pilgrimage at all four churches of our Benefice, if you’ve just ‘popped in’ to have a look around or if you’ve come for a Service. We are a lively, prayerful and active Christian community. And there is much for you to join in with in the months of July and August.
‘Welcome’ said the mat on the floor, and the ‘Welcome’ really was a genuine one, as I was greeted with a smile, a handshake and made a warming cup of tea. ‘Welcome’ and ‘Hospitality’ are what the Cornish do well, and, if you are visiting Cornwall for the first time, a lot of preparation has already taken place prior to and in preparation for your visit: house and shop-fronts have been painted and much tidying up and sprucing up has taken place. As well as the readiness and preparation of shops, campsites, pubs, hotels and B & Bs, those traditionally involved in providing ‘hospitality’, many residents in Cornwall will also be preparing to welcome friends and family to their homes in the next two months. And as well as providing a genuine ‘Welcome’ we hope to learn and gain from our visitors, from their own insights and pilgrimage through life.
‘Welcome’ and ‘Hospitality’ are very much Christian virtues. Jesus enjoyed the hospitality at many peoples’ homes: at Mary and Martha’s home (Luke 10:38-42) and at Zacchaeus’ home (Luke 19:5), and Jesus could soon detect whether the ‘welcome’ was genuine, as he did when he visited Simon the Pharisee’s home (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus told his disciples that when they visited a town or village, they were to look for someone to welcome them and stay with them. Jesus said: “When you go into a house say, ‘Peace be with you’. If the people in that house welcome you, let your greeting of ‘Peace’ remain there”. (Matthew 10:11-12).
If you are visiting us, we hope that you will find a genuine ‘Welcome’ in this traditional place of Christian Pilgrimage at all four churches of our Benefice, if you’ve just ‘popped in’ to have a look around or if you’ve come for a Service. We are a lively, prayerful and active Christian community. And there is much for you to join in with in the months of July and August.
At Perranuthnoe on Thursday afternoons Cream Teas are served outside our Church Rooms there, and there will be a Churches Together Sing-a-long on Sunday 31st July at 6pm (with Pasty Supper to follow).
At All Saints, Marazion we are in our 150th Anniversary year, and we are holding two concerts, one in July and with the ‘Richmond Singers’ in August. We are also hoping to hold a Wedding Exhibition 10-12 August.
We celebrate St Hilary Pilgrimage on Wednesday 10 August at 7.30pm with the Archdeacon of Cornwall.
Family Services are at 10am at Ludgvan 17 July & 28 August and at 11.15am at Perranuthnoe 10 July & 28 August. You are warmly invited to our United Benefice Beach Service with Baptisms at Marazion Red River on Sunday 21 August at 4pm.
If you are looking for something more quiet and contemplative, Choral Evensong will take place at 4pm on Sunday 10 July at Ludgvan and Sunday 7 August at Marazion. Sacred Space, our quiet, silence and chant-based Service will take place at Marazion, every day Tuesdays-Saturdays 4-4.30pm in August.
In our Benefice too, ‘Welcome’ and ‘Hospitality’ is very much on our mind, as we are delighted to welcome our new Curate, Revd Dom Jones, who will be made a Deacon at Truro Cathedral on Friday 1st July at 7.30pm and we have a special United Benefice Welcome Service for Dom on Sunday 3rd July at 10am at Ludgvan, with a Welcome Bring & Share Lunch to follow. Dom has written an introductory piece about himself elsewhere in the Magazine, and we really hope and pray that Dom will be happy here with us for the next three-four years of his Curacy, and find our welcome and our hospitality both genuine and heartfelt, and that we may learn from him and his own ‘walk with God’.
In our Benefice too, ‘Welcome’ and ‘Hospitality’ is very much on our mind, as we are delighted to welcome our new Curate, Revd Dom Jones, who will be made a Deacon at Truro Cathedral on Friday 1st July at 7.30pm and we have a special United Benefice Welcome Service for Dom on Sunday 3rd July at 10am at Ludgvan, with a Welcome Bring & Share Lunch to follow. Dom has written an introductory piece about himself elsewhere in the Magazine, and we really hope and pray that Dom will be happy here with us for the next three-four years of his Curacy, and find our welcome and our hospitality both genuine and heartfelt, and that we may learn from him and his own ‘walk with God’.
So in July and August we put out our ‘Welcome’ mats for all our visitors, and particularly, as we welcome our new Curate Dom here amongst us.
God Bless you throughout this Summertime,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay
(Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
God Bless you throughout this Summertime,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay
(Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
Monday, 30 May 2011
June 2011 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
John Wesley tells us in his journal that his heart was strangely warmed when he attended a meeting of the Moravians. People down through the ages have encountered the presence of God in so many different ways. Pascal,the French philosopher and practicing Roman Catholic, describes a dramatic moment in his prayers when he had a burning bush encounter like Moses. He describes it as Fire, Fire the God of Abraham and Isaac!
Sadly the church has frequently lost this encounter with the divine. In the sacrament we can talk of the real presence but ,in truth, it lacks any spiritual umph because it is merely nice churchy words. We can talk about finance but forget the fire. We can devise endless programs of training and finish as ineffective as when we started. There is a world out there searching for fresh meaning to living and we remain incapable of saying anything that means something to our contemporaries.
On that first day of Pentecost Peter spoke to the crowd with immediate effect. We are told 3000 were baptized. Somehow we need a new Pentecost. The third great festival of the Christian year has become a bit of a Cinderella feast. It is the one thing we all need to rediscover the presence of the living God in our lives and in our churches. Where do we begin?
This Pentecost we could undertake a simple reflection in our prayers to empty ourselves of self promotion, naked ambition, and preoccupation with the secular and expect the encounter with God to be for real. We need to wait as they did to be clothed with power from on high. People about us are searching for fresh meaning in their lives. With this power from on high we can build bridges to them. We can draw them into the reality of God that we have discovered ourselves.
When I was first ordained I read a book about the post War Diocese of Coventry entitled Fire over Coventry. Of course, it was a play on words for a very different fire had brought terror and destruction to that ancient city during devastating air raids. The church with its new cathedral was challenged to renew lives as well as the building. For that the fire of Pentecost had to be discovered afresh in its life and in its members. The same fire needs to be over our churches and our Benefice. We need to encounter the God of the burning bush and to know that when He tells us “I am” has sent us such a reality fills us and surrounds those we seek to help. Renewed in spirit may we be ready to face the world with a fresh understanding of what it means to go into all the world and make disciples.
God bless you this Pentecost
Noel Michell.
John Wesley tells us in his journal that his heart was strangely warmed when he attended a meeting of the Moravians. People down through the ages have encountered the presence of God in so many different ways. Pascal,the French philosopher and practicing Roman Catholic, describes a dramatic moment in his prayers when he had a burning bush encounter like Moses. He describes it as Fire, Fire the God of Abraham and Isaac!
Sadly the church has frequently lost this encounter with the divine. In the sacrament we can talk of the real presence but ,in truth, it lacks any spiritual umph because it is merely nice churchy words. We can talk about finance but forget the fire. We can devise endless programs of training and finish as ineffective as when we started. There is a world out there searching for fresh meaning to living and we remain incapable of saying anything that means something to our contemporaries.
On that first day of Pentecost Peter spoke to the crowd with immediate effect. We are told 3000 were baptized. Somehow we need a new Pentecost. The third great festival of the Christian year has become a bit of a Cinderella feast. It is the one thing we all need to rediscover the presence of the living God in our lives and in our churches. Where do we begin?
This Pentecost we could undertake a simple reflection in our prayers to empty ourselves of self promotion, naked ambition, and preoccupation with the secular and expect the encounter with God to be for real. We need to wait as they did to be clothed with power from on high. People about us are searching for fresh meaning in their lives. With this power from on high we can build bridges to them. We can draw them into the reality of God that we have discovered ourselves.
When I was first ordained I read a book about the post War Diocese of Coventry entitled Fire over Coventry. Of course, it was a play on words for a very different fire had brought terror and destruction to that ancient city during devastating air raids. The church with its new cathedral was challenged to renew lives as well as the building. For that the fire of Pentecost had to be discovered afresh in its life and in its members. The same fire needs to be over our churches and our Benefice. We need to encounter the God of the burning bush and to know that when He tells us “I am” has sent us such a reality fills us and surrounds those we seek to help. Renewed in spirit may we be ready to face the world with a fresh understanding of what it means to go into all the world and make disciples.
God bless you this Pentecost
Noel Michell.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
May 2011 Newsletter
Being ‘Easter People’
I don’t know which stage of life you feel you in at this present moment?: we talk of people being in the ‘autumn’ of their lives or at the end of their days going to live in ‘Winter Heights Nursing Home’ (or some such name), or whether you feel you are in a wilderness time, struggling with ill-health, the death of a loved one or family worries.
As Christians, whatever we are feeling or whichever stage of life we feel we are in at this present-time, we are called, above all else, to be ‘Easter People’, reflecting the joy of the Risen Lord’s eternal presence with us, and living in the light of Jesus’ glorious Resurrection from the dead: that is why Christianity’s principal Holy Day is on a Sunday, the Son’s Day, the day of Jesus’ Resurrection.
Although we may not feel like it all the time, every Sunday should be an Easter Day, a Celebration, a celebration of Jesus conquering sin and death once and for all time. The early Church were attuned to the seasons and they cannily knew what they were doing when they placed Easter, Our celebration of new life, in the emerging Springtime, amongst all the new verdancy, vitality, new blossom and the warming up of the Earth.
Throughout May and Eastertide this year, we are treated to the some of the most sublime and beautiful stories Sunday by Sunday in our Bible Readings: the stories of the Risen Jesus’ encounter and re-acquaintance with his friends: we will hear Mary in the Easter Garden call Jesus ‘Rabboni’ and Jesus injunction to Mary ‘not to cling to him’; we will go with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus who exclaim that their ‘hearts burned within us as he talked to us on the road’, and whose ‘eyes were opened’ when Jesus broke the bread before them, we shall see Jesus appear to his disciples in the Upper Room, encouraging them to ‘not be afraid’ and persuading Thomas to place ‘his hands in the wounds of his hands and his sides’, we shall smell Jesus cooking fish ‘very early morning’ by the shoreside for his fisherman friends. These Easter moments are mysterious, almost mystical, encounters occurring in the haze of Spring dawn-light. There is much cantankerous talk about there being too many holidays during May, but, as C.S. Lewis would tell us, we can’t live in the winter forever, and after a very, long, cold and hard winter and relentlessly bad news for months and months people need to revel a bit in the Springtime Celebrations of Easter, Weddings, May Day, Whitsun – they are good for us all.
A very big thank you to everyone who joined in our glorious Procession through Marazion on Palm Sunday.
As a ‘Pilgrim People’ as a Benefice we will be on the move again, on Rogation Sunday, travelling from Church to Church blessing fields and crops and enjoying together God’s bountiful Creation. This will take place at the end of the month - I hope you will be able to join in with some or all of it.
As ‘Easter People’ let us enjoy and revel in Our Season of Hope, new Dawn and new Light and may we all enjoy the May-time, the flowers, the blossom and Jesus’ Risen presence with us all.
Happy Eastertide,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay
(Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
Sunday, 3 April 2011
April Newsletter
Earthquake in New Zealand, hundreds dead. Earthquake tsunami and nuclear threat in Japan, thousands dead. Civil war in Libya, huge disruption in Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia the list goes on and on – all this disruption in our world and to add to the doom and gloom the Lectionary readings are coming from Jeremiah – is this the end of the world as we know it?
The news at the moment just isn’t too good – one could be excused for thinking that maybe God has gone on holiday.
But look again.
The Japanese people are astounding the world with their behaviour to each other. Locals are sharing their scant supplies of food, water and bedding with refugees.
Workers at the nuclear plant at Fukushima are battling – at huge risk to their own lives, trying to cool the damaged reactors. One sent an email to his family asking them to continue to live well – “I wont be home for some time” he said.
As I write, Comic Relief has just announced the biggest ever contribution in their 23 year history – and this in a recession ravaged Britain! People have still managed to remember those poorer and more disadvantaged than themselves.
Acts of random kindness in all the stricken areas of our world are happening all the time but of course the media don’t always report them. Bad news sells more newspapers.
We as Christians must remember that we have the Good News – Easter is coming and we remember that Jesus is risen from the dead.
We continue our Lent journey in the Benefice with our Lent course on “Not a Tame Lion” which has started in Perranuthnoe and Ludgvan. It’s a very challenging course and I am sure we will all get a lot out of our study together.
Christianity Explored continues in the Cutty Sark in Marazion and plans are being finalised for our grand Palm Sunday parade. What a day that will be. We are doing a completely new thing and trusting God for a good turnout and a blessed time together as a Benefice.
This is something I hear more and more – that we now feel more like a Benefice and the more we do together the more we get to know and love each other. Sacred Space in Marazion, supported by all our churches continues to give those attending a peaceful and uplifting half hour each day – a really good discipline to take just that half an hour and refresh ourselves in God’s peace. I am sure you will want to join me in thanking Nigel, Penny and all those who make this such a wonderful experience – thank you one and all.
We have started our prayer meetings for “When Dom comes” and look forward to having Dom and Hannah join our community after his Ordination in July.
What a lot to look forward to. No – God has not gone on holiday – He is working in His world through ordinary people - just like you and me. He always has and He always will – may we, during this Lenten period, just give Him the time and space in our lives to lead us into a deeper relationship with Him.
Thought I would close with a bit of humour and a reminder just how great our God is.
A priest is driving to London and gets stopped for speeding near Swindon. The policeman smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?" "Just water," says the priest, fingers crossed. The policeman says, "Then why do I smell wine?" The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"
May God Bless you and yours for this coming Easter Season.
Rev Beth Whyte
The news at the moment just isn’t too good – one could be excused for thinking that maybe God has gone on holiday.
But look again.
The Japanese people are astounding the world with their behaviour to each other. Locals are sharing their scant supplies of food, water and bedding with refugees.
Workers at the nuclear plant at Fukushima are battling – at huge risk to their own lives, trying to cool the damaged reactors. One sent an email to his family asking them to continue to live well – “I wont be home for some time” he said.
As I write, Comic Relief has just announced the biggest ever contribution in their 23 year history – and this in a recession ravaged Britain! People have still managed to remember those poorer and more disadvantaged than themselves.
Acts of random kindness in all the stricken areas of our world are happening all the time but of course the media don’t always report them. Bad news sells more newspapers.
We as Christians must remember that we have the Good News – Easter is coming and we remember that Jesus is risen from the dead.
We continue our Lent journey in the Benefice with our Lent course on “Not a Tame Lion” which has started in Perranuthnoe and Ludgvan. It’s a very challenging course and I am sure we will all get a lot out of our study together.
Christianity Explored continues in the Cutty Sark in Marazion and plans are being finalised for our grand Palm Sunday parade. What a day that will be. We are doing a completely new thing and trusting God for a good turnout and a blessed time together as a Benefice.
This is something I hear more and more – that we now feel more like a Benefice and the more we do together the more we get to know and love each other. Sacred Space in Marazion, supported by all our churches continues to give those attending a peaceful and uplifting half hour each day – a really good discipline to take just that half an hour and refresh ourselves in God’s peace. I am sure you will want to join me in thanking Nigel, Penny and all those who make this such a wonderful experience – thank you one and all.
We have started our prayer meetings for “When Dom comes” and look forward to having Dom and Hannah join our community after his Ordination in July.
What a lot to look forward to. No – God has not gone on holiday – He is working in His world through ordinary people - just like you and me. He always has and He always will – may we, during this Lenten period, just give Him the time and space in our lives to lead us into a deeper relationship with Him.
Thought I would close with a bit of humour and a reminder just how great our God is.
A priest is driving to London and gets stopped for speeding near Swindon. The policeman smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?" "Just water," says the priest, fingers crossed. The policeman says, "Then why do I smell wine?" The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"
May God Bless you and yours for this coming Easter Season.
Rev Beth Whyte
Monday, 28 February 2011
March 2011 Newsletter
Feasting and Fasting
‘The Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all nations of the world: a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine’ (Isaiah 25:6).
It seems strange to encourage you to ‘Feast’ in this coming Season of Lent, which we usually associate with ‘fasting’, denial and Jesus’ refusal to ‘turn stones to bread’ in the wilderness, despite his hunger (Matthew 4:3-4).
The Medieval Calendar was constantly punctuated by ‘high days and holy days’, days of ‘fasting’ and abstinence as well as days of ‘feasting’ (particularly on a Saints Day or a Sunday). All the rich colour and variety of that Medieval pattern of life and work, of denial and celebration, has been lost to us more than six centuries on: perhaps, the only things that still remain is the tradition of having fish on Fridays (‘fasting’ as Friday is the Day of Our Lord’s death) and the Family Roast on Sunday (‘feasting’ on the Day of Our Lord’s Resurrection). So just donning ‘sackcloth and ashes’ for the forty day Season of Lent and making ourselves miserable is not ‘the kind of fasting God requires’ (Isaiah 58:3-5).
In Lent, we have an opportunity to strip away all that has accrued to us over this past year (a spiritual ‘Springclean’) to concentrate on what truly matters, our relationship with God and to deepen our walk with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. By following Jesus into the wilderness and to watch his temptations, we can better understand our own temptations in life, and so, Lent, as well as being a time of ‘fasting’, can be a time of ‘feasting’ too, as we draw nearer to Christ and his life lived for us.
And there is much for us to ‘feast’ on in our Benefice this Lent. After the United Benefice Ash Wednesday 9 March Service at Perranuthnoe, where those who would like to can receive the Imposition of Ashes, the following day (Thursday 10 March) Lent Sacred Space begins at Marazion and will run throughout Lent most days (except Sundays & Mondays) at 4pm until Maundy Thursday. If you need a time of solace and reflection, please drop into Marazion anyday. We shall be following a lively new translation of St Matthew’s Gospel by Tom Wright for our daily Bible Readings in Sacred Space.
The following Wednesdays (beginning 16 March) at both 11am at Perranuthnoe and 7pm at Ludgvan our Lent Course begins. ‘Not A Tame Lion’ is a Lent course based on the writings, thinking and films of C.S. Lewis: we shall be watching film clips from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ films and the story of C.S.Lewis’ late blossoming love to Joy Gresham) to explore the rich ‘feast’ of Lewis’ writings and imagination to draw us closer to the life of Jesus and his call and meaning and purpose in our lives. We will be considering themes of loss, suffering, God’s absence and Resurrection.
Wednesday 17 March (and subsequent Wednesdays) will see some fine soups
(I remember from last year) at Marazion for the Lent Lunches and there will also be a Lent lunch after the Sunday Service on 13 March at Ludgvan and at Perranuthnoe after the AGM and Celebration Service on 20 March. Many of the proceeds from these more frugal and restrained meals will go to our Benefice Lent Appeal: through the lunches and by saving the money we would otherwise spend on indulgences (chocolate, alcohol etc we give up during Lent) we hope to raise £750.00 to ‘Send a Cow’ to an African village and to do ‘the kind of fasting God requires (Isaiah 58:6).
Lent is this strange mixture of ‘fasting’, but also ‘feasting’ on God too. May we recapture something of the ancient monks’ understanding of both celebration and denial, resistance and joy in our Benefice this Lent. May we have a good ‘Feast’ and a good ‘Fast’ in Lent 2011 and come well-prepared, well-fed , watered and nurtured to celebrate the greatest ‘Feast’ of them all: the Passion, Death & Resurrection of Jesus in Holy Week and on Easter Day.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay (Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
‘The Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all nations of the world: a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine’ (Isaiah 25:6).
It seems strange to encourage you to ‘Feast’ in this coming Season of Lent, which we usually associate with ‘fasting’, denial and Jesus’ refusal to ‘turn stones to bread’ in the wilderness, despite his hunger (Matthew 4:3-4).
The Medieval Calendar was constantly punctuated by ‘high days and holy days’, days of ‘fasting’ and abstinence as well as days of ‘feasting’ (particularly on a Saints Day or a Sunday). All the rich colour and variety of that Medieval pattern of life and work, of denial and celebration, has been lost to us more than six centuries on: perhaps, the only things that still remain is the tradition of having fish on Fridays (‘fasting’ as Friday is the Day of Our Lord’s death) and the Family Roast on Sunday (‘feasting’ on the Day of Our Lord’s Resurrection). So just donning ‘sackcloth and ashes’ for the forty day Season of Lent and making ourselves miserable is not ‘the kind of fasting God requires’ (Isaiah 58:3-5).
In Lent, we have an opportunity to strip away all that has accrued to us over this past year (a spiritual ‘Springclean’) to concentrate on what truly matters, our relationship with God and to deepen our walk with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. By following Jesus into the wilderness and to watch his temptations, we can better understand our own temptations in life, and so, Lent, as well as being a time of ‘fasting’, can be a time of ‘feasting’ too, as we draw nearer to Christ and his life lived for us.
And there is much for us to ‘feast’ on in our Benefice this Lent. After the United Benefice Ash Wednesday 9 March Service at Perranuthnoe, where those who would like to can receive the Imposition of Ashes, the following day (Thursday 10 March) Lent Sacred Space begins at Marazion and will run throughout Lent most days (except Sundays & Mondays) at 4pm until Maundy Thursday. If you need a time of solace and reflection, please drop into Marazion anyday. We shall be following a lively new translation of St Matthew’s Gospel by Tom Wright for our daily Bible Readings in Sacred Space.
The following Wednesdays (beginning 16 March) at both 11am at Perranuthnoe and 7pm at Ludgvan our Lent Course begins. ‘Not A Tame Lion’ is a Lent course based on the writings, thinking and films of C.S. Lewis: we shall be watching film clips from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ films and the story of C.S.Lewis’ late blossoming love to Joy Gresham) to explore the rich ‘feast’ of Lewis’ writings and imagination to draw us closer to the life of Jesus and his call and meaning and purpose in our lives. We will be considering themes of loss, suffering, God’s absence and Resurrection.
Wednesday 17 March (and subsequent Wednesdays) will see some fine soups
(I remember from last year) at Marazion for the Lent Lunches and there will also be a Lent lunch after the Sunday Service on 13 March at Ludgvan and at Perranuthnoe after the AGM and Celebration Service on 20 March. Many of the proceeds from these more frugal and restrained meals will go to our Benefice Lent Appeal: through the lunches and by saving the money we would otherwise spend on indulgences (chocolate, alcohol etc we give up during Lent) we hope to raise £750.00 to ‘Send a Cow’ to an African village and to do ‘the kind of fasting God requires (Isaiah 58:6).
Lent is this strange mixture of ‘fasting’, but also ‘feasting’ on God too. May we recapture something of the ancient monks’ understanding of both celebration and denial, resistance and joy in our Benefice this Lent. May we have a good ‘Feast’ and a good ‘Fast’ in Lent 2011 and come well-prepared, well-fed , watered and nurtured to celebrate the greatest ‘Feast’ of them all: the Passion, Death & Resurrection of Jesus in Holy Week and on Easter Day.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector, The United Benefice of Mounts Bay (Ludgvan, Marazion, St Hilary & Perranuthnoe)
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
February 2011 Newsletter
‘Christianity Explored’
As the New Year dawns upon us, and the festivities and joy of Christmas recedes into distant memory, it is good to take up a new challenge, and to do a new thing.
I came upon a new and exciting course, run by a Cornishman and a rugby man, Rico Tice, called ‘Christianity Explored’. The course will run for ten weeks, beginning on Friday 4 February (and Fridays following) at the Cutty Sark Pub in Marazion. The idea of the Course is to meet for mid-morning coffee or tea in the pleasant setting of the Cutty Sark Large Room at 10.45am, watch a lively and modern DVD together that will challenge many peoples’ assumptions or commonly-held views of Christianity, and over the next hour, until 12 noon, to engage with them.
Over the ten weeks, in Marazion, we will explore the questions that cut to the heart of Christianity: who was Jesus? Why did He come? What is involved in following Him? It is an opportunity to ask questions, however simple or difficult they are, and we will do it by looking at the shortest account of Jesus Life, the Gospel of Mark.
It is good to have the opportunity to come together, to discuss with others the nature of our faith, to better grasp what it is in our Christian faith we are following and believing in.
In Ludgvan and Perranuthnoe over the Autumn, and also finishing in February, we have been looking at the Mission of the Early Church and considering our own Mission as a Church Today, through studying ‘The Acts of the Apostles’, and, soon, look out for our Lent Courses there, beginning in March. But it will be good to have a Course, specifically based in Marazion (and we are hoping our friends from Marazion Chapel will join us), but open to everyone in the Benefice, and especially to those wanting an opportunity to explore and go a bit deeper into our faith, and an opportunity to question and engage with the doubts and unanswered questions we have about Christianity and the nature of Jesus in a clear and systematic way.
If you are free on Friday mornings, please come along (and if you can’t make every session come to the ones you can). Go on, do a new thing in 2011.
Happy February Exploring,
Revd Nigel Marns
As the New Year dawns upon us, and the festivities and joy of Christmas recedes into distant memory, it is good to take up a new challenge, and to do a new thing.
I came upon a new and exciting course, run by a Cornishman and a rugby man, Rico Tice, called ‘Christianity Explored’. The course will run for ten weeks, beginning on Friday 4 February (and Fridays following) at the Cutty Sark Pub in Marazion. The idea of the Course is to meet for mid-morning coffee or tea in the pleasant setting of the Cutty Sark Large Room at 10.45am, watch a lively and modern DVD together that will challenge many peoples’ assumptions or commonly-held views of Christianity, and over the next hour, until 12 noon, to engage with them.
Over the ten weeks, in Marazion, we will explore the questions that cut to the heart of Christianity: who was Jesus? Why did He come? What is involved in following Him? It is an opportunity to ask questions, however simple or difficult they are, and we will do it by looking at the shortest account of Jesus Life, the Gospel of Mark.
It is good to have the opportunity to come together, to discuss with others the nature of our faith, to better grasp what it is in our Christian faith we are following and believing in.
In Ludgvan and Perranuthnoe over the Autumn, and also finishing in February, we have been looking at the Mission of the Early Church and considering our own Mission as a Church Today, through studying ‘The Acts of the Apostles’, and, soon, look out for our Lent Courses there, beginning in March. But it will be good to have a Course, specifically based in Marazion (and we are hoping our friends from Marazion Chapel will join us), but open to everyone in the Benefice, and especially to those wanting an opportunity to explore and go a bit deeper into our faith, and an opportunity to question and engage with the doubts and unanswered questions we have about Christianity and the nature of Jesus in a clear and systematic way.
If you are free on Friday mornings, please come along (and if you can’t make every session come to the ones you can). Go on, do a new thing in 2011.
Happy February Exploring,
Revd Nigel Marns
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Jan 2011 Newsletter
January 2011 - Newsletter
The story of the wise men coming to Jesus and his parents is often part of the children's school nativity plays. In truth it represents something that happened well after his birth. It is recorded by Matthew in his very conservative Jewish Gospel. For he understands the messianic significance of these strange visitors from other nations. The prophetic tradition pointed to the time when the Gentile world would come to be part of the new world order that messiah would bring. The nations will become part of his rule of peace. These travelers from unknown lands in the East, no doubt following the spice route were magi, students of the stars, and through such study hoping to chart the fortunes of men, nations and the world order. They had spotted a fresh heavenly body, perhaps a comet, though we shall be unable to verify the details now. One thing is clear that whatever they saw spoke to them of a royal birth. Out there a new king was born. Their journey was made under the enthusiasm of finding a king. In doing so they stirred up a hornets' nest in Herod's court. For Herod was a paranoid dictator who faced continual threats on his life and was capable of horrific reprisals on any who sought to depose him. A possible rival to his legitimacy seemed a danger he could not ignore. There was a birth, but that of a child in ordinary circumstances, born to a local craftsman and his teenage wife. They brought strange gifts, we are told, to do with the life and death of a kingly personage. Afraid of Herod and maybe his interrogation techniques they made good their journey home. In later years they may have reflected on their quest and perhaps, as in TS Elliott's poem, questioned the real value of their journey and the significance of the ordinary family they found.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worse time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
The poem continues-
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
For Christian believers this story becomes the foundation for a great season in the church year as they reflect on the significant influence of the gospel on the world. We call this time of the year Epiphany, indicating that the child is no ordinary man but is shown to the world as its rescuer. His light shines out to a world of need, to people who walk in darkness and to dwellers in the sad land where the very shadow of death falls on all. He is the light to lighten the Gentiles. His light is the true light that lightens every man in the world .
It may well be that Holman Hunt's great painting, entitled ' the Light of the World', springs to mind. It shows Jesus holding a lantern in what is a very English orchard . The influence of the Christ child knows no boundaries so that this very English Victorian artist can, in another millennium, claim that he who is light of the world transforms his age and his contemporaries. This Jesus is our contemporary, too, and we begin the new year by recognizing that he is here for us and 2011 can be a journey with him for us ,our church and our society.
May God bless your New Year,
Noel Michell
The story of the wise men coming to Jesus and his parents is often part of the children's school nativity plays. In truth it represents something that happened well after his birth. It is recorded by Matthew in his very conservative Jewish Gospel. For he understands the messianic significance of these strange visitors from other nations. The prophetic tradition pointed to the time when the Gentile world would come to be part of the new world order that messiah would bring. The nations will become part of his rule of peace. These travelers from unknown lands in the East, no doubt following the spice route were magi, students of the stars, and through such study hoping to chart the fortunes of men, nations and the world order. They had spotted a fresh heavenly body, perhaps a comet, though we shall be unable to verify the details now. One thing is clear that whatever they saw spoke to them of a royal birth. Out there a new king was born. Their journey was made under the enthusiasm of finding a king. In doing so they stirred up a hornets' nest in Herod's court. For Herod was a paranoid dictator who faced continual threats on his life and was capable of horrific reprisals on any who sought to depose him. A possible rival to his legitimacy seemed a danger he could not ignore. There was a birth, but that of a child in ordinary circumstances, born to a local craftsman and his teenage wife. They brought strange gifts, we are told, to do with the life and death of a kingly personage. Afraid of Herod and maybe his interrogation techniques they made good their journey home. In later years they may have reflected on their quest and perhaps, as in TS Elliott's poem, questioned the real value of their journey and the significance of the ordinary family they found.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worse time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
The poem continues-
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
For Christian believers this story becomes the foundation for a great season in the church year as they reflect on the significant influence of the gospel on the world. We call this time of the year Epiphany, indicating that the child is no ordinary man but is shown to the world as its rescuer. His light shines out to a world of need, to people who walk in darkness and to dwellers in the sad land where the very shadow of death falls on all. He is the light to lighten the Gentiles. His light is the true light that lightens every man in the world .
It may well be that Holman Hunt's great painting, entitled ' the Light of the World', springs to mind. It shows Jesus holding a lantern in what is a very English orchard . The influence of the Christ child knows no boundaries so that this very English Victorian artist can, in another millennium, claim that he who is light of the world transforms his age and his contemporaries. This Jesus is our contemporary, too, and we begin the new year by recognizing that he is here for us and 2011 can be a journey with him for us ,our church and our society.
May God bless your New Year,
Noel Michell
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
December Newsletter
‘A New Star’
And Winter fell. All at once it was Winter. All of a sudden the nights seemed very dark. Suddenly we were caught in huge raging storms and floods and bitter cold came upon us. Our lives so often reflect the change in the seasons, don’t they? We can go along quite merrily and happily, and then darkness falls. When Winter comes, our mood turns to a more sombre timbre too. The troubles of our world seem as ‘dark portents’ and press more heavily upon us; life becomes more of a struggle to battle through each day.
However, the coming of the bleak mid-winter is not all ‘doom and gloom’! One of the joys of the encroaching darkness is gazing up at the night sky. Here in Cornwall, we can pick out many constellations and patterns, and, on a clear night, the sky seems completely full of so many bright and gleaming stars.
How amazing it must have been for those three astrologers, two thousand years ago, gazing through their telescopes, and studying and charting the planets and their movements, to suddenly come upon ‘a New Star’ in the night sky, a new light, unrecorded and unrecognised before, much like when we come upon a previously undiscovered mammal in a rainforest or an aerial photograph reveals a previously hidden archaeological settlement in a field. No wonder these first Wise Men hurriedly loaded up their goods and chattels and their camels and horses in such haste, and went on a journey to discover what this ‘New Star’ might mean.
The kings can lead us to discover what Advent is all about: Darkness may fall; Winter may come; but, yet, ‘a New Star’ appears in the sky to lead us and entice us on a journey of discovery. In Advent we can become modern day wise men and women, not shut away in the ‘doom and gloom’ of Winter days and nights, but Advent journeyers, waiting for ‘the Light’ to come to us, to follow ‘the New Star’ that comes to light up the darkness of the night sky and our world in a ‘New Way’ and offering us a bright future in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is coming into the world.
Advent has many themes: coloured reflective purple, candles in the darkness, watching and waiting, preparing. But what are we preparing ourselves for? December can be full of extreme busyness, but, if we are true travellers and wise men and women, we will also take time to watch and wait for Jesus to reveal himself to us in ‘a New Way’ this Advent-tide, just like he did in the appearance of ‘the New Star’ in the sky two thousand years ago. Whether it be in your own private prayer-times and meditations this Advent or whether you join us for ‘Advent Sacred Space’ at All Saints, Marazion from 4-4.30pm on Saturdays and Wednesdays for a time of quiet meditation and preparation, we pray that, in the depth of this dark Winter, we will also give time to preparing our hearts to receive ‘the New Thing’ that God wants to reveal to us. As the prophet Isaiah predicted: ‘I am doing ‘a new thing’. Do you not perceive it’?
Happy Advent travelling and best wishes in all your preparations,
Revd. Nigel Marns
Rector United Benefice of Mounts Bay
And Winter fell. All at once it was Winter. All of a sudden the nights seemed very dark. Suddenly we were caught in huge raging storms and floods and bitter cold came upon us. Our lives so often reflect the change in the seasons, don’t they? We can go along quite merrily and happily, and then darkness falls. When Winter comes, our mood turns to a more sombre timbre too. The troubles of our world seem as ‘dark portents’ and press more heavily upon us; life becomes more of a struggle to battle through each day.
However, the coming of the bleak mid-winter is not all ‘doom and gloom’! One of the joys of the encroaching darkness is gazing up at the night sky. Here in Cornwall, we can pick out many constellations and patterns, and, on a clear night, the sky seems completely full of so many bright and gleaming stars.
How amazing it must have been for those three astrologers, two thousand years ago, gazing through their telescopes, and studying and charting the planets and their movements, to suddenly come upon ‘a New Star’ in the night sky, a new light, unrecorded and unrecognised before, much like when we come upon a previously undiscovered mammal in a rainforest or an aerial photograph reveals a previously hidden archaeological settlement in a field. No wonder these first Wise Men hurriedly loaded up their goods and chattels and their camels and horses in such haste, and went on a journey to discover what this ‘New Star’ might mean.
The kings can lead us to discover what Advent is all about: Darkness may fall; Winter may come; but, yet, ‘a New Star’ appears in the sky to lead us and entice us on a journey of discovery. In Advent we can become modern day wise men and women, not shut away in the ‘doom and gloom’ of Winter days and nights, but Advent journeyers, waiting for ‘the Light’ to come to us, to follow ‘the New Star’ that comes to light up the darkness of the night sky and our world in a ‘New Way’ and offering us a bright future in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is coming into the world.
Advent has many themes: coloured reflective purple, candles in the darkness, watching and waiting, preparing. But what are we preparing ourselves for? December can be full of extreme busyness, but, if we are true travellers and wise men and women, we will also take time to watch and wait for Jesus to reveal himself to us in ‘a New Way’ this Advent-tide, just like he did in the appearance of ‘the New Star’ in the sky two thousand years ago. Whether it be in your own private prayer-times and meditations this Advent or whether you join us for ‘Advent Sacred Space’ at All Saints, Marazion from 4-4.30pm on Saturdays and Wednesdays for a time of quiet meditation and preparation, we pray that, in the depth of this dark Winter, we will also give time to preparing our hearts to receive ‘the New Thing’ that God wants to reveal to us. As the prophet Isaiah predicted: ‘I am doing ‘a new thing’. Do you not perceive it’?
Happy Advent travelling and best wishes in all your preparations,
Revd. Nigel Marns
Rector United Benefice of Mounts Bay
Sunday, 7 November 2010
November Newsletter
Dear Friends,
One of the many benefits of living in a place like this, is the awareness you have of the changing seasons. We once had to live for several years in the centre of a big city, where the only real signs of late Autumn were a build-up of soggy leaves in the gutters, the shop lights coming on early and an occasional glimpse of a magnificent sunset behind a tower block. Here though, the signs of the year’s turning are everywhere. You can smell it in the air. You can see it in the glorious, low, slanting light; the lengthening shadows; and in the way the countryside reveals itself, showing its underlying structure and bare bones. Even the lights around the bay have a sharpness and a brightness on late October and November nights that they didn’t have a couple of months ago. Real country people seem to have an innate sense of all this. My Dad used to say that he could ‘feel backend coming on’, and there was, in that, a reassuring sense that the natural rhythm of the year was working itself out, as it always had. I think the turning of the Church’s year too, has more of a natural feeling in communities like ours. This year, we are celebrating the Feast of All Souls with a service in Ludgvan Church on the day the clocks go back, so dusk will already be gathering as the service gets underway. It seems a fitting start to our season of remembrance, beginning, as it does, with remembrance of our individual losses, and climaxing with the numerically far greater loss we mark on the 11th and on Remembrance Sunday itself. It’s a time of year I find overwhelmingly moving, and it takes us towards Advent in an appropriately reflective mood.
As Advent approaches, I love the sense you get of things drawing to a close and yet being filled with expectancy. These few weeks that are marked out by the Church as a time of inward renewal and preparation for Christmas, always seem like a gift – a precious opportunity to spiritually re-tune ourselves before getting swept up into the busyness of the festive season. It’s more than just recharging our batteries. There is a quietness and a stillness about this time of year that helps us to tap into the quietness and stillness that is at the very heart of prayer, and prayer of course, is at the heart of our relationship with God. So accept the gift of Advent. Make the most of the opportunity it offers to press the pause button, however briefly, and spend some quiet time with God. The poet RS Thomas describes how essential such time is:
‘…the silence in the mind is when we live best, within listening distance of the silence we call God…’
I hope that’s what this coming Advent will mean for you – a time when you learn to live more ‘within listening distance of the silence we call God’.
Yours with love, Lilian
One of the many benefits of living in a place like this, is the awareness you have of the changing seasons. We once had to live for several years in the centre of a big city, where the only real signs of late Autumn were a build-up of soggy leaves in the gutters, the shop lights coming on early and an occasional glimpse of a magnificent sunset behind a tower block. Here though, the signs of the year’s turning are everywhere. You can smell it in the air. You can see it in the glorious, low, slanting light; the lengthening shadows; and in the way the countryside reveals itself, showing its underlying structure and bare bones. Even the lights around the bay have a sharpness and a brightness on late October and November nights that they didn’t have a couple of months ago. Real country people seem to have an innate sense of all this. My Dad used to say that he could ‘feel backend coming on’, and there was, in that, a reassuring sense that the natural rhythm of the year was working itself out, as it always had. I think the turning of the Church’s year too, has more of a natural feeling in communities like ours. This year, we are celebrating the Feast of All Souls with a service in Ludgvan Church on the day the clocks go back, so dusk will already be gathering as the service gets underway. It seems a fitting start to our season of remembrance, beginning, as it does, with remembrance of our individual losses, and climaxing with the numerically far greater loss we mark on the 11th and on Remembrance Sunday itself. It’s a time of year I find overwhelmingly moving, and it takes us towards Advent in an appropriately reflective mood.
As Advent approaches, I love the sense you get of things drawing to a close and yet being filled with expectancy. These few weeks that are marked out by the Church as a time of inward renewal and preparation for Christmas, always seem like a gift – a precious opportunity to spiritually re-tune ourselves before getting swept up into the busyness of the festive season. It’s more than just recharging our batteries. There is a quietness and a stillness about this time of year that helps us to tap into the quietness and stillness that is at the very heart of prayer, and prayer of course, is at the heart of our relationship with God. So accept the gift of Advent. Make the most of the opportunity it offers to press the pause button, however briefly, and spend some quiet time with God. The poet RS Thomas describes how essential such time is:
‘…the silence in the mind is when we live best, within listening distance of the silence we call God…’
I hope that’s what this coming Advent will mean for you – a time when you learn to live more ‘within listening distance of the silence we call God’.
Yours with love, Lilian
Friday, 1 October 2010
October Newsletter
All good gifts
The Schools have returned. The roads are much less busy. The days are shortening. The light is fading fast. The nights are noticeably cooler. The leaf fall is all around us. A last burst of warm sun, and the Indian Summer finally fades. Old routines are being revisited, new routines picked up and begun. New interests are taken up. A change of gear and a change of Season is upon us.
We mark this new season, this movement into Autumn, with a Celebration of ‘Life, and Health and Food’, of Creation, and of ‘all good gifts around us’. It is time for the Harvest Thanksgiving Season and, at Harvest, we come to God to thank Him for all his great provision for us, all the food we farm and ‘safely gather in’.
Our focus this Harvest-time is ‘Jesus, the Bread of Life’ (John 6:25-35). After Jesus has provided for his listeners on the hillside at the feeding of the five thousand (harking back to God’s provision of the Israelites with manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16) and pointing forward to the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom to come) Jesus then goes onto say that ‘we cannot live by bread alone’.
As we come to our Harvest Thanksgivings this year we might expand our thoughts to include not just carrots and cauliflowers but all of God’s provision that sustains us. We think of our homes and shelter, our clothes and fuel, our hobbies and employment. But it is not just food and practical things that can sustain us. Things perish. Food can go rotten and stale - as I’ve often found to my cost if I have left Harvest produce unsorted for too long in Church! - However, I always think we had one satisfied customer in the Church mouse who I think relishes this Season of Harvest feasting most of all!
Jesus says there is ‘more to life than food’. Other things sustain us: things like the nurture and love of our friends and family. ‘The bread of life’ also means living in God, living in Jesus, the true ‘bread of life’ can also sustain us and prepare us to live in the light of eternity. Jesus advises us ‘not to work for things that go bad, but for things that last for eternal life’. He says: ‘Those who come to me shall never go hungry. Those who believe in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35).
This Harvest Festival (as the Autumnal light gradually reduces our horizons and as we prepare to hunker down for the Winter ahead) may we also expand our horizons and our thinking to include the many things we can praise God for and his great provision for us in so many ways: certainly to thank Him for our food, but also for so many gifts around us: As Chisholm writes in his famous hymn:
‘Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand has provided.
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.’
Happy Harvest Feasting and festivity,
Revd Nigel Marns
Team Rector
The Schools have returned. The roads are much less busy. The days are shortening. The light is fading fast. The nights are noticeably cooler. The leaf fall is all around us. A last burst of warm sun, and the Indian Summer finally fades. Old routines are being revisited, new routines picked up and begun. New interests are taken up. A change of gear and a change of Season is upon us.
We mark this new season, this movement into Autumn, with a Celebration of ‘Life, and Health and Food’, of Creation, and of ‘all good gifts around us’. It is time for the Harvest Thanksgiving Season and, at Harvest, we come to God to thank Him for all his great provision for us, all the food we farm and ‘safely gather in’.
Our focus this Harvest-time is ‘Jesus, the Bread of Life’ (John 6:25-35). After Jesus has provided for his listeners on the hillside at the feeding of the five thousand (harking back to God’s provision of the Israelites with manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16) and pointing forward to the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom to come) Jesus then goes onto say that ‘we cannot live by bread alone’.
As we come to our Harvest Thanksgivings this year we might expand our thoughts to include not just carrots and cauliflowers but all of God’s provision that sustains us. We think of our homes and shelter, our clothes and fuel, our hobbies and employment. But it is not just food and practical things that can sustain us. Things perish. Food can go rotten and stale - as I’ve often found to my cost if I have left Harvest produce unsorted for too long in Church! - However, I always think we had one satisfied customer in the Church mouse who I think relishes this Season of Harvest feasting most of all!
Jesus says there is ‘more to life than food’. Other things sustain us: things like the nurture and love of our friends and family. ‘The bread of life’ also means living in God, living in Jesus, the true ‘bread of life’ can also sustain us and prepare us to live in the light of eternity. Jesus advises us ‘not to work for things that go bad, but for things that last for eternal life’. He says: ‘Those who come to me shall never go hungry. Those who believe in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35).
This Harvest Festival (as the Autumnal light gradually reduces our horizons and as we prepare to hunker down for the Winter ahead) may we also expand our horizons and our thinking to include the many things we can praise God for and his great provision for us in so many ways: certainly to thank Him for our food, but also for so many gifts around us: As Chisholm writes in his famous hymn:
‘Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand has provided.
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.’
Happy Harvest Feasting and festivity,
Revd Nigel Marns
Team Rector
Friday, 3 September 2010
September Newsletter
Dear Friends,
In the benefice we are taking part in the programme run by the Diocese entitled 'Back to Church Sunday.' We have decided to change the title to 'Welcome to Church Sunday' as it sounded more positive and inviting to people. Indeed we all need to recognise the failure of the church everywhere to take seriously the great commission that Our Lord left 'to make disciples' everywhere.The church has become a club where the faithful club members get their weekly inspiration without considering that the very inspiration that they find in church is what so many people in society are trying to find. There is a hunger for spiritual things in many people's lives. They feel empty and rudderless in their daily lives. They are looking for some deeper meaning to everything. The church is one place that they may want to look for answers to these real desires in their lives. We need to make the effort to make the place attractive to them. First we need to be friendly- welcoming them into church with a smile and that genuine hello that means we actually are excited to see them in church. Secondly when we have a cuppa after the service-do we make sure they are invited and, more importantly, drawn into conversation. I have seen strangers in church stranded in the coffee time because the whole body of regulars are intent on talking with their friends and ignoring them. We need to draw them into our friendship and that must mean a little effort from all of us.
Of course, thirdly the occasional services offer us a very promising opportunity to draw alongside younger family groups that we need for the future of our church. The problem is many of us don't like our cosy Sunday corner disturbed by their presence in our service. We often wish they might opt for some other time on the Sunday away from our normal service! What a pity that we feel like this for they are the very people our Lord wants in our midst and the command to baptise is part of the great commission to make disciples. We cannot afford to ignore those who want baptism for their children. They need to be integrated into the life of our churches and we need to work hard at involving their baptised children into a program for young people that will lead to confirmation in due course.
We need, fourthly, to integrate those being married in our churches into the life of our Christian communities. All this takes time and patience from all of us. Two generations have been allowed to drift from meaningful links with the church and bridging this gap will take much effort from all of us. We must expect that they will feel out of place in our world. We cannot simply,therefore, sit back and expect these new relationships to build themselves.
So we are preparing for Welcome back to church Sunday. Each of us has a part to play in this. We all need to think of someone we can invite to come with us to church. There must be people that we know that we could invite to come along with us. If we all found someone to bring we could double the number in church on that day. Perhaps more than double the number if we invite a young family with children!
Over this matter of making disciples 'doing nothing' is not an option unless we want to close the doors of our churches for good. As we begin our Autumn program of church events may we remember the great commission of Jesus and that includes our part in making disciples. Let us all see everything up to Christmas an opportunity for befriending and bringing new folk to God and to church.
Your friend and priest,
Noel Michell
In the benefice we are taking part in the programme run by the Diocese entitled 'Back to Church Sunday.' We have decided to change the title to 'Welcome to Church Sunday' as it sounded more positive and inviting to people. Indeed we all need to recognise the failure of the church everywhere to take seriously the great commission that Our Lord left 'to make disciples' everywhere.The church has become a club where the faithful club members get their weekly inspiration without considering that the very inspiration that they find in church is what so many people in society are trying to find. There is a hunger for spiritual things in many people's lives. They feel empty and rudderless in their daily lives. They are looking for some deeper meaning to everything. The church is one place that they may want to look for answers to these real desires in their lives. We need to make the effort to make the place attractive to them. First we need to be friendly- welcoming them into church with a smile and that genuine hello that means we actually are excited to see them in church. Secondly when we have a cuppa after the service-do we make sure they are invited and, more importantly, drawn into conversation. I have seen strangers in church stranded in the coffee time because the whole body of regulars are intent on talking with their friends and ignoring them. We need to draw them into our friendship and that must mean a little effort from all of us.
Of course, thirdly the occasional services offer us a very promising opportunity to draw alongside younger family groups that we need for the future of our church. The problem is many of us don't like our cosy Sunday corner disturbed by their presence in our service. We often wish they might opt for some other time on the Sunday away from our normal service! What a pity that we feel like this for they are the very people our Lord wants in our midst and the command to baptise is part of the great commission to make disciples. We cannot afford to ignore those who want baptism for their children. They need to be integrated into the life of our churches and we need to work hard at involving their baptised children into a program for young people that will lead to confirmation in due course.
We need, fourthly, to integrate those being married in our churches into the life of our Christian communities. All this takes time and patience from all of us. Two generations have been allowed to drift from meaningful links with the church and bridging this gap will take much effort from all of us. We must expect that they will feel out of place in our world. We cannot simply,therefore, sit back and expect these new relationships to build themselves.
So we are preparing for Welcome back to church Sunday. Each of us has a part to play in this. We all need to think of someone we can invite to come with us to church. There must be people that we know that we could invite to come along with us. If we all found someone to bring we could double the number in church on that day. Perhaps more than double the number if we invite a young family with children!
Over this matter of making disciples 'doing nothing' is not an option unless we want to close the doors of our churches for good. As we begin our Autumn program of church events may we remember the great commission of Jesus and that includes our part in making disciples. Let us all see everything up to Christmas an opportunity for befriending and bringing new folk to God and to church.
Your friend and priest,
Noel Michell
Thursday, 22 July 2010
August Newsletter
SACRED SPACE
‘Sacred Spaces’ can be many and varied. I wonder what would you name as your ‘sacred space’?
Recently, I asked a group of schoolchildren what was their ‘sacred space’. Many said their bedroom was a place of solace, some named a den they had made, or a shed they went to, some said when they visited their horses, some had special places on the beach which were places of sanctuary. The children also recognised the Church building as being an important ‘sacred space’ where generations of people had prayed, where special celebrations had taken place, a ‘hallowed’ and ‘blessed’ place. Many Churches in Cornwall were built near fresh water sources, useful for baptisms, but also founded close to water as a source of life. There are so many ‘holy wells’ around us.
I wonder if you would name your ‘sacred space’ as the Church, or a particular part of the Church, or whether some other place of sanctuary springs to mind. Here in Cornwall, we live in a truly blessed place with wonderful rugged and craggy coastline, hidden and secret coves, ever-changing colours and moods of the sea, a rich variety of sea creatures, animals and birdlife, there are many ‘sacred spaces’ here.
The Church has been too anthropocentric or human-centred in the past, by concentrating solely on one man, Jesus. Although Jesus is the ‘pioneer and perfecter of our faith’, ‘The Alpha and the Omega’, the only source of our salvation, God did not only create one man, even if he was the Divine Son of God. If our faith is too human-focused it can lead to travesty: Recently, I watched a harrowing theatrical adaptation of John Steinbeck’s book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ at the Hall for Cornwall. Steinbeck portrayed the pioneering Southern Baptist Community in America, fundamentally believing in Jesus Christ as their ‘Personal Saviour’, but paying scant regard for the agricultural land around them, and desecrating, despoiling, and so abusing and overworking the land, that it could no longer sustain life and was turned into a dustbowl.
As well as Jesus, we are each made in God’s image and God also created this beautiful world for us to enjoy. The great eighteenth-century poet and visionary, William Blake, declared that ‘everything that lives is holy’. That is why I enjoy so much taking Services outside into other ‘sacred spaces’ (and not confining our faith to a building, however much of a ‘sacred space’ it is). I have really enjoyed leading the Easter Sunday Morning Perranuthnoe Sunrise Service, the Rogation Sunday Field Blessing, the Songs of Praise Service in the Rectory Garden, and we are going to do two more outdoor Services in August too:
‘Sacred Spaces’ can be many and varied. I wonder what would you name as your ‘sacred space’?
Recently, I asked a group of schoolchildren what was their ‘sacred space’. Many said their bedroom was a place of solace, some named a den they had made, or a shed they went to, some said when they visited their horses, some had special places on the beach which were places of sanctuary. The children also recognised the Church building as being an important ‘sacred space’ where generations of people had prayed, where special celebrations had taken place, a ‘hallowed’ and ‘blessed’ place. Many Churches in Cornwall were built near fresh water sources, useful for baptisms, but also founded close to water as a source of life. There are so many ‘holy wells’ around us.
I wonder if you would name your ‘sacred space’ as the Church, or a particular part of the Church, or whether some other place of sanctuary springs to mind. Here in Cornwall, we live in a truly blessed place with wonderful rugged and craggy coastline, hidden and secret coves, ever-changing colours and moods of the sea, a rich variety of sea creatures, animals and birdlife, there are many ‘sacred spaces’ here.
The Church has been too anthropocentric or human-centred in the past, by concentrating solely on one man, Jesus. Although Jesus is the ‘pioneer and perfecter of our faith’, ‘The Alpha and the Omega’, the only source of our salvation, God did not only create one man, even if he was the Divine Son of God. If our faith is too human-focused it can lead to travesty: Recently, I watched a harrowing theatrical adaptation of John Steinbeck’s book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ at the Hall for Cornwall. Steinbeck portrayed the pioneering Southern Baptist Community in America, fundamentally believing in Jesus Christ as their ‘Personal Saviour’, but paying scant regard for the agricultural land around them, and desecrating, despoiling, and so abusing and overworking the land, that it could no longer sustain life and was turned into a dustbowl.
As well as Jesus, we are each made in God’s image and God also created this beautiful world for us to enjoy. The great eighteenth-century poet and visionary, William Blake, declared that ‘everything that lives is holy’. That is why I enjoy so much taking Services outside into other ‘sacred spaces’ (and not confining our faith to a building, however much of a ‘sacred space’ it is). I have really enjoyed leading the Easter Sunday Morning Perranuthnoe Sunrise Service, the Rogation Sunday Field Blessing, the Songs of Praise Service in the Rectory Garden, and we are going to do two more outdoor Services in August too:
a Family Service by the Red River on Marazion Beach on Sunday 8 August and
on Wednesday 11 August we are going to revive the tradition of the St Hilary Pilgrimage, taking in all four Churches in our Benefice, starting from Ludgvan at 2.30pm, Marazion at 4.30pm, Perranuthnoe at 6.00pm to join in the St Hilary Pilgrimage Service at 7.00pm. You are welcome to join us at any point along the route. The early Celtic saints who brought Christianity to Cornwall and the later Medieval saints on Pilgrimage to Compostela walked many of the paths and tracks of St Michael’s Way which we shall travel on, and we shall be travelling in their footsteps, in the land they have already blessed before us. If you don’t want to make a physical Pilgrimage or to go outside, you are very welcome to join in the spiritual pilgrimage, which is our new ‘Sacred Space’ Daily Prayer Tuesdays-Saturdays throughout August at Marazion Church.
There are many ‘sacred spaces’ and many sacred places all around us to be discovered in our Churches, and outside too. This Summer may we explore and discover them or renew our acquaintance with some holy and blessed places, some ‘sacred spaces’ once again.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
There are many ‘sacred spaces’ and many sacred places all around us to be discovered in our Churches, and outside too. This Summer may we explore and discover them or renew our acquaintance with some holy and blessed places, some ‘sacred spaces’ once again.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
Sunday, 27 June 2010
JULY NEWSLETTER
Hiya Everyone,
By the time you read this letter, “When Nigel comes” will have been “Now Nigel is Here” for a whole year. And What a Year it has been
Let me recap some of the highlights of this past year, or at least some of the highlights as I see them!
New Liturgy – we now have new liturgy books for all the seasons of the church year and most people I have spoken to agree that this has enhanced our worship and made us much more aware of the changing seasons in our church year
.
Bonfire Night – Did you get there? It was the most magnificent occasion with something for everyone. We had a bonfire that looked as if it was one continuous firework courtesy of an off duty firefighter, fireworks galore, lovely hot food and singing along with the guitars of the Good News Gang and others. A real Benefice effort and family occasion.
A very moving All Souls Service and a Taize Worship evening at Marazion.
Christmas Eve Crib service at Ludgvan attracting over 70 people including children.
A Marriage Thanksgiving service in the afternoon of St Valentine’s Day at Perranuthnoe
New Forms of worship on a Sunday afternoon at Ludgvan and Marazion and a Benefice Maunday Thursday Service at Marazion with the washing of feet (and hands) and Taize worship.
The Spectacular Easter morning (at 5.30am) service on the beach at Perranuthnoe where teenagers (and others) played guitars, children sang and older members just marvelled as we moved from complete darkness into the light of the sunrise and the further comfort of a fantastic cooked breakfast. What a way to start the Easter Season.
Easter Day also marked the opening of a new Junior Church at Ludgvan.
And this is just a small sample of the things that have been happening round the Benefice in the past year – as I said before – What a year!
Later this month Nigel and Penny will start their daily Taize service at Marazion and that will run Tuesday till Saturday every week during July and August at 4pm in Marazion Church – not to be missed.
Of course, all of this may have passed you by and you may not like any of the new services and innovations that Nigel and his whole family have brought to the Benefice and you are quite entitled to think like that. However, things are changing whether we like it or not. We are losing Lilian to Lincoln and her family and Annie from Perranuthnoe will start her training to be a Priest.
You may have noticed that new faces have started appearing in most of our congregations. Isn’t it wonderful that God is sending all these new people to join us in this journey as we strive to “Discover God’s Kingdom and Grow the Church” (as Bishop Tim would say). I believe that they are sent by God and its our responsibility, under God, to make them welcome among us.
If we all felt the same way about these changes then it would be the first time in history, as even Moses and Jesus himself didn’t please everyone.
I mention Moses because when following the Lectionary Year we have recently been reading through the book of Exodus, you know the one, Genesis, Exodus, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the patience and humility of Moses and the stubborn and complaining Israelites. (Try reading it again – it’s fascinating). They are still complaining all the way through Numbers too.
They had just seen God hold back the Red Sea for them, He’s drowned all the Egyptian army in the same Red Sea and within three days – yes just three days they were moaning about not having all the nice things to eat that they had enjoyed when they were slaves in Egypt. I don’t doubt that some of them would have complained that their feet had got damp coming through the Red Sea but I have no biblical evidence for this!
Not that I am comparing Nigel to Moses in any way because as we all know, Moses had a long beard, a big nose and spoke with an American accent. (Well he did in all the movies I have seen). Nigel may not be Moses but God is still the same God – the same yesterday today and for ever.
It is my firm belief that our God never stops moving his people on and that we are all on a journey and that journey involves getting better acquainted with His ways and how He wants us to live our life.
In this Benefice we have a good chance now to “hitch our wagons” onto Nigel and Penny’s journey and join with them as they seek God in the Celtic tradition of “going with the flow”.
I certainly don’t want to go back (like the Israelites), indeed it is impossible to go back as we are told that “life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday” and I will be happily moving forward into the flow of our God and I urge all of you to join us in this exciting journey into greater knowledge and deeper worship of our God.
So - I am certainly looking forward to our next year together, my prayer is that you are too.
All love, Beth
(Revd. Beth Whyte)
By the time you read this letter, “When Nigel comes” will have been “Now Nigel is Here” for a whole year. And What a Year it has been
Let me recap some of the highlights of this past year, or at least some of the highlights as I see them!
New Liturgy – we now have new liturgy books for all the seasons of the church year and most people I have spoken to agree that this has enhanced our worship and made us much more aware of the changing seasons in our church year
.
Bonfire Night – Did you get there? It was the most magnificent occasion with something for everyone. We had a bonfire that looked as if it was one continuous firework courtesy of an off duty firefighter, fireworks galore, lovely hot food and singing along with the guitars of the Good News Gang and others. A real Benefice effort and family occasion.
A very moving All Souls Service and a Taize Worship evening at Marazion.
Christmas Eve Crib service at Ludgvan attracting over 70 people including children.
A Marriage Thanksgiving service in the afternoon of St Valentine’s Day at Perranuthnoe
New Forms of worship on a Sunday afternoon at Ludgvan and Marazion and a Benefice Maunday Thursday Service at Marazion with the washing of feet (and hands) and Taize worship.
The Spectacular Easter morning (at 5.30am) service on the beach at Perranuthnoe where teenagers (and others) played guitars, children sang and older members just marvelled as we moved from complete darkness into the light of the sunrise and the further comfort of a fantastic cooked breakfast. What a way to start the Easter Season.
Easter Day also marked the opening of a new Junior Church at Ludgvan.
And this is just a small sample of the things that have been happening round the Benefice in the past year – as I said before – What a year!
Later this month Nigel and Penny will start their daily Taize service at Marazion and that will run Tuesday till Saturday every week during July and August at 4pm in Marazion Church – not to be missed.
Of course, all of this may have passed you by and you may not like any of the new services and innovations that Nigel and his whole family have brought to the Benefice and you are quite entitled to think like that. However, things are changing whether we like it or not. We are losing Lilian to Lincoln and her family and Annie from Perranuthnoe will start her training to be a Priest.
You may have noticed that new faces have started appearing in most of our congregations. Isn’t it wonderful that God is sending all these new people to join us in this journey as we strive to “Discover God’s Kingdom and Grow the Church” (as Bishop Tim would say). I believe that they are sent by God and its our responsibility, under God, to make them welcome among us.
If we all felt the same way about these changes then it would be the first time in history, as even Moses and Jesus himself didn’t please everyone.
I mention Moses because when following the Lectionary Year we have recently been reading through the book of Exodus, you know the one, Genesis, Exodus, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the patience and humility of Moses and the stubborn and complaining Israelites. (Try reading it again – it’s fascinating). They are still complaining all the way through Numbers too.
They had just seen God hold back the Red Sea for them, He’s drowned all the Egyptian army in the same Red Sea and within three days – yes just three days they were moaning about not having all the nice things to eat that they had enjoyed when they were slaves in Egypt. I don’t doubt that some of them would have complained that their feet had got damp coming through the Red Sea but I have no biblical evidence for this!
Not that I am comparing Nigel to Moses in any way because as we all know, Moses had a long beard, a big nose and spoke with an American accent. (Well he did in all the movies I have seen). Nigel may not be Moses but God is still the same God – the same yesterday today and for ever.
It is my firm belief that our God never stops moving his people on and that we are all on a journey and that journey involves getting better acquainted with His ways and how He wants us to live our life.
In this Benefice we have a good chance now to “hitch our wagons” onto Nigel and Penny’s journey and join with them as they seek God in the Celtic tradition of “going with the flow”.
I certainly don’t want to go back (like the Israelites), indeed it is impossible to go back as we are told that “life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday” and I will be happily moving forward into the flow of our God and I urge all of you to join us in this exciting journey into greater knowledge and deeper worship of our God.
So - I am certainly looking forward to our next year together, my prayer is that you are too.
All love, Beth
(Revd. Beth Whyte)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)