Here Comes The Summer – And It’s No ‘Ordinary Time’!
I don’t know about you but I am just beginning to get a taste for the Summer: for hot, shirtsleeve days and long summer nights when the light stretches ever onward and it doesn’t really get dark until 9pm or 10pm. The hedgerows have burst into a profusion of colour and the light is fresh and bright. For many, the Summer is an expansive time of the year: the constraints of the winter can be forgotten and the cobwebs thrown off. Many people relish the opportunity of spending as much time as possible out of doors, whether it be gardening or bowling, walking or rowing, surfing or swimming. The Summer can be a freeing and renewing time of the year.
Sadly, in these Summer days , the Calendar of the Church Year does not reflect the Summer experience of exploration and discovery and designates these ‘extraordinary’ months of June - and many months hereafter (right up until November) - as ‘Ordinary Time’ ! Sundays are numbered after the rather arcane theological concept of the Trinity almost ad infinitum - I think there are ’21 Sundays After Trinity’ this year!
I am always disappointed that the Church should choose to designate the Summer months in this way. There has been all the preparation for the birth of Jesus in December in the Advent Season, the joy of Jesus’ Coming at Christmas, the revelation of the nature of the Christ at Epiphany, the 40-day preparation of Lent, and the study of Jesus’ mission and life-story in February and March, leading to the climatic events of Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection in Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter, his Ascension in May and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. After all this, the Church Year seems to go rather flat. By not entering into the ‘Spirit’ of the Season or the Summer, I think that the Church misses a trick at this time of year.
There is the whole next part of the story of God’s salvation to be told: the story of the birth and early beginnings of the Church to discover, contained in the final books of the New Testament: the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters to the emerging Christian Churches and first Christian communities. And we learn that they are as fractious, fragile and human as any Church is today. This June in Church we shall be reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Church in Galatia, and we shall hear St Paul trying to explain to Jews his credentials in being an apostle, his contentious mission to the non-Jewish peoples, the Gentiles, the relationship of the newly emerging Christian faith to the old Jewish Torah and law and how St Paul emphasises that loving Christian conduct flows naturally from faith in Christ.
The Holy Spirit had much to teach the early Church and has much to teach us today. The Holy Spirit gives us the power we need to live the Gospel and is our well-spring of peace and confidence, planting the seed of faith and devotion to God in our hearts.
I know there is a need for fallow times in the Christian year as in the farming year: times when the soils in the fields need to recover and fish stocks return to the seas but I do not think the Summertime of fruitfulness and harvest is a time for this. As Christians, there are no ‘Ordinary Times’ if we are followers of Jesus and live lives empowered by the Holy Spirit. I believe as Christians we are to reap the ‘Harvest’ and ‘fruits of the Spirit’ at this time of year. I prefer to call these Summer days ‘Sundays of the Holy Spirit’, because you never know where the wind of the Holy Spirit will blow next and whom the fire of the Holy Spirit will rest or alight upon next. Just as we make new discoveries and have new experiences in the freedom of the Summer days and nights, may we ‘expect the unexpected’ in our faith too and may the Summer also be a ‘Season of the Holy Spirit’, a time of deepening, having new adventures and making new discoveries in our faith and walk with God just as we do in the rest of our lives at this bounteous time of Year.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
A Date For your Diary: Revd Nigel and Mrs Penny Marns warmly invite the Parishioners of the United Benefice to a Songs of Praise Service followed by some light refreshments in The Rectory Garden, Ludgvan (in Ludgvan Church, if wet) on Sunday June 27 at 4pm. All very welcome
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
May 2010 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
This month we celebrate three of the Church’s major festivals – Ascension Day, Pentecost and, right at the end of May, Trinity Sunday. The first two really bring the Easter story to its conclusion. On Ascension Day, all those marvellous encounters the disciples have had with their risen Lord, come to an end. He departs from them in bodily form, after promising that they will soon be ‘clothed in power from on high’, something which happens with spectacular force on the day of Pentecost.
From then on, the disciples are changed people. Inspired by Jesus’ appearances to them after Easter, and empowered by the gift of the Holy Spirit, they go out and change the world.
I’m always struck by the low-key way we Anglicans treat Ascension Day. It tends to be overshadowed by Easter a few weeks earlier, and Pentecost, which comes just over a week later. Maybe we’re even a little embarrassed by Luke’s description of how Jesus departs from this earth. Believing he was physically taken up into heaven in a cloud seems, to our modern way of thinking, rather naïve and simplistic. I rather enjoy the way the scene is often depicted in Eastern Orthodox art, though it makes me want to giggle too – there’s usually the group of eleven disciples gazing upwards and, right at the top of the picture, a bit of cloud with Jesus’ ankles and feet dangling down from it.
But the more you meditate on this story, the more meaning it has, and particularly for us in this day and age, when the Church sometimes seems to be suffering from a lack of confidence. When our faith is under attack from many sides, as it is at present, there is an understandable tendency for Christians to want to play safe – to gather together in our own places rather than engage with a world that can seem indifferent or even hostile.
One of the striking things about the Ascension story, though, is the state the disciples were in when they went down off the hill. Jesus has departed from them. How natural it would have been to feel bereft, even fearful about having to face life without him. Not a bit of it. They go down the hillside bursting with confidence and joy. Luke tells us they are then continuously in the temple praising God, and this despite the fact that Jerusalem had become a very dangerous place for the followers of Jesus. There’s such an exuberance and boldness about them, that they’re scarcely recognisable as the same people who were in a state of fear and trembling only a short time previously.
It’s this transformation – begun at Easter and completed at Pentecost – that is the most powerful testament to the reality of Christ’s resurrection, and the power of the Holy Spirit. And it’s part of the miracle of the whole thing, that ever since those events, Jesus’ followers have, in some mysterious way, been able to plug into the same power source as those first disciples. We too are able to know the risen Christ as a living presence in our lives; we too have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is conferred on us all when we are baptised.
We do have to admit, though, that some of us seem to live as though we have not been transformed and empowered by these experiences at all. Someone has said that what we need to do in order for the Church to survive and grow, is rediscover our confidence in the power of Holy Spirit. As it is, we tend to muddle along as though we’re unaware of this great energy source available to us. It reminds me of when we acquired our present car. I’d never driven a car with a sixth gear before, so I often forgot that it was there. If John happened to be in the passenger seat, our journeys would be punctuated by him hissing through clenched teeth (his usual form of communication anyway, when I’m driving): ‘Move into top gear’.
Perhaps we should take that as our Ascension-tide and Whitsun-tide motto. And how do we ‘move into top gear?’ The first disciples point the way. The first thing they do after Jesus’ ascension is come together to pray, so preparing themselves for the gift of the Holy Spirit which is nothing less than the power of God actively at work in us, giving us new life, energising us and changing us.
It has been said that the Christian faith has no proofs, only witnesses. But when you think about it, the two amount to the same thing. The truth of our faith is proved by the quality of our witness. Often at our Sunday morning service we say these words: ‘The Lord is here. His spirit is with us’. If we really know that to be true, then we too have what it takes to go out and change the world, or at any rate, our little bit of it.
Yours with love, Lilian
This month we celebrate three of the Church’s major festivals – Ascension Day, Pentecost and, right at the end of May, Trinity Sunday. The first two really bring the Easter story to its conclusion. On Ascension Day, all those marvellous encounters the disciples have had with their risen Lord, come to an end. He departs from them in bodily form, after promising that they will soon be ‘clothed in power from on high’, something which happens with spectacular force on the day of Pentecost.
From then on, the disciples are changed people. Inspired by Jesus’ appearances to them after Easter, and empowered by the gift of the Holy Spirit, they go out and change the world.
I’m always struck by the low-key way we Anglicans treat Ascension Day. It tends to be overshadowed by Easter a few weeks earlier, and Pentecost, which comes just over a week later. Maybe we’re even a little embarrassed by Luke’s description of how Jesus departs from this earth. Believing he was physically taken up into heaven in a cloud seems, to our modern way of thinking, rather naïve and simplistic. I rather enjoy the way the scene is often depicted in Eastern Orthodox art, though it makes me want to giggle too – there’s usually the group of eleven disciples gazing upwards and, right at the top of the picture, a bit of cloud with Jesus’ ankles and feet dangling down from it.
But the more you meditate on this story, the more meaning it has, and particularly for us in this day and age, when the Church sometimes seems to be suffering from a lack of confidence. When our faith is under attack from many sides, as it is at present, there is an understandable tendency for Christians to want to play safe – to gather together in our own places rather than engage with a world that can seem indifferent or even hostile.
One of the striking things about the Ascension story, though, is the state the disciples were in when they went down off the hill. Jesus has departed from them. How natural it would have been to feel bereft, even fearful about having to face life without him. Not a bit of it. They go down the hillside bursting with confidence and joy. Luke tells us they are then continuously in the temple praising God, and this despite the fact that Jerusalem had become a very dangerous place for the followers of Jesus. There’s such an exuberance and boldness about them, that they’re scarcely recognisable as the same people who were in a state of fear and trembling only a short time previously.
It’s this transformation – begun at Easter and completed at Pentecost – that is the most powerful testament to the reality of Christ’s resurrection, and the power of the Holy Spirit. And it’s part of the miracle of the whole thing, that ever since those events, Jesus’ followers have, in some mysterious way, been able to plug into the same power source as those first disciples. We too are able to know the risen Christ as a living presence in our lives; we too have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is conferred on us all when we are baptised.
We do have to admit, though, that some of us seem to live as though we have not been transformed and empowered by these experiences at all. Someone has said that what we need to do in order for the Church to survive and grow, is rediscover our confidence in the power of Holy Spirit. As it is, we tend to muddle along as though we’re unaware of this great energy source available to us. It reminds me of when we acquired our present car. I’d never driven a car with a sixth gear before, so I often forgot that it was there. If John happened to be in the passenger seat, our journeys would be punctuated by him hissing through clenched teeth (his usual form of communication anyway, when I’m driving): ‘Move into top gear’.
Perhaps we should take that as our Ascension-tide and Whitsun-tide motto. And how do we ‘move into top gear?’ The first disciples point the way. The first thing they do after Jesus’ ascension is come together to pray, so preparing themselves for the gift of the Holy Spirit which is nothing less than the power of God actively at work in us, giving us new life, energising us and changing us.
It has been said that the Christian faith has no proofs, only witnesses. But when you think about it, the two amount to the same thing. The truth of our faith is proved by the quality of our witness. Often at our Sunday morning service we say these words: ‘The Lord is here. His spirit is with us’. If we really know that to be true, then we too have what it takes to go out and change the world, or at any rate, our little bit of it.
Yours with love, Lilian
Monday, 29 March 2010
NEWSLETTER APRIL 2010
‘Sometimes it causes me to wonder, wonder,
Were you there when they crucified, my Lord?’
Just as the old spiritual says, the climatic events of Jesus’ last days on Earth give us much cause to wonder as we relive and bear witness once again to Jesus’ Life, Death and Resurrection this Easter.
During these last seven weeks of Lent we have been thinking about ‘the People of the Passion’, people who were witnesses to Jesus’ Passion during his lifetime: people like the Centurion, the thief on the Cross, Pilate’s wife. But Jesus’ story is not trapped at one moment in time, trapped in the history books 2000 years ago. We can still encounter it, experience it and it can have life-changing effect on our lives today.
I wonder where you might be in the crowd, as you witness Jesus’ Passion: are you standing at the back, watching from afar off, liable to flee at the first sign of trouble, as the crowds and disciples largely did at Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gesthemene. Or do you find yourself in the thick of the action?: Welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem with great hope on Palm Sunday; being made incredulous by Jesus’ servant ministry, as he washes his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper; ‘beholding’ the glory of ‘the Man’, steadfast under question and steadfast under fire by the rulers; or, perhaps, feeling as if you have, in some way, betrayed your calling to completely live Jesus’ Way in your life, like Peter and Judas. Do you find yourself at the foot of the Cross contemplating God’s great love and forgiveness for the sins of the world, or startled by great joy as the Risen Jesus appears to you in a Garden or on a Beach.
This year we have a very full programme of events and services throughout the Benefice over Holy Week to help us not to linger at the back of the crowd, but to draw us closely in to Jesus’ Story, so that we may fully enter into the Easter Mystery, and to enable us to wonder afresh at God’s great love and salvation plan for each of us and the whole world.
We will travel with Jesus this Holy Week and as we will celebrate in Good Friday and Easter Day, the culmination, purpose and pinnacle of our Christian lives and faith. We will contemplate and wonder together, whether it be in joyous Palm Sunday Services or more contemplative Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Vigils, or as we welcome Christ’s Resurrection Light coming to us on Easter Day at Sunrise or in a beautiful Easter Morning Service. I pray that as Jesus’ followers today, as ‘People of the Passion’ today, that our experience and encounter with the Living Jesus, will restore our hope and trust in the purposes of God, who can overcome all things and makes all things new for all-time and for each of us in the Resurrection Dawn on Easter Day.
I wish you all a very Happy Easter,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
Were you there when they crucified, my Lord?’
Just as the old spiritual says, the climatic events of Jesus’ last days on Earth give us much cause to wonder as we relive and bear witness once again to Jesus’ Life, Death and Resurrection this Easter.
During these last seven weeks of Lent we have been thinking about ‘the People of the Passion’, people who were witnesses to Jesus’ Passion during his lifetime: people like the Centurion, the thief on the Cross, Pilate’s wife. But Jesus’ story is not trapped at one moment in time, trapped in the history books 2000 years ago. We can still encounter it, experience it and it can have life-changing effect on our lives today.
I wonder where you might be in the crowd, as you witness Jesus’ Passion: are you standing at the back, watching from afar off, liable to flee at the first sign of trouble, as the crowds and disciples largely did at Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gesthemene. Or do you find yourself in the thick of the action?: Welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem with great hope on Palm Sunday; being made incredulous by Jesus’ servant ministry, as he washes his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper; ‘beholding’ the glory of ‘the Man’, steadfast under question and steadfast under fire by the rulers; or, perhaps, feeling as if you have, in some way, betrayed your calling to completely live Jesus’ Way in your life, like Peter and Judas. Do you find yourself at the foot of the Cross contemplating God’s great love and forgiveness for the sins of the world, or startled by great joy as the Risen Jesus appears to you in a Garden or on a Beach.
This year we have a very full programme of events and services throughout the Benefice over Holy Week to help us not to linger at the back of the crowd, but to draw us closely in to Jesus’ Story, so that we may fully enter into the Easter Mystery, and to enable us to wonder afresh at God’s great love and salvation plan for each of us and the whole world.
We will travel with Jesus this Holy Week and as we will celebrate in Good Friday and Easter Day, the culmination, purpose and pinnacle of our Christian lives and faith. We will contemplate and wonder together, whether it be in joyous Palm Sunday Services or more contemplative Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Vigils, or as we welcome Christ’s Resurrection Light coming to us on Easter Day at Sunrise or in a beautiful Easter Morning Service. I pray that as Jesus’ followers today, as ‘People of the Passion’ today, that our experience and encounter with the Living Jesus, will restore our hope and trust in the purposes of God, who can overcome all things and makes all things new for all-time and for each of us in the Resurrection Dawn on Easter Day.
I wish you all a very Happy Easter,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
Friday, 26 February 2010
March Newsletter
Dear Friends,
This Year we took friends along the road from Porth Navas to Mawnan. It is a narrow lane that skirts the waters edge through some delightful Helford scenery. The width of the road is not for the faint hearted as we discovered trying to pass a lady in her people's carrier who simply froze beside me in a rather tight passing place on the road! Sometimes roads can be difficult if we want to see the best views!
We went from there down to the church at Mawnan with its wonderful views out to sea and I saw again the old Cornish board across the lychgate which reads -Dus ynjy dhe Du.
This is an invitation to the visiting pilgrim to draw near to God. An invitation to find sanctuary and to pray. At journey's end to step aside and enjoy the presence of God. All good journeys through life include prayer of some kind. Lent is such a time in our calendar - part of a journey through the Christian year. Some people think of it as a time for denial and giving up something that we consider a little special treat in life. I see it more as a special marker on the journey - a moment to stop and reflect on the meaning of those events that lie at the very heart of our faith. Our journey leads us year by year to this same place. We stop like all good pilgrims. We catch our breath from the journey and take stock. We find fresh sanctuary as old truths take on new and fresh meaning. We meet with Our Lord on his journey and passion. It is a place to accept afresh his blessing. We can do this as we discover once again for ourselves the old truths and allow the Spirit of God to re-mint those truths so that they come afresh into our lives. Please accept this invitation of God, this Lent, so that each one of us might find his presence with us.
Your friend and priest,
Noel Michell.
This Year we took friends along the road from Porth Navas to Mawnan. It is a narrow lane that skirts the waters edge through some delightful Helford scenery. The width of the road is not for the faint hearted as we discovered trying to pass a lady in her people's carrier who simply froze beside me in a rather tight passing place on the road! Sometimes roads can be difficult if we want to see the best views!
We went from there down to the church at Mawnan with its wonderful views out to sea and I saw again the old Cornish board across the lychgate which reads -Dus ynjy dhe Du.
This is an invitation to the visiting pilgrim to draw near to God. An invitation to find sanctuary and to pray. At journey's end to step aside and enjoy the presence of God. All good journeys through life include prayer of some kind. Lent is such a time in our calendar - part of a journey through the Christian year. Some people think of it as a time for denial and giving up something that we consider a little special treat in life. I see it more as a special marker on the journey - a moment to stop and reflect on the meaning of those events that lie at the very heart of our faith. Our journey leads us year by year to this same place. We stop like all good pilgrims. We catch our breath from the journey and take stock. We find fresh sanctuary as old truths take on new and fresh meaning. We meet with Our Lord on his journey and passion. It is a place to accept afresh his blessing. We can do this as we discover once again for ourselves the old truths and allow the Spirit of God to re-mint those truths so that they come afresh into our lives. Please accept this invitation of God, this Lent, so that each one of us might find his presence with us.
Your friend and priest,
Noel Michell.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
February 2010 Newsletter
St Piran & St Michael’s Church, Perranuthnoe
PEOPLE OF THE PASSION
Stories are important to us. Whether they be stories about our national or local history, stories about 'what make us the people that we are'; or fairy stories that we tell our children to warn them of the dangers in our world, or whether it be keeping abreast of the latest unfolding and developing dramas and stories on the television news. We all like a good story.
One of the privileges of my job is that I have the opportunity to hear peoples' stories. Over the past six months, as your new Rector, I've started to make my way around the Benefice, and have been privileged to begin to be invited to share in lives and tales. I've heard about what is important, what brings joy and, sometimes, also what problems or difficulties people have had to overcome in their lives, whether financial or in relationships or struggles with poor health. I've also heard about people's personal walk with God, how the golden thread of faith has been interwoven into the events of lives and journeys. And I've learnt afresh that everyone has a story to tell.
The problem with the stories in our faith is that they become over-familiar to us. We think we've heard them all before, that they have nothing more to tell us or teach us or say to us. We think we know what they are all about, and we stop listening to them. In St Ignatius' Way of Prayer he taught his Jesuits to imagine themselves from the perspective of one of the characters in the narrative, and so more fully enter into the unfolding Biblical account, making the stories more present and real, for them to become as it were participants in the Gospel stories, as if they were happening today, in the here and now. In 2000 the BBC produced eight vignettes or monologues of about fifteen minutes each, an imaginative re-interpretation of people who had met Jesus, but taken from a slightly different perspective, a slightly different angle on the story, producing new insights onto familiar and well-known characters in the Biblical account of the Passion: people like the Centurion, the Thief on the Cross or Pontius Pilate's wife. It is similar to Alan Bennett's 'Talking Heads'. As we watch these little accounts together this Lent, and we realise that everyone has a story to tell, it will help us to engage afresh with the people who were around Jesus, 'The People of the Passion', who had contact with Jesus in his life and so, on reflection, help us to build up a better picture of Jesus himself as he heads towards the dramatic and seminal events of Holy Week and Easter-tide.
As Christians, we too are 'People of the Passion' (although we don't live at the same historical time as Jesus himself) we are people who hold to the belief that Jesus' Life, Death and Resurrection is the most important story in human history, and that Jesus' story brings the promise of forgiveness, restoration, renewal and new life to everyone and to our own life stories too. At Lent, we place Jesus' story at the centre of our lives and our stories, and it may be that we decide to do something to acknowledge this in as practical way in our own life, by 'giving up something' to remember Jesus' own fasting and praying in the wilderness or 'taking up' a new thing, by joining a Lent Group or Lent Lunch or re-galvanising our prayer-time, so that during this forty day season we may draw closer to Jesus and his story and that his story interweaves more strongly and visibly in our lives throughout this precious time of Lent.
I pray that during this Lent we will listen again to the Biblical stories, we may enter it all anew and afresh and that it will inform our own life stories and our own journeying with God today.
May we have a blessed and holy Lent together,
Best Wishes,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
PEOPLE OF THE PASSION
Stories are important to us. Whether they be stories about our national or local history, stories about 'what make us the people that we are'; or fairy stories that we tell our children to warn them of the dangers in our world, or whether it be keeping abreast of the latest unfolding and developing dramas and stories on the television news. We all like a good story.
One of the privileges of my job is that I have the opportunity to hear peoples' stories. Over the past six months, as your new Rector, I've started to make my way around the Benefice, and have been privileged to begin to be invited to share in lives and tales. I've heard about what is important, what brings joy and, sometimes, also what problems or difficulties people have had to overcome in their lives, whether financial or in relationships or struggles with poor health. I've also heard about people's personal walk with God, how the golden thread of faith has been interwoven into the events of lives and journeys. And I've learnt afresh that everyone has a story to tell.
The problem with the stories in our faith is that they become over-familiar to us. We think we've heard them all before, that they have nothing more to tell us or teach us or say to us. We think we know what they are all about, and we stop listening to them. In St Ignatius' Way of Prayer he taught his Jesuits to imagine themselves from the perspective of one of the characters in the narrative, and so more fully enter into the unfolding Biblical account, making the stories more present and real, for them to become as it were participants in the Gospel stories, as if they were happening today, in the here and now. In 2000 the BBC produced eight vignettes or monologues of about fifteen minutes each, an imaginative re-interpretation of people who had met Jesus, but taken from a slightly different perspective, a slightly different angle on the story, producing new insights onto familiar and well-known characters in the Biblical account of the Passion: people like the Centurion, the Thief on the Cross or Pontius Pilate's wife. It is similar to Alan Bennett's 'Talking Heads'. As we watch these little accounts together this Lent, and we realise that everyone has a story to tell, it will help us to engage afresh with the people who were around Jesus, 'The People of the Passion', who had contact with Jesus in his life and so, on reflection, help us to build up a better picture of Jesus himself as he heads towards the dramatic and seminal events of Holy Week and Easter-tide.
As Christians, we too are 'People of the Passion' (although we don't live at the same historical time as Jesus himself) we are people who hold to the belief that Jesus' Life, Death and Resurrection is the most important story in human history, and that Jesus' story brings the promise of forgiveness, restoration, renewal and new life to everyone and to our own life stories too. At Lent, we place Jesus' story at the centre of our lives and our stories, and it may be that we decide to do something to acknowledge this in as practical way in our own life, by 'giving up something' to remember Jesus' own fasting and praying in the wilderness or 'taking up' a new thing, by joining a Lent Group or Lent Lunch or re-galvanising our prayer-time, so that during this forty day season we may draw closer to Jesus and his story and that his story interweaves more strongly and visibly in our lives throughout this precious time of Lent.
I pray that during this Lent we will listen again to the Biblical stories, we may enter it all anew and afresh and that it will inform our own life stories and our own journeying with God today.
May we have a blessed and holy Lent together,
Best Wishes,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
Friday, 27 November 2009
December Newsletter
ADVENT: EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED!
In Advent we enter a Season of Expectation. Everyone is expecting something. Anticipation fills the air. Children (and some adults too!) wonder at what gifts they shall receive, and those who buy things for others hope that their carefully-chosen presents will be liked and enjoyed. Adults wonder whether all the Christmas plans will work out, whether inclement weather will restrict or prevent travelling, and once everyone has safely arrived and been installed, whether those gathered around will get along alright! Many will wonder and worry about how all the cooking and food preparation will go, and whether the turkey will be tasty or over (or, perhaps, undercooked) this year! Personally, I am certainly looking forward to celebrating and sharing in my first Christmas with you in the Benefice. Expectation, anticipation, excitement and some concern fill these days of Advent.
In all our busyness and practical preparations of the Advent season, it is important that we allow the spirit of anticipation and expectation to fill our worship and prayer life: at Advent we prepare ourselves for Jesus’ coming too, to ensure that we are ready to greet him when he arrives at Christmastime. Advent is a time to watch, wonder and wait (and that’s exactly why we began Advent with a ‘Service of Watching and Waiting’ on Advent Sunday this year). However good our preparations are, nothing, in my experience, ever goes quite according to plan, and we are often surprised by how things turn out in the end. In our Christian lives too we should expect the unexpected: no-one quite knows when or how Jesus will come to us this Christmastime. Often the wonder of the events of Christmas, of God coming to Earth as a tiny, vulnerable and fragile baby, can catch me at the least expected times and the seemingly least expected ways and places. For some, it may be through traditional routes that God comes to us and touches us once again: the candlelit service at Midnight or the joyful face of a child at Christingle; for others, it will be in the glory of the flashing lights (both inside our Churches (and particularly the Christmas Tree Festival at Marazion this year), or seeing the lights over the Bay, of which I’ve heard so much about; for some, it will be in the greeting and welcoming of friends and family, the long nights of conversation by the fireside; for others, receiving, a particularly special gift. But sometimes Jesus comes to us in new and unexpected ways: in the kindness of a stranger or when we hear a conflict has been reconciled and a new peace has broken out.
On her latest album, Enya sings:
‘Somewhere in a winter’s night,
the angels begin their flight.’
In Advent, it is good to draw close and attuned to God and to listen with eagerness and anticipation for Christ’s coming to us. As well as preparing our homes and families, let us also prepare our hearts this Advent to once again (and perhaps in an unexpected way) to hear the angel’s song and joyful tidings once again:
‘Glory to God in the Highest! Peace to his people in Earth! I bring you good news of great joy!
For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, Christ the Lord!’
In all our Advent preparations this year, let us leave enough space to hear the angels’ wings unfurl.
I wish you all a very anticipatory Advent and a Very Happy Christmas to come,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
In Advent we enter a Season of Expectation. Everyone is expecting something. Anticipation fills the air. Children (and some adults too!) wonder at what gifts they shall receive, and those who buy things for others hope that their carefully-chosen presents will be liked and enjoyed. Adults wonder whether all the Christmas plans will work out, whether inclement weather will restrict or prevent travelling, and once everyone has safely arrived and been installed, whether those gathered around will get along alright! Many will wonder and worry about how all the cooking and food preparation will go, and whether the turkey will be tasty or over (or, perhaps, undercooked) this year! Personally, I am certainly looking forward to celebrating and sharing in my first Christmas with you in the Benefice. Expectation, anticipation, excitement and some concern fill these days of Advent.
In all our busyness and practical preparations of the Advent season, it is important that we allow the spirit of anticipation and expectation to fill our worship and prayer life: at Advent we prepare ourselves for Jesus’ coming too, to ensure that we are ready to greet him when he arrives at Christmastime. Advent is a time to watch, wonder and wait (and that’s exactly why we began Advent with a ‘Service of Watching and Waiting’ on Advent Sunday this year). However good our preparations are, nothing, in my experience, ever goes quite according to plan, and we are often surprised by how things turn out in the end. In our Christian lives too we should expect the unexpected: no-one quite knows when or how Jesus will come to us this Christmastime. Often the wonder of the events of Christmas, of God coming to Earth as a tiny, vulnerable and fragile baby, can catch me at the least expected times and the seemingly least expected ways and places. For some, it may be through traditional routes that God comes to us and touches us once again: the candlelit service at Midnight or the joyful face of a child at Christingle; for others, it will be in the glory of the flashing lights (both inside our Churches (and particularly the Christmas Tree Festival at Marazion this year), or seeing the lights over the Bay, of which I’ve heard so much about; for some, it will be in the greeting and welcoming of friends and family, the long nights of conversation by the fireside; for others, receiving, a particularly special gift. But sometimes Jesus comes to us in new and unexpected ways: in the kindness of a stranger or when we hear a conflict has been reconciled and a new peace has broken out.
On her latest album, Enya sings:
‘Somewhere in a winter’s night,
the angels begin their flight.’
In Advent, it is good to draw close and attuned to God and to listen with eagerness and anticipation for Christ’s coming to us. As well as preparing our homes and families, let us also prepare our hearts this Advent to once again (and perhaps in an unexpected way) to hear the angel’s song and joyful tidings once again:
‘Glory to God in the Highest! Peace to his people in Earth! I bring you good news of great joy!
For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, Christ the Lord!’
In all our Advent preparations this year, let us leave enough space to hear the angels’ wings unfurl.
I wish you all a very anticipatory Advent and a Very Happy Christmas to come,
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector: Ludgvan, Marazion, Perranuthnoe & St Hilary
Saturday, 31 October 2009
November Newsletter
Remember, remember...
As the evenings gain a distinct Autumnal coolness, as the nights draw in and the clocks go back, as we draw our curtains early in the evenings, at this time of year it feels natural to ‘batten down the hatches’, to draw and gather in those close to us, to start to prepare for the impending Winter by beginning to hibernate and get cosy by our firesides.
For the Celtic Christian ancestors this time of year was not just a time to turn inwards and to stay shut away, but to a time to Celebrate. For some Celts 31 October was Samhein ‘summers end’ and was greeted by tribal gatherings, games, feasts and entertainments. For others it marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year. For us, as we approach the Season and approaching death of the Winter months, it seems natural for the Church to mark this time with our annual Season of Remembrance. We shall be marking and celebrating all three Festivals of Remembrance during the month of November.
Remembrance Sunday (which this year falls on Sunday 8 November) will be observed fully in all four Churches of the Benefice. On Remembrance Sunday, we shall be remembering not just those who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars, but also those who gave their lives in all the recent conflicts since, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those still serving there.
Remembrance is not only about Remembrance Sunday: the month of November is also in the Church, All Saints Tide, when we remember and celebrate ‘the lights who have gone before us’, the saints we know, and have known, and all those who have encouraged us in the Way of Faith in our lives. We shall be celebrating Marazion’s Feast Day of All Saints at All Saints, Marazion on 1 November at 11.00am in the morning and coming together for a special Benefice All Saints Evensong at St Hilary Church together with the Deanery Choir on All Saints Sunday evening, 1 November.
We shall also be remembering our loved ones who have died on All Souls Day at a Benefice All Souls Service the following evening, Monday 2 November, at Marazion, to which all are welcome. Lists are available in all the churches to recall and remember those who have died and all the names and loved ones we seek to recall before God will be read out during this Service.
Coloured by the red of the poppies on lapels, November and the coming Winter can be a reflective, salutary, sombre, if not a sad, time of the year but both All Saints Day and All Souls Day should be regarded as a Celebratory Time: Christians believe that the Life we enjoy and struggle with on Earth, especially through the approaching dark days of Winter, is not all there is, but that through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, a Way is prepared for each of us, and our loved ones who have gone before us, through Death to Life Everlasting, a glorious and hopeful future with our Heavenly Father in his Kingdom of Heaven: All Saints Tide then becomes a very positive reason to celebrate God’s Love and provision and wonderful future that awaits us all after our life on Earth is over.
And far from withdrawing into our private worlds from the rigours of the impending Winter, we are planning this year to recall another fateful event in our history, ‘to remember, remember the 5th of November’, coming out of our homes and gathering around a campfire. Although we recall ‘the triumph of democracy’ on Bonfire Night, against the conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament, the ongoing MPs expenses scandal, the loss of any sense of morality around many of the outrageous claims submitted, many MPs constant refrain that ‘we were only acting within the rules’ and the dearth of political ideas to deal with the current economic crisis may well give Bonfire Night an added edge this year: many will perhaps secretly be thinking that it might be a good idea had Guy Fawkes succeeded all those years ago (!) or whether we need a new present-day Guy Fawkes to stir up and shake up the cosy and seemingly corrupt establishment of our current parliamentary system!
There is something defiant and evocative about the lighting of a bonfire, the sparkle and fizzle of the fireworks lighting up the dark sky on 5 November, the smell of the spent cordite and hot food, and gathering of the empty firework shells. We hope to have a happy night on Bonfire Night 5 in the Rectory Garden at Ludgvan, an event especially planned by and for the families of the Benefice (but not exclusively so) and everyone is welcome to come along: tickets are now on sale for this ‘Remembrance Event’ and Celebration!
Many acts of Remembrance will be taking place in the next month. Let this Season not only a reflective and sombre time, but also a time of joy, as we restate our belief in the New Life Jesus has prepared for us and our loved ones, and as we gather together in the darkness to sip our soup and munch our hotdogs by the Bonfire and to defy the coming Winter with a Celebration of Light and Song.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector of St Piran's & St Michael's, Perranuthnoe
As the evenings gain a distinct Autumnal coolness, as the nights draw in and the clocks go back, as we draw our curtains early in the evenings, at this time of year it feels natural to ‘batten down the hatches’, to draw and gather in those close to us, to start to prepare for the impending Winter by beginning to hibernate and get cosy by our firesides.
For the Celtic Christian ancestors this time of year was not just a time to turn inwards and to stay shut away, but to a time to Celebrate. For some Celts 31 October was Samhein ‘summers end’ and was greeted by tribal gatherings, games, feasts and entertainments. For others it marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year. For us, as we approach the Season and approaching death of the Winter months, it seems natural for the Church to mark this time with our annual Season of Remembrance. We shall be marking and celebrating all three Festivals of Remembrance during the month of November.
Remembrance Sunday (which this year falls on Sunday 8 November) will be observed fully in all four Churches of the Benefice. On Remembrance Sunday, we shall be remembering not just those who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars, but also those who gave their lives in all the recent conflicts since, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those still serving there.
Remembrance is not only about Remembrance Sunday: the month of November is also in the Church, All Saints Tide, when we remember and celebrate ‘the lights who have gone before us’, the saints we know, and have known, and all those who have encouraged us in the Way of Faith in our lives. We shall be celebrating Marazion’s Feast Day of All Saints at All Saints, Marazion on 1 November at 11.00am in the morning and coming together for a special Benefice All Saints Evensong at St Hilary Church together with the Deanery Choir on All Saints Sunday evening, 1 November.
We shall also be remembering our loved ones who have died on All Souls Day at a Benefice All Souls Service the following evening, Monday 2 November, at Marazion, to which all are welcome. Lists are available in all the churches to recall and remember those who have died and all the names and loved ones we seek to recall before God will be read out during this Service.
Coloured by the red of the poppies on lapels, November and the coming Winter can be a reflective, salutary, sombre, if not a sad, time of the year but both All Saints Day and All Souls Day should be regarded as a Celebratory Time: Christians believe that the Life we enjoy and struggle with on Earth, especially through the approaching dark days of Winter, is not all there is, but that through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, a Way is prepared for each of us, and our loved ones who have gone before us, through Death to Life Everlasting, a glorious and hopeful future with our Heavenly Father in his Kingdom of Heaven: All Saints Tide then becomes a very positive reason to celebrate God’s Love and provision and wonderful future that awaits us all after our life on Earth is over.
And far from withdrawing into our private worlds from the rigours of the impending Winter, we are planning this year to recall another fateful event in our history, ‘to remember, remember the 5th of November’, coming out of our homes and gathering around a campfire. Although we recall ‘the triumph of democracy’ on Bonfire Night, against the conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament, the ongoing MPs expenses scandal, the loss of any sense of morality around many of the outrageous claims submitted, many MPs constant refrain that ‘we were only acting within the rules’ and the dearth of political ideas to deal with the current economic crisis may well give Bonfire Night an added edge this year: many will perhaps secretly be thinking that it might be a good idea had Guy Fawkes succeeded all those years ago (!) or whether we need a new present-day Guy Fawkes to stir up and shake up the cosy and seemingly corrupt establishment of our current parliamentary system!
There is something defiant and evocative about the lighting of a bonfire, the sparkle and fizzle of the fireworks lighting up the dark sky on 5 November, the smell of the spent cordite and hot food, and gathering of the empty firework shells. We hope to have a happy night on Bonfire Night 5 in the Rectory Garden at Ludgvan, an event especially planned by and for the families of the Benefice (but not exclusively so) and everyone is welcome to come along: tickets are now on sale for this ‘Remembrance Event’ and Celebration!
Many acts of Remembrance will be taking place in the next month. Let this Season not only a reflective and sombre time, but also a time of joy, as we restate our belief in the New Life Jesus has prepared for us and our loved ones, and as we gather together in the darkness to sip our soup and munch our hotdogs by the Bonfire and to defy the coming Winter with a Celebration of Light and Song.
Revd Nigel Marns
Rector of St Piran's & St Michael's, Perranuthnoe
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