We will look back on the old year with different thoughts and feelings, for some of great joy and for others of great sadness. Reconciling ourselves to moving forward is not always easy and we carry forward the experiences we have been through as the people we have become. The new year is before us all and in the depths of our cold English weather and the short days of sunlight, we can make decisions and resolutions to help us move forward in a good way.

I hope the Church services in January will support us. This January we begin a new pattern of services in the churches of our Benefice.

First Sunday will be a Benefice Service of Holy Communion at 10.00am at King’s Cliffe, with hymns, an address and CHAOS activities for children during the service.

Second Sunday will bring 2 morning services. Holy Communion with hymns and an address at 9.00am in Laxton and Holy Communion with hymns and an address at 10.00am in King’s Cliffe.  In the afternoon at 4.00pm there will be a Family Service at one of the Benefice Churches which will be announced. In January and February it will be held in King’s Cliffe and in March in Bulwick.

Third Sunday will bring 2 morning services.  These will be Morning Worship and Family Communion.  In January Morning Worship will be at King’s Cliffe at 10.00am and Family Communion will be at Bulwick at 11.00am. There will be activities for children during both services.

Fourth Sunday will be 10.00am Family Communion at King’s Cliffe with CHAOS and 6.00pm Evening Prayer at Laxton.

Look out for notices about special services on a Fifth Sunday.  In January this will be 10.00am Family Communion at King’s Cliffe with CHAOS and a Deanery gathering at St Peter’s, Oundle at 6.00pm for Evensong.

Philip Davies

Back to Ministry Letters            Oundle Welcome Page

In the mood for Christmas?

November is here. December is on the way. It’s Bonfire night, then Armistice Day, then Advent. Don’t tell anyone ... Christmas is coming! Are you ready? Is the world ready?

As I write this letter, protesters are still camped at the west entrance of St Paul’s, the Greek PM is facing calls to resign, economies across Europe are coming under increasing pressure, and in some areas of Britain 25% of young people are now out of work, education or training. The gap between the very wealthiest and the poorest Brits is still widening. That’s a snapshot of the good news at the moment!

For many it doesn’t feel particularly Christmassy. No money, and worries about even less in the future. Big questions are being asked about the way our society operates. So, cancel Christmas? Forget it this year and try again in 2012? Perhaps not.

The figure of history whose birthday we celebrate – Jesus – was born into a situation not dissimilar to this. His world needed some good news. His nation was under military occupation. What money they had was being channelled into someone else’s bank account – the Roman Empire! There were protestors who were agitating for reform and a new way. And as Herod relaxed in his palace, the Christ was being born as a refugee in a borrowed stable: the haves and the have-nots.

He was born into a dark world that needed some good news. As the Bible speaks about the birth of Jesus into his troubled world, it says “the light (Jesus) shines in the darkness”. Jesus comes as a light to our world. He looks at the mess around us, all the broken promises of life and he reissues his familiar invitation - “Follow me!”

There’s never been a better time for the message of Christmas:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

It’s a great time for a new start. It’s time to follow Jesus.

HOLIDAYS AND HOLY DAYS

August has been the traditional month for holidays when the schools have broken up and the seaside – or a foreign destination – beckons.  But the balance was shifted several years ago when the August Bank Holiday was shifted from the first Monday in the month to the last and later the other Bank Holidays were altered:  Whit Monday to the last Monday in May and the introduction of another at the beginning of the same month to coincide with Labour Day.  This year we have had the additional Bank Holiday for the Royal Wedding and next year we shall celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee; there has also been the call for another day off later on – perhaps linked with Trafalgar Day (21^st October) – although that change is unlikely to happen until 2013.

How do you view holidays?  Are they truly times of refreshment and recreation?  We all need a break from time to time but they need to be used positively to ‘recharge the batteries’ and provide fresh insights.  The first definition given is ‘a consecrated time’ which stresses its importance and its link with the Holy Days kept by the Church from the beginning.

The chief festival has always been Easter (not Christmas) because it is a reminder of the Resurrection of Jesus; indeed every Sunday is a weekly commemoration of that key event, described in the Prayer Book as ‘Easter Day on which the rest depend’.   In 321 when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity he decreed that Sunday should be a general holiday.  Not for nothing have people want to safeguard that principle with the ‘Keep Sunday Special’ campaign even though it has since been eroded with Sunday shopping and countless other activities.

Nevertheless, we would do well to reclaim our Holy Days and rejoice in our name days (if we are fortunate to be named after a saint commemorated in the Calendar).  In our local churches we have always been glad to keep our Patronal festivals (at St Mary’s we have usually observed the Nativity of Our Lady on 8^th September - or the Sunday following - and at St Andrew’s we have kept 30^th November).    More details will be given next month about the Gift Day on Saturday 10^th September and the special service the next day.  There is a rhythm in the liturgical year,

In the meantime, I wish you all a good holiday which will bring inspiration and the opportunity to discover new places and bring illuminating ideas to bear.   And if any have ‘Significant Birthdays’ let them be occasions of celebration!   Next month will see the end of 10 happy years as your parish priest.

Thomas Christie

LEARNING FROM ENCOUNTERS

Over the years I have discovered that fresh experiences are just round the corner, so long as you are open to explore and wonder without having made your mind up about the eventual outcome before setting out on the journey.  This is as true when making new relationships as when rekindling old friendships, a discovery that has been borne in on me in recent months with contacts through letters and emails from around the world. 

I have also learnt the value of careful reading, linked with Scripture and the opportunities given by looking again at the Bible in the light of the 400^th anniversary of the King James (or Authorised) Version.  Two books in particular are worth commending.  The first, Barefoot Disciple by Stephen Cherry, was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book. It makes an appeal for openness and generosity and includes the injunction to give up grumbling (not just for Lent!); it ends with a very moving account of the death of the author’s father.

The second, Wording a Radiance – Parting Conversations on God and the Church, gives reflections from Daniel Hardy during the last six months of his life in conversation with his daughter (a priest and a psychotherapist), his son-in-law (the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge)  and one of his oldest friends (a Jewish professor in the University of Virginia).  There is an account of his remarkable experiences during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where the light came flooding in and he was filled with a deep sense of gratitude.  He discovered that ‘things and people knit together in the divine abundance’ as he ‘allowed the divine to flood in without inhibition.’   There was one special concept that resonated with me; that of Jesus walking.  ‘He was walking, step by step through the land, and after every set of steps, he met someone, stood by someone, one to one, and in some way he touched and healed each one.  Jesus’ healing is unexpected because he comes in the manner of a fellow human being but heals as God, bringing not only physical healing, but transformation at every level of the inner being.’   

                        *                      *                      *                      *                      *

All members of our congregation are invited to share in the Ascension Day Eucharist at Nassington on 2^nd June at 7.30 pm.  I have been asked to preach and there will be refreshments afterwards.

The Feast of Pentecost (Whitsunday) on 12^th June is a celebration of the birthday of the Church.  The Parish Communion will be at St Mary’s at 10 am and elsewhere in ‘Living Villages’ you will see the notice of the Friends’ Cream Tea Party in the afternoon (by courtesy of David and Dora Baker).  I hope to see as many as possible at both events.

Thomas Christie