MARCH 2007
SERVICES
| 4th Lent 2 | 18th Lent 4/Mothering Sunday |
|---|---|
| 8.00 am Holy Communion | 8.00 am Holy Communion |
| 11.00 am Mattins & Sermon | 11.00 am Mothering Sunday Service |
| Preacher: Canon Alan Cole | Preacher Revd Dr Malcolm Guite |
| 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist | 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist |
| Preacher Canon Maggie Guite | Preacher Revd Dr Malcolm Guite |
| 11th Lent 3 | 25th Lent 5/Passion Sunday |
| 8.00 am Holy Communion | 8.00 am Holy Communion |
| 11.00 am Odyssey | 11.00 am Holy Communion |
| Preacher: Revd Dr Marcus Braybrooke | Preacher: Revd Dr Fraser Watts |
| 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist | 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist |
| Preacher: Mr Dylan Turner | Preacher: Revd Dr Malcolm Guite |
| Fridays: 10.30 am Holy Communion 5.30 pm Meditation |
11.00 am READINGS
Theme Old Testament/Epistle New Testament/Gospel
4 Lenten Journey D Turner Isaiah 42. 1-9 J Dent Matthew 4. 12-22
11 Children of Abraham E Edwards TBA R Lynden-Bell John 4. 19-24
18 Mothering Sunday A Finn Exodus 2. 1-10 J Billett Luke 2. 41-52
25 Passion Sunday D Hirst Hebrews 9. 11-15 Chaplain John 8. 46-end
Readers for April 1 C Walker & P Marshall
8 E Edwards & Chaplain
15 G Barnes & C Martin
22 J Billett & S Mastin
29 M Lee & Chaplain
Lent Course on the General Thanksgiving: Malcolm Guite will give this Lent course on Wednesdays at 5.30pm. It will run over five Wednesdays starting on 28th February. The first week will be about the opening words, `Almighty God, Father of all mercies...' and it will conclude on March 28th with `...the means of grace and the hope of glory'. Full details are on fliers at the back of the Church. The General Thanksgiving is a marvellous statement of Christian belief and disposition, and one that speaks to the heart as well as the head. Please come along if you can, and use this great prayer during Lent to deepen your faith.
Odyssey: The preacher this month (March 11th, 11.00 am) will be Revd Dr Marcus Braybrooke, President of the World Congress of Faiths. He will speak on `The Prophet Mohammad: A Christian Appreciation'.
Goth Eucharists: The series of sermons on contraries will continue on
Tuesdays at 8.45 pm.
Feb 27th: Fraser Watts on Servants and Masters; March 13th Malcolm Guite
on Wounds and Well-being;
March 27th: Fraser Watts on Insiders and Outsiders
Holistic Spirituality Group: This will meet at 3.30 pm on Sundays Feb 25th & March 18th. Malcolm will continue the discussion on how people follow the spiritual path in different faith traditions.
Mothering Sunday: We particularly invite those who have been baptized at St Edward's, and other children associated with our church, to come to the 11.00 am service on March 18th, which will be suitable for an all-age congregation.
Healing: There will be laying on of hands for healing at the 5.00 pm Eucharist on March 18th. Besides being Mothering Sunday, it is also known as Refreshment Sunday, which seems an appropriate occasion on which to be seeking healing
11.00 am Communion Service: Because of Mothering Sunday this monthly Prayer Book service will be held on 25th March (not March 18th). Next month, because of Easter and the Patronal Festival, it will be held on 29th April. After that it will revert to being on the third Sunday of the month.
Electoral Roll: This year everyone who wishes to remain on the roll, or to join it, needs to fill in a form. To be on the roll you need to be baptised and to have been attending St Edward's for 6 months. The roll is a helpful way of recording our core members, and carries the right to vote for Chapter and on other key issues.
When the Chapter meets on February 22nd, it will determine the date of the Annual Church Meeting, and this will be announced on the following Sunday.
Said Communion Services: Each week we have two said services of Holy Communion according to the Book of Common Prayer, on Sundays at 8.00 am and Fridays at 10.30 am. (This is in addition to the monthly Communion Service with hymns and sermon on Sundays at 11.00 am). I would like to draw these services to the attention of members of the congregation, as there may be others apart from those who currently attend who would find them valuable. They are now often rather sparsely attended, and there seems to be anxiety that these services might not continue. I want to keep them going if we can, provided that:
- those who come to the services want them to continue, which I believe they do;
- we can easily provide a priest to conduct them, which we can;
- we can be confident of having at least one or two people in the congregation for each service.
That is currently the case, but if we reached the point at which sometimes no one came at all, we would need to review the situation. FW
Chaplain's Letter
I want to reflect for a moment on Jesus' forty day fast in the wilderness which we echo, commemorate, or in some sense enter into, in our keeping of Lent. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Nowhere is God's self emptying love more evident than in this period of fasting in the wilderness. Love sets self aside, not in a spirit of pure negation, but in order to make space for the beloved. In the desert Christ withdraws from the world in order to be intimate with God, but in Christ God forsakes eternity and enters the world in order to be intimate with us. The more we think of God as the fullness of all things the more amazing it is to reflect that He chooses out of love to share our hunger and our emptiness:
The Fountain thirsts, the Bread is hungry here
The Light is dark, the Word without a voice.
When darkness speaks it seems so light and clear.
Now He must dare, with us, to make a choice.
The choice Jesus makes on behalf of all humanity, in refusing his three temptations is a profoundly positive choice, not a negative one. There is nothing the devil offers him, falsely with the blandishments of his quick-fix consumer culture, that God is not offering richly in another, fuller mode. He is tempted to make magical bread for himself alone, but later in the same wilderness he feeds five thousand with the true bread of a small boy's offering, shared and transformed in community.
If we choose this Lent to deny some habitual appetite or impulse, let it be in solidarity with the One who hungered to be in solidarity with us. And if we say "no" to any good thing this Lent let it be to make space for God's enormous yes to all good things and to life itself, triumphant over death, on Easter day. The fast, in God's Kingdom is never an end in itself; the Fast is always, as it should be, the prelude to the Feast.
Malcolm Guite
Clergy: Revd. Dr. Fraser Watts (19, Grantchester Road, CB3 9ED; 359223,
fnw1001@cam.ac.uk); Church phone: 362004
Revd Dr Malcolm Guite (694249, mg320@cam.ac.uk);
Canon Alan Cole (892286,
alan73@waitrose.com)
Churchwardens: Dr. Elizabeth Edwards (313570, elizedwards@waitrose.com);
Mr Jesse Billett (572168, jdb43@cam.ac.uk); Treasurer: Mr Geoffrey Barnes;
(717757, Geoff.Barnes@cambridgeshire.gov.uk, Reader: Mr. Peter Marshall
(564471)