Weekly Bulletin for St Mary's and the Villages

Collect

Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; 

through our Lord Jesus Christ, who….

Additional Collect

Almighty God, by the prayer and discipline of Lent
may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings,
and by following in his Way come to share in his glory; 

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  

Today: Lent 2

Principal Readings: 

Genesis 2.15-17; 3.1-7 Psalm 32 Romans 5.12-19 Matthew 4.1-11

Barton  

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist
6.00  Choral Evensong for the Feast of St David of Menevia
 

Villages

11.00 Eucharist at at Bonby

Monday St Chad's Day

9.30 Toddler Time (St Mary's)

12.30 Eucharist for the feast of St Chad  (St Mary's)

Tuesday

2-4 Bereavement Group  (St Mary's Hall)
Wednesday

9.30 Eucharist  (St Mary's)
Ladies’ Group Outing (all day
Thursday

11.00 Funeral (St Mary's)

2-4 Sewing Bee (St Mary's Hall)

Next Sunday: Lent 3

Principal Readings: 

Exodus 17.1-7 Psalm 95 Romans 5.1-11 John 4.5-42

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist
11.00 Together@11 

6.00  Evening Prayer

Reflection: The Edge of Reason.

‘Reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.’ (CS Lewis)

Fans of the Bridget Jones films be disappointed, since that’s not where I’m going – rather, the film title was a nod towards Sartre’s novel ‘The Age of Reason’ which which said basically, ‘ in the end it’s all pointless’.  

Douglas Adams, in ‘The Restaurant at the end of the Universe,’  says much the same, but in just a few lines rather than taking up a whole book: diners are entertained by viewing (from a safe, Michelin-starred distance) the death-throes of Everything There Is And Ever Has Been. 

However, the resident cabaret artist spoils the mood when he names the Elephant in the Room:

“So many of you come time and time again to watch this final end of everything, which I think is really wonderful, and then to return home to your own eras and raise families, and strive for new and better societies and fight terrible wars for what you know is right, it gives one real hope for the whole future of lifekind.

[pauses a beat]

Except of course we know it hasn't got one.”

Far be it for me to do down the Nineteenth Century– at its creative height, it produced Austen and Dickens, Turner and Burne-Jones, Mary Anning, Charles Darwin, IK Brunel and a host of others.  However, as it shaped our world, its vision began to sour: somehow, it turned the universe into a meaningless machine and dis-enchanted the world.

There’s a funny word, since ‘disenchanted’ usually means something akin to ‘fell out with’. Instead, what I’m getting at is that the sense of mystery and wonder started to drain out of the way we looked at the world. ‘Reason’ became Everything, an absolute monarch, and we started to think that anything which wasn’t suited to being understood or explained could be left to the superstitious, the uneducated and the childish.  

There’s a story about William Blake who, asked by a gentleman whether he thought that the Sun looked something rather like a golden guinea in the sky replied that he saw instead a host of angels all crying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ The author of Psalm 19’s ‘The heavens declare the glory of God’ would have understood Blake; the gentleman probably thought Blake bonkers.

Today’s Gospel is the classic story of the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus. Jesus is teasingly enigmatic in what he says (‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’  ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?’). 

Nicodemus treats Jesus’ words more as a medical diagnosis than as an invitation to have a brush with God. As Jesus points to a way of looking both at the world  and at the mystery of God, Nicodemus, despite his faith and his depth of learning, has not grasped it at all. His imagination’s failed him.

The author CS Lewis suggested that, until a couple of centuries ago, humans looked out at the night sky and delighted in its beauty and glory. ‘The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork’ says the Psalmist. In Job 38 at Creation, the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy.’ 

Now we have, ‘In the beginning was nothing, which exploded’, and the infinity of the universe reminds us non-stop of our insignificance; from its vast, cold and indifferent reaches come little more than invasion (‘Alien’, ‘The War of the Worlds’) or asteroid-borne extinction. Wonderment comes a distant third.

Last Friday was the feast of the priest-poet George Herbert, who wrote words strangely appropriate to a world which struggles to wonder and to see beneath the superficial;

A man that looks on glass, on it may stay his eye;
or if he pleaseth, through it pass, and then the heaven espy.

And if all this seems a bit airy-fairy, and ‘imagination’ a word fit only for children and  scriptwriters, not grown-ups, remember that on Good Friday, all most onlookers saw was a criminal being executed. 

Was that really all there was to see? Was it nothing to those who passed by?

For our prayers

Church:

The Church in Japan.

The Churches of the Middle East. 

Our Lenten Journey.
Parish cycle of prayer: Our own Diocese, Deanery and Parishes.  
 

World: 

Those in authority. 

Iran, and all the lands of the Middle East

Ukraine, Sudan. 

Peacekeepers and Peacemakers. 

Those leading in the protection of our planet 

and the resolution of the issues surrounding migrancy.

Our Community: 

Diocesan Cycle of Prayer: Animal care

The world’s half-forgotten troubled lands:

Afghanistan, Myanmar.

Those in need. 

All who are fleeing war, poverty or climate change. 

People living under the shadow of fear, deprivation or illness; 

the anxious, the lonely and mourners. 

Those struggling to make ends meet. The homeless. 

Those in hospital or who watch with them. 

Especially, please pray for: 

Those on our Parish prayer boards

The Departed. 

Notices.

Calling all Welshmen (and women)
Choral Evensong at St Mary’s tonight has a decidedly Welsh flavour as we tip our hats to St David’s Day. Daffodils optional, and if it comes to needing a leek, there are loos in the Hall.

St Chad’s Day: 

This Monday is St Chad’s Day, and there’ll be a 12.30 Eucharist in the re-ordered and generally spruced-up and welcoming St Chad’s Chapel at St Mary's

Diocesan Strategy Meeting

You may recall this was postponed because of a bad weather forecast. It’s now hoped to hold it in St Mary’s Hall at 7 on March 16th.

St Mary's Intercessions sheet for March/April– 

There’s a new blank at the back, please fill it in and it will come into use over the next couple of weeks.