Weekly Bulletin for St Mary's and the Villages

Collect
(Conversion of Paul)
Almighty God, 

who caused the light of the gospel to shine throughout the world
through the preaching of your servant Saint Paul:
grant that we who celebrate his wonderful conversion
may follow him in bearing witness to your truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns ….

Collect 

(Epiphany 3)

Almighty God, 

whose Son revealed in signs and miracles the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns….

Additional Collect 

(Epiphany 3)

God of all mercy, your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.

Today: Epiphany 3/Conversion of Paul

Principal Readings: 

Conversion of Paul: Jeremiah 1.4-10 Ps 67 Acts 9.1-22 Matthew 19.27-end
Epiphany 3: Isaiah 9.1–4; Ps 27.1, 4–12; 1 Corinthians 1.10–18; Matthew 4.12–23 

  
Barton
8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist 

4.0 Eucharist with Hymns

Monday

9.30 Toddler Time (St Mary's)

Wednesday

9.30 Eucharist (St Mary's)

7.00 Ladies' Singing Group (St Mary's Hall)

Thursday

2.00 Sewing Bee (St Mary's Hall)

Saturday

10-12 Coffee Morning (St Mary's Hall)

Next Sunday: Epiphany 4/Candlemas
Principal Readings: 

Malachi 3.1-5 Psalm 24.[1-6] 7-end Hebrews 2.14-end Luke 2.22-40

  
Barton
8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist & Candlemas ceremonies

6.0 Sung Evensong

I wonder sometimes whether Paul’s conversion in Acts is one of the most unhelpful stories of the New Testament. One minute Paul’s taking a donkey-ride up to Damascus, hell-bent on putting a stop to this Jesus nonsense, the next he’s flat on his back, his murderous intent changed in the twinkling of an eye. Paul’s sudden, spectacular conversion may well seem at odds with our own journey of faith.  

Luke wrote Acts about 20 years after Paul’s death, and Acts paints a picture of a growing, harmonious Church where God shows himself time and again in Mighty Acts (not always nice ones – see in Acts 5 Ananias and Sapphira). There’s lots of reasons around this, and a study of Acts is rewarding, but Luke’s work can overshadow what Paul says about himself in his letters.

We’ll look in vain for this story in Paul’s own writing. Instead, in I Corinthians 15, he describes how Christ appeared to hundreds of people – and last of all, to him, as though he, Paul, had been born at the wrong time. In Paul’s own writings, then, he’s not at all special except that, unlike all the others to whom Christ appeared, he’d been in the enemy camp. He doesn’t say that it was Christ’s appearance which brought about the conversion, it seems to be part of a much bigger story, one which he never explains.

However, someone else does describe their experience of conversion – CS Lewis, of ‘Narnia’ and ‘Mere Christianity’ fame. He too, had a sudden moment when he could no longer deny the reality of God, and again like Paul he did not find it a comfortable experience. 

In his book ‘Surprised by Joy’ he writes:

That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."  

Unlike Paul, Lewis gives us a description of the build-up. He talks of a sneaking suspicion that he’s getting something profoundly wrong. He reads poetry by people like George Herbert, and John Donne, and finds them both attractive and troubling until(in his own words):

Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God". To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat.  

You must picture me, night after night, feeling the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?

A reluctant convert, surprised in the end by joy - but only when he lets his defences down.

I can’t help but feel that Paul may have had a similar story to tell, and that Christ was there all the time waiting to be seen. Paul only recognised him when he couldn’t hold his crumbling disbelief together a moment longer.  

And if this is so, then Paul has more in common with us than we might have thought, that the journey to faith isn’t always straightforward, and yet to keep God out eventually becomes too much of an effort, that the process is often a hidden struggle within us, and that – if there is a sudden ‘conversion’ moment, it’s likely be when at last we let God slip through our defences.

And that’s true of the mini-conversions which are probably the stuff of ordinary Christian lives, when for whatever reason we suddenly get an insight we’d never had before, or a new vision, or a new sense of calling. God’s been waiting to catch our eye for ages, and finally manages to do so.  

Miraculous conversion? Not really, not even for Paul, I guess. All he – and we - we had to do is notice God was there all the time, just waiting for us to lift our gaze and see him.

For our prayers

Church:

The Church in Chile

The Churches of the Middle East. 

Archdeacon of Stow & Lindsey designate Eleanor Robertshaw; 

Bishop of Grimsby designate Jean Burgess. 

Archbishop-designate Sarah Mulally. 

The mission of our parishes, Deanery and Diocese. 

In Christian Unity Week, our fellow Churches.

World: 

Those in authority. Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, Sudan, Venezuela. 

Peacekeepers and Peacemakers. 

Those leading in the protection of our planet 

and the resolution of the issues surrounding migrancy. 

Our Community: 

Parish cycle of prayer: The town and parish councils.
Diocesan Cycle of Prayer: Prisons.

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.

Today closes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and we continue to hold in our prayers the folk of our local non-Anglican congregations at Trinity Methodist, St Augustine's RC, the Salvation Army and the Evangelical Church.

Ash Wednesday is less than a month away, on February 18th. There’ll be more about Lent coming up, but one thing we do need is your last year’s palm crosses to make into ash. You can drop them at the back of St Mary's if you're passing, or whoever's taking your Sunday service can get them back here for the grand incineration. 

(This year your local liturgical pyromaniac will be using his woodburner, and he hopes its impressive chimney updraught won’t ash all the unsuspecting residents of West Acridge….)

Coffee morning next Saturday Jan.30th 10-12 at St Mary's.

The Venerable Eleanor Robertshaw (pending)
Eleanor, our new archdeacon, is being licensed tomorrow evening in Gainsborough, after Aly Buxton retired at New Year. She’s a big job to come to terms with, and so as we welcome her to Stow and Lindsey, do keep her in your prayers.
Remember, too, that later this week we officially get our new Archbishop of Canterbury (though she won’t be enthroned until 25th March).

Ann McCulloch’s Funeral Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to get St Maurice’s  ready for Ann’s service last week. I hope she approved!

Transformation!
Our thanks to the willing souls who shifted furniture, cleared, cleaned and even discovered the altar rails from St Chad’s (I’d never noticed them in 20 years, they were lurking round the back of the pews in St James’)) and restored the chapel to look so inviting.