Weekly Bulletin for St Mary's and the Villages

Collect

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,

 without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy; 

that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal 

that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, who …

Additional Collect

Gracious Father,

 by the obedience of Jesus you brought salvation to our wayward world:
draw us into harmony with your will, that we may find all things restored in him,

our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Today: FourthSunday after Trinity
Principal Readings 

Jeremiah 28.5-9 Psalm 89.1-4,15-18* Romans 6.12-end Matthew 10.40-end  

Barton

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist
6.00 Said Eucharist with hymns 

Villages

11.00 Holy Communion at Worlaby

Monday

9.30-11.30 Toddler Time (St Mary's Hall)

Tuesday

9.30  Eucharist  (St Mary's, followed by Deanery Chapter)

7.00 Archdeacon’s Visitation Service  (St Mary's)

Wednesday

9.30 Eucharist (St Mary's)

10.30 Funeral of Sheila Blackburn  (St Mary's)
7.30 Ladies’ Group (St Mary's Hall)
Thursday

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

7.00 The Life and Times of Clarissa the Clock - 

with cheese and wine (Worlaby)

Saturday 2.00 Afternoon Tea (St Mary's Hall)
Next Sunday: The Fifth Sunday after Trinity
Principal Readings 

Zechariah 9.9-12 Psalm 145.8-15 Romans 7.15-25a Matthew 11.16-19, 25-end   

Barton

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist
6.00  Evening Prayer

Villages

11.00 Holy Communion at Bonby 

Reflection: Sin can damage your health

Just to cheer myself up, I bought another mediæval book the other day. This time, the noteworthy events of the 14th century weren’t the latest set of fixtures between England and France, but the Black Death, always good for a bedtime chuckle over the cocoa.

Unlike most histories of the bubonic plague, the book tries to piece together its impact on a single community, a village in East Anglia whose records from the time are unusually complete, and (among other things) it examines how the Church responded to the threat.

Back in those days, the best medical knowledge available*was a mixture of (mainly Greek) ancient sources, the learned wisdom of herbalists and ‘wise women’ (‘Bald’s Leechbook’ seems to have a working knowledge of antibiotics) – and theology. If all else failed, then an explanation had to be found in the Will of God, and in the case of particularly nasty things like plague, something must have really upset Him. And that something had to be Sin.

So the plague hits, end everyone from the Pope downwards struggles to make sense of it all. No matter what they try to do – processions, pilgrimages, prayers, confession, penance, you name it, nothing stops its remorseless onward march. God’s really, really angry. But what do we expect, after all? ‘The Wages of sin is death’ says Paul in Romans, and this is how it must all work out.

What do we make of what Paul says today? You can see how tempting it is to go down the path of God doling out deadly punishment for sin, but – well, how does that fit in with ‘The gift of God is eternal life?’ Isn’t Paul a bit more subtle than that?

Half the problem is that we’ve come to see sin as something like deliberate rebellion against God, the determination to do something wrong despite it being perfectly within our grasp not to do it. However, as Augustine of Hippo noted, most sin is done by people distressed by their inability to get things right, people deeply conscious of their weaknesses and failures. This isn’t rebellion, it’s something for pity, not for punishment. And CS Lewis points out in his ‘Screwtape Letters’ that whatever pleasure we find in sin it’s a sign of the presence of God despite everything – and if the powers of darkness had their way, we’d sin without having the least bit of fun.

Paul is the one who proclaims ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’ and if we add that insight to all the above, then we end up somewhere very different from the frightened, guilt-ridden folk of the 1340’s.

Paul obviously is picking up on the Garden of Eden story, where the consequence of Adam and Eve’s rebellion is death – or rather, mortality. Sin is something which squeezes the life out of our existence, drains our lives of worth. It is a joyless, dark thing -from which God longs to rescue us.

So where was God to be found in the Black Death? Not, I think, hurling infections around indiscriminately for sins so complicated no-one knew what they could be. It’s an attitude which sometimes we find even in our own day, despite it being explicitly ruled out in (among other places) John’s Gospel. Nor was he absent, letting us get on with it as best we could, while he got on with something more interesting.

He was present in the brave and compassionate souls who tried to minister to the sick and the frightened. He wept with the mourners as Jesus wept at Lazarus’ tomb. We stood alongside those those faith was strained to breaking point by the horrors around them. And, as we Christians believe that God has even plumbed the pains of dying and death, he did not abandon the dying either.

As in 1340’s Europe, so in 2026 Venezuela, or Sudan, or Lebanon. We choose whether to believe in a God who visits irrational suffering on us, or in one who longs to see us flourish, and stands with us in the random and not-so-random miseries of this world. Paul makes it clear that sin bring misery in its wake, but that God is the bringer of life and hope.

In the end, in whom do we believe? A God who wills us to Life? Or a tyrant inflicting misery and death? Which, do you think, counts as Good News?

* Mildly Interesting Footnote – this included the belief that the gaze of an infected person was enough to transmit disease. Before we scoff at the superstitions of the Middle Ages, the belief that the eye ‘transmitted’ something survived Newton and the ‘Enlightenment’ as a respectable idea, and even crops up in the 1738 Wesley hymn ‘And can it be?’

For our prayers

Church:

The Church in Southern Africa; 

Those preparing for ordination. 

World: 

Those in authority. 

Those who seek to sow division and mistrust.  

Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, Israel and all the lands of the Middle East. 

Ukraine. Sudan. 

Our Community: 

Parish cycle of prayer: Those who work in the local media:
BBC Humberside, the Scunthorpe Telegraph, the Hull Mail.
Diocesan cycle of prayer: Universities and colleges

Those in need.
Especially, please pray for:
The people of Venezuela

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. 

The Departed. 

Notices.

From the Priest-in-Charge Designate….
I'm delighted to be able to tell you that my licensing as priest-in-charge of Barton and the Low Villages will take place in St Mary's on 20th July at 7pm. The service will be led by our Archdeacon, Ven. Eleanor Robertshaw, and will be followed by refreshments.

I know I've been around for a while now, but it's important to mark this next stage in our journey together.  Over the past few months I've been very touched by the welcome I've received from all the parishes, and I feel very privileged to serve in this benefice and with Barrow and Goxhill. It will be lovely to have the chance to share a celebration with the whole new group. Please do come if you can.
Canon Liz

Afternoon Tea at St Mary's, July 4th 2.00
Fuller details on the poster on the 'landing page', tickets £15.

Clarissa the Church Clock July 9th 7 pm at Worlaby Parish Church

A chance to learn about the intricacies and history of Worlaby's magnificent church clock, with a spot of (sometimes hair-raising) video, all accompanied by cheese and wine. Tickets £5 in advance, £6 on the door, more details on the landing page poster

Alan Wright’s Swan[Even]Song. July 12 6.00

As you all know, Alan’s finally hanging up his choirmaster’s gown after fifty-some years in the job. We’ve been hugely blessed at St Mary's for his enthusiasm and hard work over the decades, and it’s right and proper that he goes out with a bang, so to speak.

The evening service on Sunday week, July 12th, will be a full-blown choral evensong (music of Alan’s choosing (and, in part, composing), which will be followed by refreshments in the hall. Do come along and express our appreciation and gratitude to him for the huge amount of time, effort and love he’s put into St Mary’s musical tradition over the decades.

Receiving Communion – a reminder.
At Communion, please remember that wafers should not be dipped in the chalice in order to protect those with a gluten allergy. If you do not wish to receive the chalice, please receive the wafer only.

Thankyou!

A huge thank you to everybody for your generosity in making donations towards St Mary's new hymn books.  Amazingly, we have more than covered the cost of them, and they have been  ordered, ready for our "new term" in September.

As you know, Kathy has been receiving the pledges/donations, which means she has a very long list! In order to make her job a bit easier, when you give Kathy the money, could you also make clear who it's actually from, rather than just putting it in an envelope, so that she can tick them off on her list. If you're able to Gift Aid, please use one of the Gift Aid envelopes at the back of church, which will make the donation considerably larger at no extra cost to the giver. Once again, thank you all so much. Many of the new books have been given in memory of a loved one, and these will all have  bookplates with those details inside.

Canon Liz

Fletcher DuBois RIP

As most people at St Mary's will know, Amy Dubois' brother, Fletcher, died earlier this year.

Fletcher lived and worked in Heidelberg, which is where his funeral was held. Amy was unable to attend the funeral, but we will be holding a requiem for Fletcher on Tuesday 21st July at 12.30pm, and there will be coffee and cake afterwards.

It would mean a great deal to Amy if as many people as possible could attend this service and the gathering afterwards. Fletcher had a great fondness for St Mary's and for Wilderspin School, of which he was a patron. He would doubtless be both pleased and, as a very modest person, possibly surprised that he is being remembered here, as well as in the city he called home. Please do keep the date in your diary and come along if you can.