Dear All Saints and St Mary’s
This week our Lent course, from Charlie Bell’s book Searched me out and known me, looks at what it means to be “holy”, reflecting on Psalm 32 and today’s gospel reading from Luke’s gospel. The word “holy” has a rich range of meanings. This is just as true of the Greek and Hebrew languages in which the bible was originally written.
One meaning of “holy” is to be set apart for the service of God. When people refer to the communion table in church as the “holy table”, what they are saying is that this piece of furniture has been set aside for a specific use in our services. Because of that use, it is something special and should be treated with respect. In the same way, we are all set aside for God’s service in our baptism. As such, we are all holy and we are all saints, because we are set aside for God’s service.
But there is another much deeper and richer meaning to what it means to be “holy”. It is to have something of God about you. In Christian terms, it means to be Christ-like. Although we are made in the image of God, we can become more like Christ. This growing in the likeness of Christ is sometimes referred to as “sanctification”. It is the central purpose of our lent disciplines. We look to see where we are falling short or missing the mark and try to change our attitudes and behaviours, so we follow Christ more closely. In more traditional language, we repent of our sins.
We will have more opportunities to think about this at our Lent groups on Monday evening and Wednesday afternoon.
This Sunday we have our normal fourth Sunday pattern with Holy Communion at 8.00 am at All Saints and 10.00 am at St Mary’s. The 10.30 am service is Café Church, where we will be continuing our look at Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. This week we will be looking at chapter six and seven and considering what they teach us about freedom.
This gives us the following services for Sunday 23rd March:
8:00am | All Saints | Holy Communion (Said) |
10:00am | St Marys | Holy Communion |
10:30am | All Saints | Cafe Church |
Our Lent groups continue this week on Monday evening at 7.30 pm and Wednesday afternoon at 2.00 pm. In addition, we have our usual weekly services of Celtic Morning Prayer at 9.00 am on Wednesday at All Saints and Holy Communion at 10.00 am on Thursday at St Mary’s.
Monday 24th March | 7:30pm | Lent Group | Contact for location |
Wednesday 26th March | 9:00am | Celtic Morning Prayer | All Saints |
Wednesday 26th March | 2:00pm | Lent Group | St Mary's Parish Rooms |
Thursday 27th March | 10:00am | Holy Communion | St Marys |
Next Sunday is Mothering Sunday, so we have services of Holy Communion at St Mary’s and All Saints. In addition, there will be a service of Holy Communion according to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer at 8.00 am.
This gives the following services for Sunday 30th March:
8:00am | All Saints | Holy Communion (BCP) |
10:00am | St Mary's | Holy Communion |
10:00am | All Saints | Holy Communion |
As we enter the third full week of Lent, let us pray for God’s guidance and we seek to grow in the likeness of Christ:
Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
God bless,
Mark
Mark Simms
Licensed Lay Minister
Benefice of all Saints and St Mary Fishponds
Comments