Services This Week
Dear All,
Services this week are taking place in person or via livestream through our YouTube Channel. Please find gathering times and service sheet links below.
Friday 13 December
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Jeremy Morris)
Sunday 15 December / Third Sunday of Advent
11am - Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘Prepare the Way of the Lord’
Service Sheet: Here
Other notices:
Advent Reading Groups: During advent we will be running three parallel reading groups on John Behr’s book Becoming Human: Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word and Image. The first group meets via Zoom on Wednesdays at 8pm; the second group meets in Benet’s Café on Sundays at 9.30am; and the third group meets in St Edward’s on Sundays at 12.30pm. We warmly encourage you to join a group for advent and hope that the range of formats will accommodate everyone who wishes to do so. The next three chapters (7-9) are accessible here and the study questions for the course of advent are accessible here.
Volunteer Rota: In addition to the sign-up sheet in church, we are making it easier to volunteer by attaching an online rota with the weekly email here. (N.B. There will be an initial delay before access is granted to the form, in order that only church members can see and edit it.) Please do consider if you are able to help out in any of the ways listed – we are particularly in need of regular volunteers to set-up tea and coffee and stay a little longer after each service to wash-up/leave away. Many thanks!
Giving: As always we are grateful for all of your gifts! Offerings may still be given during this time via a basket collection during live services, Standing Orders, or one time bank transfer, via BACS (Sort Code: 20-17-19 / Account Number: 30851477 / Account Name: St Edwards Church). There is now also a SumUp machine by the door of the church, for those of you who wish to give contactlessly: Simply power on, enter the amount you wish to give on the screen, and then tap your card.
Exciting Holiness (Friday 13 December):
St Lucy was a native of Syracuse in Sicily. She lived at the beginning of the fourth century, when the Roman authorities were attempting to re-establish the worship of gods they approved. The emperor himself was the focus of one of the cults. Tradition has it that Lucy, as a young Christian, gave away her goods to the poor and was betrayed to the authorities by her angry betrothed, who felt that they should have become his property. She was put to death for her faith in the year 304. Her name in Latin means light and, as her feast-day falls in December, she became associated with the one true Light who was coming as the redeemer of the world, the Light that would lighten the nations, the Light that would banish darkness and let the eyes of all behold Truth incarnate.
God our redeemer, who gave light to the world that was in darkness by the healing power of the Saviour’s cross: shed that light on us, we pray, that with your martyr Lucy we may, by the purity of our lives, reflect the light of Christ and, by the merits of his passion, come to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
