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 14 March
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Mark Scarlata)
Sunday 16 March / Second Sunday of Lent
11am - Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘The Covenant God’
Service Sheet: Here
Other notices:
Lenten Catechesis Classes: These seminar-style classes, covering the basics of the Christian faith, will begin tonight (12 March) at 7.30pm in the church and run for five consecutive Wednesdays during Lent (concluding on Wednesday 9 April). Sessions will run for an hour and tea & coffee will be provided. The topics covered in each session will be as follows: (1) Baptism, Confirmation, Confession; (2) Eucharist & Scripture; (3) Church & Priesthood of All Believers; (4) Discipleship, Marriage, Singleness; and (5) Mission & Outreach.
Gardening Day: On Saturday 29 March, from 10am until 12noon, Hugh Wright will be coordinating a spring tidy-up of the churchyard and we would welcome as many volunteers as possible from the congregation to undertake this much needed work. Thank you!
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 (Monday 17 March):
St Patrick was a Romano-Briton born in about the year 390 of Christian parents in the latter years of the Roman Empire in Britain. The exact place of his birth – named by him in his Confession as Banaven Taberniae – has never been identified. Claims from places in West Britain as far apart as Dumbarton and Cornwall have been made; present day opinion favours the neighbourhood of Carlisle.
He was captured by Irish raiders when he was sixteen years old and taken to Ireland as a slave. After six years, he escaped and seems to have gone to continental Europe. He eventually found his way back to his own family, where his previously-nominal Christian faith grew and matured. He returned to Gaul and was there trained as a priest and much influenced by the form of monasticism evolving under Martin of Tours. When he was in his early forties, he returned to Ireland as a bishop, ministering first at Saul near Downpatrick, and later making his base at Armagh, which became the centre of his See. He evangelized the people of the land by walking all over the island, gently bringing men and women to a knowledge of Christ. Although he faced fierce opposition and possible persecution, he continued his missionary journeys.
Patrick left two pieces of writing which are accepted as genuine, his Confession and a Letter to Coroticus. These are of immense value as they reveal Patrick the man, humble and aware that all he achieved was by the grace of Christ. Irish Christians today, of all traditions, equally identify with this holy man and draw inspiration from his life and writings.
Despite being unsuccessful in his attempts to establish the diocesan system he had experienced in Gaul, his monastic foundations proved to be the infrastructure required to maintain the faith after his death, which occurred on this day in the year 461.
Almighty God, who in your providence chose your servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people: keep alive in us the fire of the faith he kindled and strengthen us in our pilgrimage towards 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.
