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 8 March
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Matthias Grebe)

Sunday 10 March / Fourth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday)
11am - Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘Risking Mercy in a World of Avarice’
Service Sheet: Here

Other news:

Visual Commentary on Scripture: The Old Testament and Gospel texts for this coming Sunday both refer to Moses lifting up the bronze serpent in the wilderness. Our Vicar-Chaplain, Mark Scarlata, has recently completed the commentary to three artworks inspired by this Scriptural episode for the online Visual Commentary on Scripture, which can be viewed here.

StED Talk: For our next StED Talk, the St Edward's Institute for Christian Thought will be hosting Cambridge's Regius Professor of Divinity, Prof. David Fergusson, on Wednesday 13 March at 5pm in the church. Prof. Fergusson will be speaking on 'Providence and the Christian Life'. As usual, a Q&A session and drinks reception will follow the talk. Please sign-up for a free ticket on our Eventbrite 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!

Lenten Reading Groups: Reading groups are continuing throughout Lent and we warmly encourage you to join one. Currently we have one meeting on Sunday afternoon, one on Monday evening, and one (as part of Scriptorium) on Tuesday & Wednesday lunchtimes. We will be working through Rowan Williams’ new book Passions of the Soul, which can be purchased from here. Questions for guiding discussion on each of the book’s chapters can be viewed here.

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 (Thursday 7 March):

The moving, contemporary account of the early third-century African martyrs, Perpetua, Felicity, Saturus, Saturninus, and Revocatus, proved to be of great significance in the life of the early Church. Vibia Perpetua was a young, married noblewoman of Carthage and Felicity was her personal slave. Saturus was possibly a priest and there were two other men, Saturninus and Revocatus, the latter also a slave. Felicity was pregnant. It seems most of them were catechumens when arrested and only baptized later in prison, where Perpetua had a vision in which she climbed a great ladder into paradise. They were condemned as Christians by the Roman authorities and dispatched to the public arena, there to be mauled by wild animals. They all survived and were then taken to be executed by the sword. Before this, they exchanged the Kiss of Peace and affirmed their faith in Christ, the Son of God. The account of their martyrdom was widely circulated in secret throughout the Christian congregations and proved both to give renown to their courage and to give encouragement to their fellow Christians in the face of adversity. They were martyred for their faith on this day in the year 203.

Holy God, who gave great courage to Perpetua, Felicity and their companions: grant that we may be worthy to climb the ladder of sacrifice and be received into the garden of peace; 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.