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 7 July
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion
(Revd Dr Mark Scarlata)
Sunday 9 July / Fifth Sunday After Trinity
11am - BCP Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘Come Unto Me All Who Are Weary’
Service Sheet: Here
Hymnsheet: Here
Other news:
SEI Online Journal: A new article, ‘The Breaking of the Bread’, by Scriptorium member Florence Judson was published last week and can be accessed 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. If you have any queries please speak to Peter or Will on Sunday. 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: 20-17-19 / ACCT #: 30851477 – “St Edwards Church Vestry Fund”]. 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 6 July):
Born in London in 1478, Thomas More studied classics and law, and was called to the Bar at the age of twenty-three. His clear honesty and integrity impressed Henry viii and he appointed Thomas as his Chancellor. Thomas supported the king in his efforts to reform the clergy but disagreed over Henry’s disputes with the papacy, caused by the king’s desire to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and to find another queen who might provide him with a male heir. Henry could not stand such an act of defiance and imprisoned his Chancellor in the hope that he would renege. Thomas refused to take the Oath on the Act of Succession, which declared the king to be the only protector and supreme head of the Church in England, and was executed for treason on this day in 1535, declaring that he died the king’s good servant but God’s first.
John Fisher (depicted) was Thomas More’s close friend and ally. A brilliant academic, he had substantially reformed the life of the University of Cambridge, through the wealth and influence of his patron, Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry vii. He was made Bishop of Rochester and proved himself to be a good pastor to his small diocese. As with Thomas, Henry viii much admired him at first, but when he opposed the king their relationship deteriorated. Aged sixty-six and in indifferent health, he nevertheless endured the trauma of imprisonment in the Tower of London. He was executed just two weeks before Thomas on 22 June 1535.
Weekly Collect (Fourth Sunday After Trinity):
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 is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
