Sunday Sheet Passion Sunday 2021 (b)

Sunday Letter

Hello everyone,
Spring is definitely my favourite season of the year. A season of hope and new beginnings, the days are getting longer – evenings lighter.
As I walk the dogs these days I seem to have more time to take in my surroundings. At the moment I don’t have to rush to be anywhere by a certain time, unless it’s pouring with rain, of course. Around me I experience the smell of freshly cut grass; the blossom is beginning to come out on the trees in Snowdon Park; the daffodils have been, and still are, a spectacular display. Recently many saplings have been planted in Chard, different varieties tucked up in their tubes until they get stronger. I can see that the fields are changing from their muddy brown of Winter to the bright greens of Spring. In the distance I can just about see some lambs. The bird song early in the morning is wonderful, especially where there is little sound of traffic. I count my blessings that I live in such a wonderful area and try not to take the wildlife for granted.
Some of you may have seen in the local press an article about Wilder Churches. Somerset Wildlife and Diocese of Bath and Wells are aiming to support communities to encourage and to protect biodiversity in churchyards. We will be encouraged to create areas for wildlife if there aren’t any at present and to protect those that we have already. Watch this space!
Jesus compared himself to a grain of wheat planted in the ground. The seed doesn’t literally die when it lies in its wintry grave. But changes come over it, so that it’s no longer recognisable as a seed. Then, in Spring, it emerges in a new form altogether, as a green blade, and eventually an ear of wheat, to be harvested and provide food for the people, and the seed-corn to ensure a prosperous future.
But to do this the seed must die: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain, Wheat that in dark earth, many days has lain; Love lives again, that with the dead has been; Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Enjoy this wonderful season and take care,

Ruth

The other sign of hope is that we are going to hold two services on Easter Sunday. At St Mary’s, Chard at 10.00 am and at Combe St Nicholas at 10.30 am.
Georgina and I felt strongly that, as we missed being together last Easter, that we want to give people the opportunity to be together on our most important Sunday of the year. Both services will be a Holy Communion service.
One of the services will be livestreamed for those who feel they are not ready to return to church just yet.
We are slowly moving towards the light at the end of the tunnel, and we hope that we will see you all before long.
In the meantime, as Ruth says, Spring is here, and the promise of new life is all around us. God be praised.
Ann

Manor Court School are all taking part in an Art Project around Chard about signs of hope. They have decided to choose ‘Birds of Hope’ as their theme and all of the children will be making, painting, writing about birds. Their work will be displayed on our church railings at St Mary’s.
They have asked if as many of you as possible would contribute your own bird – made or created in any way you like. The bird could be knitted or crocheted or made 3D in any way. However, you could colour or paint one of the outlines enclosed with this letter, or make a collage using whatever you have to hand. You could cut out some pictures of birds and put them together in an interesting way. We will be laminating anything that is on paper. Be creative!
Once you have created your bird you can bring it into the church where there will be a box for them to be collected or give it to the person who delivers your weekly letter. They could also be posted to me at The Vicarage, Forton Road, TA20 2HJ, or put through my letter box. We will need them by Thursday 1st April (no this isn’t an April Fool’s!) so that we can get them up and displayed by Easter Sunday.

Mothering Sunday

Sunday Sheet

Well, we are now back where we began last year at the eve of Mothering Sunday the day in the Church calendar when we traditionally remember Mothers in all their glorious and sometimes not so glorious image. The time when groups should be meeting up to prepare bunches of glorious spring flowers and yellow trumpet daffodils to give out in Church and to those women unable to attend. A touch of festiveness in the middle of Lent, taken from us, almost one could say depriving us, separating us, creating a loneliness, bereft maybe of the touch or hug of loved ones, if we had been told as we entered the first lockdown that we would still be here in a year, how I wonder would that have affected us differently, as for sure it would have done. A long journey of faith and fear, joy and sadness, loneliness and new friendships. Rev Katharine was still here with us celebrating alongside Rev Ann, it seems such a long time ago. Mothering Sunday the day when we identify with Mother God as well as Father God

Introduction Over 100 years of Mothering Sunday
In 1913 Constance Penswick-Smith (1878-1938), the daughter of the vicar of Coddington, Nottinghamshire, caught the vision to celebrate Mothering Sunday. Later in 1921 Constance wrote a booklet asking for a full revival of Mothering Sunday, eventually founding The Society for the Observance of Mothering Sunday and spending more than 25 years promoting the celebration of the festival. Thanks mainly to Constance’s efforts, Mothering Sunday – which has its roots in the pre- Reformation Church – has been widely observed and re-established across the Church of England, and celebrated in wider society. There are traditions associated with Mothering Sunday in England which date back as long ago as the 16th century. It is told that this was the day when people were encouraged to return to worship in their ‘mother church where they had been baptised. People who usually attended the local parish church, would make a longer journey to the ‘mother church’ or cathedral of the Diocese. Girls in domestic service would bake to show their mothers their new skills in the form of a gift, traditionally a simnel cake. On this day many girls who were in service were allowed time off from domestic chores to visit their mothers and their family.
Today Mothering Sunday is a popular day when Christians choose to use the occasion to think about all things which concern motherhood, in all it’s different forms and ways. We give thanks for the Church as Mother, the Virgin Mary as the mother of Jesus, we remember that God cares for us like a mother and last but not least we give thanks for our own mothers or those who loved us and brought us up as our mother. Mothering Sunday is is a time of special thanksgiving. It is the one day of joy in Lent, when flowers abound in all churches and when people are allowed a time off from the penitential season. It is also known as Mid-Lent Sunday, Refreshment Sunday or Laetare Sunday. The Latin name of Laetare, means rejoice.

In the fourteenth century Julian of Norwich, the first woman to write in modern English, experienced and understood the motherhood of God in her visions. Mothering Sunday is a good day to share her vision and recognise that although we are distinguished by our gender, God is not. Instead God is both mother and father to us.
‘As truly as God is Father, so just as truly is he our mother.’ Julian of Norwich. Adapted from “this is Church”

For me Mothering Sunday this year strangely enables me to identify more closely with those who have lost or never had a good mother experience, or the ability and desire to be a mother. I believe that is the case for many of us. I don’t own those experiences I have my own mother who I love, but have not seen for over a year now, but the lose of seeing and being has created a vacuum which is going to continue for this year. It will be extremely hard this year I believe to give, or be, how we would otherwise be, there will I am sure be a rawness about this year’s Day. There will be the lamentation of loss, which is mirrored so deeply in our Gospel reading for us.

That moment in time when Mother Mary, her sister and the two other Mary’s were gathered at the Cross. The fact that they were even there should not be lost on us alongside the lamentation of loss for Jesus as he gave his loving mother Mary over into the care of his beloved Disciple John. Mary is not just a mother, she is a Jewish one mother, she knows that her role is not only to be a loving mother for her children, but also their teacher. In the Gospel John the evangelist places the disciple standing by the mother, his testimony accompanies Mary’s testimony. She is also a disciple that follows her Son to the cross. She is giving her spiritual sons and daughters the example of a firm witness who follows the Master’s footsteps, even as in her heart surely she remembered the words of Simeon, “and a sword shall pierce your heart”.
Let’s hold the joy and sorrow, lamentation and vision of the new earth and new heaven together in a bobbly ball in our hands and hearts, living in the knowledge that despite what emotions and thoughts rise within us we are held by Mother God through the Spirit.

Revd Georgina Vye

A Service for the Third Sunday in Lent

Dear Friends

‘For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.’

 The passage from 1 Corinthians which is one of our readings today is one of immense power and also one that speaks to the unique quality of Christianity.

I was listening to a fascinating history programme this week, concerning the Egyptian Pharaoh, Akhenaten.  At some point during his reign as Pharaoh he declared that the god, Aten, was the only god, moving away from the centuries old practice of worshipping multiple gods.  He had temples and palaces built to Aten and took the name Akhenaten, meaning ‘the spirit of Aten’.

His vision of the only god was of one of great power who demanded worship and absolute obedience.  Aten was, for Akhenaten, a supreme leader and being.

All through history gods have been feared and worshipped and sacrifices made to them, but Christianity is unique among religions because we believe that God loved humanity so much that he himself became the ultimate sacrifice on the cross.

I personally believe that Christianity is good for our emotional and spiritual well-being because God, in Jesus, completely experienced our brokenness and entered into it so that he might mend us.  He became weak on behalf of all our weaknesses and took upon himself all of our willful wrongdoing.

This may well be looked upon as weak and foolish by many.  But, of course, the story doesn’t end there.  What looks like God’s folly and weakness in Jesus’ death on the cross, is transformed into something else completely through the resurrection.  Through the lens of the resurrection the crucifixion does not look like weakness at all, but the way to freedom and new life.

So, our own weakness and brokenness is no longer the end of the story because God himself has taken it all upon himself and offers back to us the chance of forgiveness and transformation. That does not sound like foolishness, but the ultimate wisdom, full of grace and mercy.

I enclose with this letter, a letter from June Foster which makes for a fascinating and moving read.  The young people she describes, joyfully worshipping God in places where they put themselves in danger, may be accused by some of foolishness.  But they have the experience and belief in God’s transforming power and strength and that, in my book, makes them very wise indeed.

Every blessing

Ann