The Benefice of St. Bartholomew

Ash Wednesday Services - 26th February 2020

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Written by Tony Gowers

To celebrate the beginning of Lent, two services will be held on Ash Wednesday - 26th February 2020:

• A said Eucharist with Imposition of Ashes at St Catherine's Church, Sedgehill, at 10.00 am.
• A Sung Eucharist with Imposition of Ashes at St Andrew's Church, Donhead St Andrew at 7.00 pm.

Please do come and join us at one or both of these services.

Lent Lunches - 2020

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Written by Tony Gowers

A Lent Lunch will be held every Monday at 12.30 pm during Lent on the following dates:

• 2nd March 2020 at Semley Grange
• 9th March 2020 at Hart Hill Farm, Semley
• 16th March 2020 at The Rectory, Donhead St Andrew
• 23rd March 2020 at The Old Rectory, East Knoyle
• 30th March 2020 at Donhead St Mary Village Hall

All welcome - please do come and join us.

Lent Groups & Courses 2020

Details

Written by Tony Gowers

We will be holding our usual Lent Group again this year meeting either at "Coopers Ground", "Church Cottage" or "Erins" in East Knoyle. We meet at 2:45 pm on five consecutive Tuesdays commencing on 3rd March 2020. The title of this year’s study is ‘Daring to see God Now’, one of the York courses. The date when each session is being held is shown on the Benefice Calendar here. For further details and information on the locations where the group will be meeting, please contact The Rev’d June. tel: 01747 828 427. We are an informal, friendly group and everyone is very welcome. Discussion is lively and the tea always excellent!

In addition, three Lent talks will be held in Donhead St Andrew church. More details on this to follow.

There will also be a more creative Lent group this year. This group will be reflecting on the Stations of the Cross and encouraging people to create a station or two using either photographs, models, paintings etc.. A venue for this particular course has not yet been decided. If you are interested in taking part in this creative Lent course, please let The Rev'd Kevin know - tel: 01747 828 551.

Finally, if anybody is interested in arranging or being part of a Local Passion Play, Good Friday Bun Walk or an Easter Egg Hunt please let the clergy team know.

World Day of Prayer - 6th March 2020

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Written by The Rev'd June Lane

This year's World Day of Prayer service in the Benefice will be held on

Friday 6th March 2020 at 2.30 pm
in St Mary's Church, East Knoyle

Every year, people from all around the world gather for prayer in a Service devised by a different country each time. This year, the Christian women of Zimbabwe have created a service on the theme:

"Rise! Take Your Mat and Walk"

The global idea is to have prayer being offered for the whole of the 24 hours as the sun follows its path around the world. Let us be part of that wonderful circle.

Please do come and join us for about three quarters of an hour.

Click here to find out more about World Day of Prayer.

From the Curate - February 2020

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Written by The Rev'd Kevin Martin

Dear Friends,

I hope the new decade has started well for you and I wonder if you got involved in the #10YearChallenge which experienced a revival on social media as the decade came to an end. In the challenge we were being encouraged to post pictures of ourselves ten years ago and now It had originally started much earlier in the year when celebrities took to social media to show how they had changed (or not) over a ten-year period. For those celebrities and for those who engaged with it for the end of the decade there was a lot of fun to be had. Some took the challenge seriously enough to ensure a similar pose in each picture and others took the opportunity to have fun with a more light-hearted approach. I was tempted to post something myself but resisted - mostly because up until I was ordained I would avoid having my photograph taken at any cost. Now I have to simply give in!

Whether we got involved with the ten-year challenge or not I imagine we all had a moment or two in the past couple of months when we have reflected on the past twelve months and indeed the past ten years. New Year is a natural time for this type of reflection. We may think of those decisions we made and wonder how things may have turned out if we chose differently. We think of those loved ones who have died and who we miss particularly at this time of year. We remember the good times with a smile and the sad times with a tear. We may take time to make a commitment to live or work differently as we look back and maybe rediscover our hopes and dreams. This doesn’t last long, however, as immediately Christmas is ‘over’ we are bombarded with advertisements for summer holidays or sales which we simply can’t miss. In the supermarket a week or so after Christmas Day I saw the range of small chocolate eggs increasing as we are encouraged to focus on the next big spend!

Christmas, however, is not over. In the Church’s Year we are still in the Epiphany Season which lasts up to the beginning of February. This season is where we continue to celebrate the wonderful gift of God becoming human, of God revealing Godself to us by becoming one of us. This gift shows us how much God loves us and wants us to know God as clearly as we can and it is one that brings the greatest thing we can ever hope for - the gift of eternal life. It is something for us to celebrate not just for one day but for a season.

In our fast-paced world we can sometimes forget the importance of recognising we live our lives through seasons. Not simply the seasons of the church year, calendar year, decade or century, but also our own lives. We are always engaging in a cycle which reminds us of periods of growth, plenty, decay, death, peace, activity, understanding and confusion.

Our life is not simply a linear thing but a cycle that offers us time to reflect as well as times to be active. In the Church Year we receive many opportunities to meet God face to face and to hear afresh God’s will for us. This is that we should be people of love, support and nurture and to realise that God sends us the people we need in our lives to help us through the good and bad experiences of life. In this cycle we are reassured that after any death there is new life and indeed that new life cannot come forth without a death.

The new life of love and care is born in us when we die to selfishness, envy and greed. Our eternal life begins when we accept the gift of life that God offers us to see God in the beauty of nature and others around us. Our new and eternal life begins when we say yes to love of God and neighbour and no to jealousy, selfishness and envy.

Kevin

Prayer Cycle and Prayer of the Month - February 2020

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Written by The Rev'd June Lane

Please do continue to make your requests for prayer known to us. Prayer changes things. Contact any of us: The Rev’d June (tel: 01747 828427), Julia (tel: 01747 829166), Theresa (tel: 01747 829188), The Rev’d Richard (tel: 01747 830174) or the Rev’d Kevin (tel: 01747 828551). There are many of us in need of that extra help and comfort that comes from knowing someone is praying for us.

Prayer of the Month

This little Prayer of St. Theresa of Avila is well known but it really does carry on from my little message in ‘Ashmede Patterings’ in the February 2020 edition of ‘Parish News’ and we can never repeat good prayers too often.

Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you.
All things pass, God does not change,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hands but yours, no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world.
Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people. Amen

There is also a little poem, author unknown, based on this prayer and this may be even more familiar.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which
He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which
He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.

Christ has no body now but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.