On Saturday we were visited by a group from our friends at St Barnabas Bethnal Green who chose to visit St Mary's for one of their regular pilgrimages.We held a special Mass to welcome them, followed by a tour of St Mary's and a history of the church.The pilgrims joined us for lunch in the church hall and then rounded off the afternoon by visiting the Cable Street mural.It was wonderful to welcome the group and we hope that we can plan some trips together soon.
Our chosen charity for our Lent appeal this year is the London Churches Refugee Fund. LCRF is an ecumenical Christian-based charity supporting the relief of destitute refugees and those in the asylum system. The charity provides grants to frontline refugee projects in London which are then used for food, phone credit, travel cards, nappies, toiletries and other essential items for destitute refugees and asylum seekers.Since its creation in 2007, the Fund has provided 638 grants totalling £500,000 to 107 refugee projects in London.You can find out more about their work by visiting their website Charity | London Churches Refugee Fund | London
This year, as a timely recognition of our new hymn books kindly paid for by an anonymous donor, the theme of our Lent Group will be "Hymns Ancient & Modern".The groups will take place in the Church Hall at 7pm on the Thursdays of 20 & 27 March, 3 & 10 April. In addition to discussing the different types of hymns, group members will have an opportunity to share their favourite hymn.
WHAT is the point of a Lent book? I suppose there is more than one answer to that: to quicken the soul, to awaken the imagination, to expand the intellect. Different people have different needs at different times. In their different ways, all of the books under review here try to do a combination of these things. Naturally, all begin, in one form or another, with scripture.Owing to unforeseen circumstances (regarding one of its authors, the retiring Bishop of Liverpool) that emerged last week, this year’s annual Reflections for Lent has been withdrawn at the last minute. Not by Bread Alone 2025: Daily reflections for Lent is a very similar format, this time using the readings appointed for the eucharist (a cycle that Anglicans share with the Roman Catholic Church). The author, Daniel P. Horan, is an American RC Franciscan, and the material crosses the Atlantic (and the Tiber) easily. It is available in two convenient formats: one in large print and one in a pocket size.For yet more daily reflections, also on the cycle of mass readings, we move to Ireland for Sacred Space 2025, this time produced by the Irish Jesuits. There is obviously a strong Ignatian influence here, emphasising the use of the imagination, inviting the reader to place themselves into the scene described in the reading, and taking away some kind of resolution from that engagement. The heart and mind are thus changed by engagement with the biblical text.This volume has the advantage of printing the scripture texts themselves before brief reflections, so that the reader does not need a separate Bible or missal to hand. The format is compact and convenient, and is also available online for those who prefer that. Like the Anglican reflections above, Sacred Space is not restricted to Lent alone, and is available throughout the year. Registering for the material online is also available as an option.As far as I am aware, David Kitchen is not a Jesuit, but Easter Inside Out would not be out of place in that context. The author is known as a storyteller of some distinction. Here, he tries to reimagine the story of Holy Week and Easter through the perspectives of those caught up in the narrative. Each section refers the reader back to the scripture texts that are its inspiration. This would be especially good for a kind of mini-retreat during Holy Week, or as a way of enriching one’s reading of biblical texts that can so easily be blunted through over-familiarity. As always with the Bible Reading Fellowship, the volume is well produced, and the text is complemented with some fascinating monochrome images.Doorways to Hope comes from the hand of an experienced spiritual director, and, as the title suggests, explores the meaning of hope in the Christian tradition, its source in God, and its relationship to struggle, vision, pilgrimage, and so on. Forty brief chapters are rounded off with material for action and reflection. I suspect that this is a book most suited for individual use, although there are suggestions for using it in a group context, either in person or else online. As Pope Francis has just commended this year to Roman Catholics as a Jubilee Year of Hope, this volume would seem to be especially timely.We return to BRF for The Whole Easter Story by Jo Swinney, who is director of communications for A Rocha International. Her work with A Rocha provides the inspiration for this volume. The “Lenten journey” here is not based on the Church’s lectionary but on a broader (quasi-sacramental?) view of the relationship between God, humanity, and creation, which is focused in the Easter story.The work of A Rocha is basically to invite Christian communities around the world to engage with creation, to try to improve the ways in which humanity treats the environment, and to do so in practical and achievable ways. (My last parish had an example of their work: a piece of wasteland under a rather nasty flyover which was transformed into a little nature reserve.) Again, we have here 40 short chapters ending with short reflections. The theme determines the scriptures used, not the other way round.And, finally, to a regular and reliable annual publication: the York Courses, this year, The Sacraments, by Jane Williams. Clearly intended for group use, this five-session course is available in different formats: the course book itself contains the five sessions along with transcripts of the discussions that the author has with others from different perspectives within the Church of England. But there are also video and audio formats available, and also downloadable digital versions. From a practical point of view, this is important — especially in the context of trying to have a Lent group across many parishes or via Zoom.In a way, this course is about the same kind of thing as Jo Swinney’s book: the relationship between God and creation, a relationship focused in, but by no means limited to, the sacraments. I like the way in which the experience of going to church is enriched and expanded into something far greater — indeed, universal. I also like the way in which, although the contributors are Anglicans, the material that they produce is ecumenical in the best sense — which is what I always imagined the Church of England was for. . .So which of these is the best? Naturally that is the wrong question. Whatever the pattern chosen, the important thing is that a pattern is chosen: a daily and/or weekly set of habits that teach us anew the language of God.
