Bowland Benefice
Pews News 25 August 2024
Welcome to St John the Baptist Church
A prayer for St John the Baptist
Leader God of hope for our world,
you chose John the Baptist to announce your reign
and to prepare a way for Jesus.

May we have faith like John the Baptist to know your

will in these times. Amen.
Collect for today Trinity 13
Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength and
rest on you in weakness, now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This Week in the Benefice

Sunday
25 August
Trinity 13

10.30am

2.30pm

Benefice Holy
Communion in
White Ladies
Aston
Baptisms in
Upton
Snodsbury of
Henry Baxter &
Sophie &
Megan
Strefford

Wednesday
28 August

3.30pm Funeral of
Christabel
Monaghan in
White Ladies
Aston
May she rest in
peace

Friday
30 August

1.00pm Wedding of
Isabel
Speakman and
Alexander
Watts in Upton
Snodsbury

Sunday
1 September

10.30am Family Service
in Upton
Snodsbury
11.00am Holy
Communion in
Peopleton
6.00pm Evensong in
White Ladies
Aston
We send our prayers and best wishes to Henry, Sophie
and Megan and their families for a lovely celebration
for their baptisms on Sunday in St Kenelm’s.
Our best wishes and hopes for happiness and long life
together for Isabel and Alex getting married next

Friday in St Kenelm’s.

Today we are in the church dedicated to St John the
Baptist in White Ladies Aston.
I am sure we all know, as recorded in the New
Testament, that John the Baptist was related to Jesus,
as their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary were cousins.
The visit of Mary to Elizabeth is recorded in Luke 1:
39-45. Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth when
both of them are expecting their babies. Elizabeth's
baby “leaped in her womb” when Mary entered the
house and called a greeting. This incident shows that
even though they are not yet born, John acknowledges
the superiority of Jesus and recognises that Jesus is

God’s son.

John was the forerunner of Jesus fulfilling the
prophecy in Malachi chapter 3 Behold I will send my
messenger, and he will prepare the way before me….
John baptised Jesus in the river Jordan and that marks
the beginning of Jesus’ preparation for his ministry.
John meanwhile continued his ministry, living as a
prophet in the desert which included calling Herod to
account for his illicit relationship with his brother’s
wife. Herod arrested him and he was beheaded,
probably in 28AD, as the story goes, because Herod’s
step-daughter Salome, daughter of Herodias -the
former wife of Herod’s brother- asked for his head on
a plate. This event is commemorated in our church in
a few days’ time this Thursday 29 th August.
John’s body was taken and buried, and there are
many legends and stories as to where bits of his body
and head ended up. One tradition has it that his head
is in a shrine in the Umayyad Mosque in the old city of
Damascus. This mosque was formerly the Basilica of St
John the Baptist and is still the largest and oldest
mosque in the world and the 4 th holiest in Islam. John
is revered as an extremely important and holy
prophet across the whole Moslem world.
Followers of John existed well into the 2nd century
AD, and some proclaimed him to be the Messiah
awaited by the Jewish nation. 

In modern times, the followers of John the Baptist are
the Mandaeans - an ancient ethnoreligious group who
believe that he is their greatest and final prophet.
They consider Jesus Christ a deceiver and they are
decidedly anti-Christian and anti-Jewish, though they
believe their origins stem from the same tradition as
these two religions. They turn to the north for daily
prayers and believe in the deliverance of the soul in
the future at a cosmological day of judgment.
I am sure for us he will continue to be The voice of one
crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make his paths straight’.
We send our congratulations and best wishes to all
those young people we know who have just received
their GCSE results and are planning the next stage in

education and life.