The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, which culminates this coming week with a four-day bank holiday weekend and events throughout the country, is a good time to look back on the Queen’s remarkable reign. The seventy years since she came to the throne have seen so many changes in so many areas of our lives - a quite staggering rate of change. The Royal Family, too, has seen many changes, yet somehow the Queen has remained a constant. I’ve been reading some of her speeches in preparation for the Service of Thanksgiving we are holding on Thursday 2nd at 10.30, and have been struck by the Queen’s deep Christian faith, which undoubtedly underpins her life of duty and service. At 21, in 1947, she vowed to dedicate her life to the service of her people, her country and the Commonwealth, and she has been unwavering in this commitment, which she regards as a sacred duty. That’s inspiring for all of us whose faith calls us to a life of service to others.But this is also a time for looking forward. Next weekend we will be holding our Jubilee Fete, our first big public event as a church since the pandemic. I hope it will be a lovely, enjoyable occasion - a chance for us to welcome our village to the church and to celebrate together. I hope, too, that it is a harbinger of things to come, a sign that we are an outward-facing, open-hearted, faith-filled church reaching out in love and faith to all.
I always love the Easter season of the Church’s year. After the austerity of Lent, the emotional intensity of Holy Week, in these six weeks which the great rejoicing of Easter carries on and we remember once again what it is to be a people who live in the light of the Resurrection. Of course, these six weeks fall in April and May, which are some of the loveliest in the year, and that helps too. In these six weeks we look forward to the celebrating Christ’s Ascension and to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This year, as well as a morning service for Ascension Day, we will be holding a joint evening service with our next door neighbour parish of St Albans. It will be great to join together to celebrate the Ascension and I hope this will be the start of more collaboration between us.After ten days we will celebrate Pentecost, the great feast of the birthday of the Church and the coming of the Holy Spirit. That day also falls during the four day bank holiday weekend to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We are planning a Service of Thanksgiving for HM the Queen on Thursday 2nd June at 10.30, and then on Sunday afternoon, our grand Jubilee Fete. Plans are going on steadily for the fete, and I’m encouraged by the number of people who have said they are willing to help. I hope it will be a really lovely afternoon for all, and a way for us to welcome and celebrate with our village community. We will end the afternoon with ‘Hymns and Pimms’.Thank you to everyone who gave so generously to our Lent Appeal. Cheques for £576 will be going to the Red Cross Appeal for Ukraine and to The Bank. We had a lovely acknowledgement of thanks from The Bank - this is a small local charity, and our donation means a lot to them.
This Sunday is Mothering Sunday, the beginning of the fourth Sunday in Lent - we are more than halfway through this year’s Lenten journey. On Saturday we’ll be holding the first of a series of special events for families with children: Decorate a Cake for Mother’s Day. And, of course, on Sunday we will have posies for anyone who wishes to take one home. Below there is a list of Holy Week services for your diary. But though we are still journeying through Lent, I have begun to think about our plans for the summer.This year is the 75th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne, her Platinum Jubilee. There are going to be many events up and down the country throughout the year, but the main focus will be the Jubilee Weekend, a four day bank holiday from June 2nd-5th. In addition to beacons lit throughout the land, parades and a big concert in London on the Saturday night, we are being encouraged to celebrate this amazing event locally.At St Mary’s we are going to join in with the celebrations by holding a grand fete on the afternoon of Sunday 5th June. We are planning to have stalls not only in the churchyard but also on Hallgate, and the Parish Council has given us permission to close the road. We want it to be a free, fun event for all the family, with old-fashioned games such as tin-can skittles and guess the name of the teddy, cake and plant stalls, face-painting and a decorate-your-own-crown area, children’s musicians, free cream teas and a special guest to open the fete. We’re hoping to end the fete with a special ‘hymns and Pimms’ service. This could be a wonderful opportunity for St Mary’s to welcome our community, and it will be the only free event for the whole village that weekend. But we can only do this if we all lend a hand - because then nobody will be doing too much and it will be a joint effort that we are all creating together. There will be many ways to lend a hand, from making bunting to staffing a stall, and from moving tables to mixing Pimms. As we plan the details of the event we will need a ‘Fete Team’ to oversee the organising and make sure it is well publicised.How might you help to make our Jubilee Fete a reality? No offer of help is too small, and everyone’s contribution will be vital. Please do get in touch with me to let me know how you can help - I know I can count on the wonderful St Mary’s community to make sure this is an event that will put us at the heart of our village community and will give us a chance to celebrate Her Majesty’s reign of service to her country in a fitting and joyful way. <br>
This week we began our Lent study with session one of the Prayer Course. Pete Greig, who made the videos is an engaging and down-to-earth guide to prayer and both groups - in person on Wednesday morning and on Zoom on Monday evening - had some great discussions about his three top tips for prayer - Keep it Simple, Keep it Real and Keep it Up!One of the things that struck me was when he compared prayer to one of his small son’s attempts to write before he’d learned to write properly. When his son asked him to ‘read’ his scribbles, Pete Greig said that he could interpret them even though he could ’t read them, because he knew his son so well. And he compared our prayers to these scribbles, saying that whatever sense we do or don’t make, God will be able to interpret them because he knows and loves us.I’ve thought about that image a lot during this week, as I’ve watched the news in grief and horror at the war on Ukraine and the suffering of its people. I’ve been feeling that I don’t know how to pray in this dreadful situation - and that any words I can find fall so far short. But maybe I don’t have to find all the words. Maybe it’s enough to cry out ‘God - help!’ or ‘Make it better!’ or ‘Lord, have mercy’. Maybe it’s fine to ask ‘how could this happen?’ or ‘why don’t you stop it?’ or simply to admit’ I feel so helpless’. If God can interpret our inarticulate and inadequate prayers, and know the desires of our hearts and the longing of our souls, maybe we don’t have to find the right words. God will hear and understand our prayers, and will use them - to give courage and hope to the people of Ukraine, to change the hearts of those who pursue war and violence, and to make us generous in offering help and hospitality.
