NEWS
It is with huge sadness that we record the recent deaths of three faithful members of our congregation, Valerie Taylor, Roy Pike and Maurice Elliott. Roy and his wife Marion attended Barsham church regularly for many years and he served as a sidesman. Roy’s funeral took place at the church on 11th February, when he was laid to rest beside Marion. Valerie was a stalwart of the local community and a long-term member of the congregation who organised teas and coffees after the service. Those post-service refreshments were initiated by Maurice and Janet Elliott when they lived next door at the Rectory. Maurice became an active member of the PCC, taking on the key roles of Vice Chair and Church Warden, as well as being Deanery Lay Chair. The church was filled to capacity for an uplifting service of thanksgiving for Maurice’s life on 14th February. Thanks as ever to the team who provided such splendid refreshments.
As advised recently at Sunday service, two new appointments to the Bungay Lightwave Hub have been made. The Revd Edward Land has been appointed as Associate Minister of the Lightwave Rural Hub in Bungay and will be licensed on the 1st May.Heather Land, Edward’s wife, has been appointed to the half-time post of Choir Director within the Lightwave Hub, the aim being to forge new links with the community through music and song.
We are most grateful to Robert Rawlinson for so kindly donating a fine new large print King James Bible for the lectern.
The January Sales Table organised by Margaret raised an excellent £165.00. The Food Bank received 226 items in January. Grateful thanks as ever to the church’s loyal supporters. The Beccles Foodbank would love to have more baked beans.
FORWARD PLANNING
There will be two services of Holy Communion at Holy Trinity, Bungay on Ash Wednesday, 2nd March, one at 10.00am and one at 7.30pm, both with imposition of ashes.
Sales Tables will be held on Sunday 27th February and Sunday 27th March.
The Spring Equinox Event is due to take place in the church on the afternoons of 19th, 20th and 21st March. Refreshments will be served from 4.45pm with the illumination taking place at about 5.15pm, weather permitting.
SNIPPETS – St Felix and a Barsham Treasure
In the Church of England the feast of Saint Felix falls on the 8th March and remembers Felix of Dunwich, sometimes known as Felix of Burgundy, who died on 8th March in the year 647 or 648. Very little is known about Felix, except what was reported by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written almost a century after Felix died, and similar information contained in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle another century later. Felix had probably been a priest in a Frankish monastery in Burgundy when he came to Canterbury in about 630. From there he was sent by Archbishop Honorius to bring Christianity to the pagan East Angles whose king, Sigeberht, had already converted to Christianity whilst in exile on the Continent. Felix was given the see of ‘Dommoc’, thought to be Dunwich, and became Bishop of East Anglia. He then spent the next 17 years spreading the faith amongst the East Angles and was venerated as a saint after his death.
At Barsham St Felix is remembered in a banner that stands on the right of the altar in the north chapel. This is the banner of the St Felix Ward of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament (CBS). The CBS was founded in 1862 during the Catholic Revival in the Church of England. It was a fellowship of men and women within the Anglican Church dedicated to the veneration of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. A ward was the local unit of the CBS in which members met together for prayer, worship and mutual support under the guidance of a priest or ward superior. The Revd RAJ Suckling, sometime Rector and Patron of Barsham, who was a leading figure in the Anglo-Catholic Movement, was the Superior-General of the CBS from 1901 until his death in 1917.
Suckling and the Revd Allan Coates (Rector 1889-1920) did much to promote the Anglo-
Catholic ideal of the ‘Beauty of Holiness’ at Barsham, beautifying and dignifying our church to render it worthy to be the house of God, and restyling Holy Trinity, Barsham as ‘The Most Holy Trinity’. They commissioned furnishings, fittings and decorative pieces of the highest quality – the banner amongst them – from the leading craftsmen of the day, giving the interior of the church much of its characteristic appearance today.
The St Felix banner is one of our treasures. It was designed by Watts & Co of 30 Baker Street, London and embroidered and presented to the church in 1904 by Catherine Coates and Alice Harrison, respectively the Rector’s wife and the headmistress of the village school. Watts & Co was an architectural and interior design company established by George Bodley, Thomas Garner and George Gilbert Scott Junior, three of the 19th century’s most significant church architects who did much work for the Anglo-Catholic Movement. Watts & Co produced fabrics, furnishings and metalwork of the finest quality and was known above all for its outstanding embroidery. They designed ecclesiastical banners, frontals and vestments for cathedrals and parish churches throughout Britain, including the first vestments worn since the Reformation at Westminster Abbey (for Queen Victoria’s 1887 Jubilee) and St Paul’s Cathedral (for her 1897 Jubilee). They designed the ecclesiastical vestments for the coronation of Edward VII in 1902 and every coronation since. Although our St Felix banner is now somewhat decayed, its exquisite beauty of design and workmanship shine through still.
March Diary
Wednesday 2nd March – Ash Wednesday. 10.00am and 7.30pm Holy Communion with imposition of ashes at Holy Trinity, Bungay. Rev Josh Bailey.
Sunday 6th March – First Sunday of Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Jonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 13th March – Second Sunday of Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Josh Bailey.
Sunday 20th March – Third Sunday of Lent, 11am Sung Eucharist (CW). Rev Roy Wormald.
Sunday 27th March – Fourth Sunday of Lent, 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 3rd April – Fifth Sunday of Lent, 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Jonathan Olanczuk.
Every Wednesday at 10am – Holy Communion (CW) at Holy Trinity, Bungay.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 01502 710945, [email protected]