NEWS
Roy Wormald (photo) will celebrate Eucharist for us for the final time on Sunday 18th September. He has supported Barsham by celebrating our Eucharist service once a month for the past 12 years, and during the two years of Covid shutdown he continued to provide a monthly sermon for church members. We are most grateful to him, and we shall miss him officiating on the third Sunday, but we are delighted that he and Audrey will continue to be regular attenders at Barsham church.
The Summer Lunch Party at St Bartholomew’s Church, Shipmeadow on 3rd August was a memorable occasion, enjoyed by over 70 people. Very many thanks to everyone who contributed to the organisation, logistics and catering, and special thanks to our hosts, Nick and Jenny Caddick.
The churchyard is looking splendidly tidy following haymaking on 5th and 6th August: Colin reckons smarter than ever post-haymaking. As he points out, the sixteen people who toiled over two hot days were undoubtedly incentivised by the prospect of the excellent lunch provided by Chris Bardsley, who was assisted on the Friday by Carolyn. Many thanks and well done to ‘The Sixteen’, amongst whom were five young and energetic haymakers whose contribution was especially appreciated: thank you Annabelle, Louisa, Tilly, Josh and Tom.
Janet has kindly prepared a variety of plants for sale at Old Hall, Barsham, with all proceeds going to the church.
Warm thanks to everyone who donated to the Food Bank in July: you gave an impressive 259 items.
The July sales table organised by Jenny yielded £100. Sarah Jane’s remarkable endeavours in selling the legacy teddy bears continue with further sales of £195, bringing the total to a splendid £1,782. The Barsham PCC gratefully acknowledges donations of £150 and £100, the latter being made in memory of the late Roy and Marian Pike.
FORWARD PLANNING
This year’s Suffolk Churches Ride and Stride is on Saturday 10th September.
The Autumn Equinox Event takes place on Thursday 22nd, Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th September at 5.50pm with refreshments served from 30 minutes beforehand. Weather permitting, the spectacle is best on the middle day.
Harvest Festival will be celebrated with Evensong at 5.30pm on Sunday 2nd October, with Harvest Supper at the village hall afterwards at 7pm. Tickets will be available in due course from Bridget and Diana.
A date for the winter diary: Will Lindley will be presenting another Light Show in Barsham Church on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th November. He describes it as a ‘refreshed’ version of last year’s show.
SNIPPETS – God’s Acre
Churchyards are sometimes referred to as God’s Acre, an expression borrowed in the early 17th century from the German Gottesacker (Dutch Godsakker) – Field of God.
I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God’s-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust.
(From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem God’s Acre)
Our churchyard at Barsham is a beautiful place whatever the season: trim and neat as now after summer haymaking, bathed in the dew and mist of autumn, dressed in white in winter, or lush with wildflowers in spring.
The existence and bounds of our churchyard are almost certainly as ancient as the church itself – nearly a thousand years old – but its current appearance has been forged largely over the last two centuries. A very small number of headstones began to appear in churchyards in the late 17th century, but the rows of headstones and ledgers that characterise churchyards today are predominantly later and at Barsham they are mostly of the 19th and 20th centuries. Previously, a burial might be marked at most by a wooden cross, but the norm in churchyards was the unmarked grave.
One thing that has not changed over the centuries is the focus of responsibility for the upkeep of the churchyard, which lies today with the churchwardens and laity, as it has done since it was decreed by the Lateran Council 800 years ago in 1215.
Perhaps the adoption of the term ‘God’s Acre’ in the 17th century reflected a new reverence for the churchyard imposed by the Protestant reformers, particularly the
Puritans, during the Reformation. Prior to this and throughout the Middle Ages, the churchyard had been a community space used in part for devotional purposes –
processions, preaching, mystery plays etc – but also for secular entertainments including games and sports, fairs and feasts, dancing and celebrations. In particular,
churchyards were the venue for church ales: traditional festivities which took place regularly in the medieval church calendar, especially in spring and summer. Their purpose was to raise money for the upkeep of the church, in a loose sense perhaps the precursors of the modern church fete – or even our summer lunch. At church ales there would be food and drink, entertainments, music and dancing. Church ales were regarded by many as the embodiment of the ideal of community, and they enjoyed wide support at local level as well as from the Establishment in both Church and state. Like the critics of the 13th and 14th centuries, however, the reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries saw in church ales only gluttony, drunkenness and moral danger, and they attacked them on religious and moral grounds. Despite the support of the Stuart monarchy for the tradition of church ales, the 17th century reformers had their way and church ales were suppressed, to be replaced as a means of raising funds for the church by the less colourful and more sober church rates!
September Diary
Sunday 28th August – Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 4th September – Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). RevJonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 11th September – Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Josh Bailey.
Sunday 18th September – Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (CW). Rev Roy Wormald.
Sunday 25th September – Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 2nd October – Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). RevJonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 2nd October – 5.30pm Harvest Evensong. Rev Josh Bailey.
Every Wednesday at 8.45am – Matins at Barsham
Every Wednesday at 10am – Holy Communion (CW) at Holy Trinity, Bungay.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]