<div>Easter is approaching fast as I write this letter. First, I’d like to give you the services for Holy Week and Easter. Clearly it will be different this year because of the pandemic and the necessary restriction in place. I hope that this arrangement of services has both enough familiarity to give us comfort and enough difference to give us a fresh view of Holy Week. Maundy Thursday Mass will be a simple said service at 6pm. There won’t be the usual feet washing but we will have a short period of music from Taizé to reflect on Jesus’ example. Jeanne Conard-Jones , Jobe Baker and the violinist Edwin Podolski have recoded Erbarme dich Bach’s St Matthew Passion for us to use as we strip the church or ornaments. </div><div>Erbarme dich, mein Gott, Um meiner Zähren willen! Schaue hier, Herz und Auge Weint vor dir bitterlich. Erbarme dich, mein Gott.Have mercy, my God, <span style="font-size: 1rem;">for the sake of my tears! </span><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Look here heart and eyes weep bitterly Have mercy, my God.</span></div>They are words put into Peter’s mouth as he repents his denial of JesusThe sacrament will be reserved in St Patrick’s chapel but there will not be the usual vigil in church. You may, of course spend time at home watching and waiting. You may wish to join the Baptist church for Tenebrae at 7:30.Good FridayThere are also some changes to Good Friday. Stations of the cross will be on Zoom. As we are not in church and so need to have a single service we will split stations of the cross into two parts. Part one at 12 noon will be stations 1-11. We wait till the third hour when Jesus died to complete stations 12-14Instead of Ante-communion in the morning we will celebrate the liturgy of Christ’s death and burial at 6pm in the evening. At this hour we look back over the events of the day and reflect on the body of Christ in the tomb. This liturgy normally invites us to venerate the cross and an icon of Jesus in the tomb with a kiss and scattering to flower petals, unfortunately we will not be able to do either of those this year.Easter SundayThis year we won’t have the Easter vigil on Saturday evening but will incorporate the Liturgy of Light into our 10am Mass.All of this needs to have new liturgies written, music arranged and videos made and edited. So, I will be taking the advantage of the fact that St Alban’s academy’s is having 2 weeks holiday after Easter and having a rest (stayacation seems to be the new word). Fr Andrew will be Presiding at Mass on the 11<sup>th</sup>. During these 2 weeks there will be no Zoom Evening Prayer.So much for the practicalities this year. Easter is the main festival of the Christian year, remembering our christian hope. We need hope, it’s been over a year since the first lockdown: Covid-19, though reduced in Britain is still a real threat, and across Europe there is a third wave of infections. Hopefully success of the vaccination program will dull the effects of any third wave in Britain but there is still a long way to go. There was darkness and death before the first Easter and there will be more darkness and death before this pandemic is over. Let us not loose our hope when we have setbacks and remember that the ultimate victory is Jesus’.
Lockdown makes Lent seem even more penitential than normal. Lockdown also affects each of us differently. I find that I am extra busy because doing things online involves a lot of extra work. Using Zoom and making videos takes time and with no live music all the music had to be edited before the services. The same goes for the readings and prayers. On the other hand, it is always interesting to learn new skills and revive old ones. For others the pandemic has been a seemingly endless time when they can’t go out or meet friends and family. Let’s have some positive news; the PCC has decided that we will reopen the church March we are NOT restarting the Thursday and Saturday morning Masses.We are asking that everyone books using "Get in Touch" at the bottom left of this webpage; through our email info@saintalban.co.uk or by phoning me (0121 440 0404). This will mean that as more people feel confident to come out to church we don’t have to turn people away. Please remember that we all have to behave responsibly and follow the rules. Please book before you come to church.You must wear a face covering over your nose and mouth at all times except when receiving communion and you may also remove your face covering to read the lessons or intercessions.Please sanitize your hands on entering the church.Go straight to your seat, the seats are marked up green for places you can sit and red for those that are less than 2 m away from other seats or standing places and are not to be used.Please bring a pen with you and fill in the track and trace form.Only the cantor(s) are allowed to sing.When moving around church please follow the one-way system and if you have to queue stand on the yellow arrows marked out on the floor.Please sanitize your hands before and after receiving communion.When leaving the church please don’t stand around in groups with less that 2m between bubbles. I know we want to catch up with each other but please remember that it is dangerous and unlawfu.If we follow all these rules we minimise the risk of cross infection with Covid-19 while in the church.Rules all sound a bit negative so here is something more positive. Enjoy being able to come to church rather than focus on the necessary restrictions. Use Lent as a time of spiritual growth and drawing closer to God. In that context, what can we make of Lent this year? If we only think of Lent as a time of fasting and abstinence, then I think this Lent will be extra difficult. Lent has never been just about giving things up, one aspect has always been taking up new things that help us on our journey on holiness. If we see Lent as being a time in the wilderness when we to make real progress in our pilgrimage to God then it will be much more productive. For those of you who are able to use computers we have put on some extra events. We are having our usual Stations of the Cross on Friday 6pm but we are also putting on Evening Prayer and a Study Group: details of these are elsewhere in the magazine. If you don’t have access to the internet one traditional path to holiness in Lent is to read a Lent book.To end on a positive note, infection rates, while still high in Birmingham, are falling; longer days and warmer weather are on the way; and the church roof has been replaced; the cloister entrance made better; and we are ready for renewal in our renewed building.
Dear all,Thanks to everyone who sent us a card this Christmas.Taking stock of where we are at the end of January, the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is on target to reach the most vulnerable in society by mid-February, though there will still be other vulnerable people left to vaccinate. At the time of writing the very high peak of infections in January is declining nationally but the numbers in Birmingham are dropping more slowly. All this means it’s very hard to make plans. We are not open for public Mass at the moment, or more formally we have “requested that the bishop authorise dispensing with the reading of Morning and Evening Prayer as required by Canon B 11 and the celebration of the Holy Communion as required by Canon B 14 on a regular basis until March 1st 2021”. The standing committee is reviewing the situation every week and we will open earlier if we can and if necessary, we will ask for the dispensation to be extended. Of course, Mass and the daily offices are still celebrated, but the church is not open to the public.It seems likely that we will still be closed for “The presentation of Christ in the Temple” (Candlemas) and Ash Wednesday. I propose that we have a simple low Mass on both those occasions and that the services are made available on Zoom and YouTube. I have also started a Zoom Evening Prayer on 4 days a week and I am working towards having a Zoom Lent group provisionally at 7:30 pm on Tuesdays. (I am currently liaising with the Baptist church to see if they would like to join us so the time and day may change.)I would also like us to get together on Shrove Tuesday (via Zoom) for a few pancakes. If we could put our computers in the kitchen or dining room (well away from any liquids) we could still eat pancakes together. Afterwards we could watch the second video of our family adventures in Nagaland as we visited Akole’s family (we saw the first one at a Friend’s meeting).On the musical front, John and I are hoping to put together a recording of Wood in the Phrygian mode for Lent, with everyone recording their voice parts at home and sending them to me to be put together. Please keep our musicians in mind, it is hard to sing part of a choral work all on your own, and quite a bit of work to edit it all together as well.Let us hope that by Easter that some of the most draconian limitations have gone and that we can celebrate the beginning of the end.I have had some conversations about doing something in the week of St Alban’s day. It’s hard to be sure what the Covid situation is even so far into the future but we have arranged Mass for Saturday 26th June and we hope to have Fr Mark Bonny Dean of Ely preaching. I do still hope that we might manage a bit more of a celebration, or dare I say festival, in the week beforehand.If you are not on the email list for getting information to join our Zoom and YouTube services, please contact me using "Get in touch" at the bottom left of this page.
<span style="font-size: 1rem;">Dear All,</span>It is an understatement to say that 2020 has been a difficult, more accurately — a horrible, year. As we start 2021 our situation is still difficult, but we start the year with hope. Immunisations against Covid-19 have begun, though as yet no one has had a second dose of the vaccine. I hope that by the summer we will be in a much better situation, as far as the pandemic is concerned. Another source of hope is that the roof of our church has been replaced, a new disabled entrance constructed and the outside of our church building has been smartened up.As well as a year of hope, 2021 will be a year of challenges. We will leave the European Union as 2021 starts, and whatever our politics, I’m sure that we can agree that there will be challenges. Some difficulties are not new to 2021. One continuing challenge is our church finances — these have been precarious for many years. Another challenge is that our congregation is mainly elderly and some of us travel long distances to come to church. The clean air zone is another threat to us because some of us have vehicles that will be charged to enter the zone.In the church’s calendar, January is the season of Epiphany, beginning on the sixth of January and carrying on until Candlemas of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on the second of February. The season of Epiphany is all about Jesus becoming known as the Son of God. Epiphany starts with the Wise Men, who travelled from the East tofind and worship Our Lord. The season continues with the baptism of Jesus and the wedding at Cana. Both of these proclaimed Jesus to his own nation. Then we end with Candlemas when Simeon proclaims that Jesus is to be a light to all peoples.In my own mind, I associate Epiphany with “light bulb moments”. I’m thinking of cartoons when a new idea is pictured as a lightbulb appearing by someone’s head. Epiphany is a series of these lightbulb moments, the lightbulb when the Wise saw something in the heavens and realized that a great king had been born. The lightbulb when John saw Jesus and realized he was the Messiah. The lightbulb when the steward at the wedding feast at Cana realised that water had been turned into wine, and that Jesus had done something miraculous. The lightbulb when Anna and Simeon realized that the baby they were waiting for was here in the temple, in their arms.Many people around us don’t know these things, they do not know Jesus and they do not realize who and what he is. It is our task to bring them to that lightbulb moment. We also need to see and understand many things about ourselves and about God: there are lightbulb moments waiting for each of us.As we enter 2021 let us be aware of the threats to our church and our weaknesses, but let us also be aware of our strengths and opportunities.
