All Saints Margaret Street.

Dear Friend,

This Sunday, we enter that final two week section of Lent which is called Passiontide. It has been called “Deep Lent.”  Prayers and readings in our services focus our attention on the cross and passion of Jesus as we move towards Good Friday and Easter.  With crucifixes and images veiled in purple, the church building looks like a house in mourning. On Sunday evening, we will have a service of readings and music for Passiontide.

My wife and I finally got round to having our post-Christmas break last week with a few days in Seville. Some might think we were “giving up religion for Lent.” In fact, it is almost impossible to escape religion in Seville, especially in the weeks leading up to “Semana Santa,” Holy Week, which is marked by processions with images of Christ and the Virgin through the city.

Our hotel was in the district called Macarena, whose particular Virgin is especially revered in the city. The church where her image is housed was a couple of streets away. It did not look very Lenten:  the statue enthroned above the high altar is clothed in splendid apparel and crowned in silver. There were enough silver candlesticks surrounding her to while away a sermon or anthem simply counting them.

In churches, chapels and halls belonging to various devotional brotherhoods, the floats on which they are carried were being made ready. As we passed the hall close to our hotel one evening, a singing practice was in full flow. On our final night, just as I was nodding off to sleep, it was the band’s turn: sixty or so people playing brass and drums filled the street below our window. Fortunately they called it a night quite soon and adjourned to the bar across the road to quench their thirst.

Our Holy Week celebrations also need a great deal of practice and preparation. “It’s your busy time, Father,” people say sympathetically to the clergy.  And at All Saints, not just for the clergy.  Our Holy Week and Easter worship is a labour-intensive business.involving a small army of devoted volunteers. Without them it would not be possible.

A danger lurks in all this effort and busyness: of forgetting who it is about and what it is all for.  

Sunday’s readings remind us.  In the Gospel (John 12.1-8), Mary of Bethany anoints the feet of Jesus with precious ointment whose fragrance fills the house.  When Judas objects to this waste, Jesus replies: “Let her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”

And in a passionately autobiographical passage (Philippians 3.4b-14), Paul speaks of the “surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him….”

Passiontide and Holy Week remind us that the Christian life is about knowing Christ; not just facts about him, but a loving relationship, a living communion with him in which we share his life, death and new life.

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”  

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Alan Moses

Prebendary Alan Moses
Vicar, All Saints Margaret Street
Area Dean of Westminster – St Marylebone

Please pray for those who have asked for our prayers: Asia Bibi, John Bailey, Fr Allan Buick, Vivien Caplowe, James Cary-Elwes, Dennis Davis, Elizabeth Day, Mark Dougly, Kate Down, David Fettke, Jonty Gordon, Adrian Gunning, Ghislain Hamelin, Lewis Harvey, Minnie Hodgetts, Julia Holland and family, Myrtle Hughes, Pat Hunt, David Jewkes, Alice Jullien,  Julie Knight, Andrew Laird, Tom Leader, Miriam Nelson, Oliver Orr, David Pearce, Carmelina Perry, Canon John Rees, Jock Scott, Patricia Searle, Stella and Helen Skinner, Rose Stephens, Madeleine Storer, Christine van Dyck, Robert Walmsley and Joy Wright.   

For the recently departed:  Christine Loffty, Margaret Humphries, Ellen Hirschberg, Rod Jones and Caroline Andrews.

Remember past priests, benefactors, friends, and all whose year’s mind occurs this week including: Annie Slater, Basil Whitworth (Priest), Ann Sculley, Sydney Heales, Vera Martin, Peggy Shepherd, James Robertson (Priest), Joan Miller, Donald Faithfull (sometime Bursar & Sub-Deacon), Hester Russell, Edward Aubert, Frank Coomber, Jessie Thwaites, Edward Mann, Joan Mackintosh (Friend of All Saints) and Millie Cathcart.

For full service information: www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk.

WORSHIP THIS SUNDAY 13 MARCH – LENT 5 (Passiontide)

HIGH MASS, 11am Preacher: The Vicar, Prebendary Alan Moses
Missa Pange lingua – Josquin des Prez 
Jesu, grant me this I pray – Bairstow

There is Sunday Lunch service this week and Dan Fielden is the chef. The menu is Beef Casserole with mashed potato and green beans, followed by dessert and coffee. Tickets £5 on sale in the Parish Shop in the Parish Room before and after Mass (subject to availability).

Passiontide Music and Readings followed by Benediction, 6pm 
With the Choir of All Saints – including the Palestrina Stabat Mater, Byrd Ave Verum Corpus and Magnificat (from the Short Service), Tchaikovsky Legend, Poulenc Timor et Tremor, Martin Agnus Dei and Bach ‘O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross BWV 662 ’. 

WORSHIP NEXT SUNDAY 20 MARCH – LENT 5
HIGH MASS, 11am but Liturgy of the Palms starts in Market Place with Procession to Church at 10.45am (subject to the weather)
Preacher: Bishop Jack Nicholls 
Mass in four parts – Byrd 
Vinea mea electa – Poulenc

There is Sunday Lunch service this week and Frances O’Neil is the chef. Tickets £5 on sale in the Parish Shop in the Parish Room before and after Mass (subject to availability).

CHORAL EVENSONG & BENEDICTION 
Preacher: Bishop Jack Nicholls 
Third Service – Byrd 
Versa est in luctum – Lobo 

PARISH NOTICES

HOLY WEEK CONFESSION TIMES:
Mon 21, Tues 22 March, 12 – 1pm and 5 – 6pm
Wed 23 March, 12 – 1pm and 5 – 5.45pm
Maundy Thursday 24 March, 5 – 6pm              

MAUNDY THURSDAY WATCH OF THE PASSION
Please sign the sheet of hours on the lectern in the Baptistery if you can commit to keeping the Watch at a particular time.

The Marylebone Project has delivered ther latest newsletter – copies of which can be found on the table in Church – in which they advise of their new Patron singer Ellie Goulding and make an Easter Egg Appeal. Following the success of their first Egg Appeal in 2015, they ask if anyone is able to donate a chocolate Easter egg to the Project for their residents and Day Centre service users? If you can help, please deliver your egg by Sunday 20 March as you would non-perishable food and household items and we will get them to the Project for Easter.

REVISION OF THE ALL SAINTS’ ELECTORAL ROLL
The Electoral Roll has to be revised before the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) on 10 April 2016. Inclusion on the Roll is the qualification to attend, participate and vote at the Meeting, or to be nominated for office. The Roll will be closed for revision between Thursday 17 and Thursday 24 March. No further entries may be made to the Roll between 18 March and the close of the APCM. Would members of the Roll please check their entries on the copy of the Roll available in the Parish Office? Alterations should be notified to me, c/o the Parish Office. Anyone else who wishes to be included on the Roll, and who fulfils the qualifications, is welcome to apply. Completed forms (to be found on the table in Church) should be returned via the Parish Office.

Catherine T Burling,
Electoral Roll Officer

ALL SAINTS LENT APPEAL 2016
As part of Lenten almsgiving, collections for our Appeal will be shared equally between the following three charities:  

1. Bishop of London’s Lent Appeal 2016
   Fundraising for two reputable charities active among the beleaguered Christian communities in Iraq and Syria:
   Open Doors – providing emergency food supplies and hygiene kits to 10,000 families every month in Syria and
   Aid to the Church in Need – focusing in Iraq on urgent needs for housing, medicine and education to allow the Church to maintain its Christian presence and witness Jesus Christ.
2. Us (formerly USPG)
   Supporting the church in Zimbabwe working with those affected by HIV and AIDS and providing local clergy and lay leaders with skills and training to undertake that work.
3. The Marylebone Project – our regular year-round mission project, run by the Church Army – empowering homeless women into independent living. Our money goes towards the emergency bed unit, providing urgent accommodation for women escaping domestic violence, financial crisis, sexual exploitation and mental health issues.

In 2015 we raised a total of £3,900 (including applicable Gift Aid).  Please give generously this year so we can try and raise over £4,000 in 2016.

Lent Coin Boxes are now available in church and plate collections will take place at particular services in Holy Week. Please make cheques payable to: Parochial Church All Saints (Lent Appeal). Please Gift Aid donations wherever possible – signing and completing a yellow envelope to accompany cheque or coins to increase the value of your donation by 25%.

Please return donations to the Parish Shop or the Parish Office from Sunday 20 March and preferably by Sunday 3 April (to allow us to promptly claim the Gift Aid and send cheques to the recipients).

Please see the noticeboard in Church where other events may be advertised as space is limited in the Newsletter.

UPCOMING SERVICES & EVENTS – at ALL SAINTS

The devotion of STATIONS OF THE CROSS will take place after the Evening Mass at All Saints at 7.05pm on Fridays during Lent.  

NEW STATIONS FOR A ‘NEW JERUSALEM’
(exhibited at 14 locations across London)
On the day he died, Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa through the streets of Jerusalem, a holy city for Jews, which would later become sacred to Christians and Muslims. Jesus’ journey is traditionally commemorated by the Stations of the Cross. Across the chasm of two thousand years, this tortured path resonates with current events for people of many faiths and cultures. In particular, it calls to mind the hazardous journeys of refugees from today’s Middle East.

This unique exhibition – held in 14 locations across London – uses works of art to tell the story of the Passion in a new way, for people of different faiths. In this pilgrimage for art lovers, viewers will travel across London, mapping the geography of the Holy Land onto the streets of a ‘new Jerusalem.’ The Stations will weave through religious as well as secular spaces, from cathedrals to museums. The art on display runs the gamut from Old Master paintings to contemporary video installations. Artists include Christians, Jews, Muslims, and atheists. Instead of easy answers, the Stations aim to provoke the passions: artistically, spiritually, and politically.

Commenting on the Pilgrimage, The Bishop of Stepney, The Rt Revd Adrian Newman, said:
“These remarkable Stations of the Cross represent an iconic Lent pilgrimage across the landscape of contemporary London.  They navigate a journey filled with modern meaning – dispossessed communities, fleeing refugees, displaced identities, and all who suffer injustice and oppression. This is visual art which melts the distinctions between sacred and secular, past and present, material and spiritual, offering up a liminal experience here on the streets of this culturally diverse capital city. Art and Christianity have a wonderful history, and I’m delighted to see this exhibition bring them together in such a creative way.”

Supporting the exhibition, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, said:
“For many centuries, the Passion of Jesus has inspired artists to some of their most outstanding work. I warmly welcome this innovative ‘Stations of the Cross’ project, bringing together Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist churches, as well as museums and public spaces around London, to enrich with new artistic endeavour our meditation on the redemptive suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

“The narrative of the Passion, embodied through these 14 impressive works of art, provides a powerful encouragement to think about not only the suffering of Jesus in this Lenten season, but the suffering of innocent people around the world. I pray that this exhibition will be a great success and wish to thank most sincerely the curators, artists, and institutions who have made it happen.”

Visitors can take this tour by downloading maps and podcasts from the Coexhist House website, along with a new app, ‘Alight,’ Details about prayer services, lectures, performances, and other associated events at the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, and churches across London are available on the site and cash donations can be pledged online for Syrian refugees. The exhibition is supported by King’s College London, Cambridge Inter-faith, Programme, Coexist House, and Art & Sacred Places.

PARISH RETREAT, 6 – 8 May 2016
The 2016 All Saints Parish Retreat will be from 6 – 8 May at Bishop Woodford House in Ely. It will be conducted by Fr Barry Orford. If you want to come, or would like further information, please contact Martin Woolley on 07976275383 or at m.g.woolley@btinternet.com. Rooms will be allocated in the order in which bookings are received.  

SERVICES & EVENTS FOR MARCH 2016 BEYOND ALL SAINTS

St Paul’s Rossmore Road NW1 6NJ
invites us to the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Centre 
Friday 11 March, 7pm. 
Preacher: Rev Jack Maple. All welcome.

Two important Aid to the Church in Need events for your diary this Lent:
Farm Street Church Hall, 114 Mount Street, London W1K 3AH
Syria – “I was hungry and you fed me” An Eyewitness Account of a Country in Crisis 
Friday 18 March 2016, 18.45pm
Entrance Free with a collection for suffering Christians in Syria. Refreshments in the Hall. Back from Syria, John Pontifex, Aid to the Church in Need UK’s Head of Press & Information, will report on visits to places severely affected by violence and extreme poverty including Homs, Damascus and the Valley of the Christians. He will assess the current situation and show how ACN is providing emergency relief – food, shelter, heating and medicine both in Syria – notably Aleppo – and in neighbouring Lebanon.

Lenten Way of the Cross Service
Sung by the Schola Cantorum of the London Oratory School
Monday 21 March 2016, 7pm  
St Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, 21a Soho Square, London, W1D 4NR
Entrance Free – with a collection for suffering Christians. Refreshments in the Hall, followed by a short update by ACN’s John Pontifex on his recent visit to Syria and the launch of ACN’s Persecuted Christians Need You campaign.  Music will include: ‘Miserere mei’ by William Byrd and pieces of great spiritual beauty by Felice Anerio, Pablo Casals, Antonio Lotti and Thomas Tallis.
A wonderful and reverent way to mark Holy Week.
Please register your interest for these two Aid to the Church in Need events by contacting Johnny Dowling at john.dowling@acnuk.org or 020 8642 8668

St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Squre
Saturday 19 March, 11am The Violence of Peacemaking – Archbishop Romero and the Search for Peace 
An ecumenical service organised by the Archbishop Romero Trust to mark the 36^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Preacher: Francisco de Roux SJ, Peace Advocate in Colombia. Officiant: Revd Richard Carter 

St Mary le Strand, WC2 
Tuesday 5 April, 1pm
Bishop Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College Cambridge & former Archbishop of Canterbury will launch a new series of conversations around the theme FAITH IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE
All welcome, but please reserve a free place via the church website: www.stamarylestrand.org. 

HUGH PRICE HUGHES LECTURES 2016 
All lectures will be held at Hinde St Methodist Church at 7.30pm.  Admission is free & all are welcome! www.hindestreet.org.uk/hph

This series will invite you to reflect on how other ways of knowing and seeing – “faith” commitments for some – relate to their Christian faith. These alternative and complementary ways of knowing and seeing, sometimes portrayed negatively by people of faith, have the potential to deepen our understanding of our faith commitments and enable us to engage more constructively with the wider world.

12 April – Rev Ric Stott, Artist & Methodist Pioneer minister

Identity, Modernity and Faith 
10 May – Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Journalist

Living as Christians in Multi-faith Britain and
the Importance of Religious Literacy
14 June – Michael Wakelin, Religion & Media Consultant

ALL SAINTS MISSION ACTIVITIES:-

ONGOING SUPPORT for HOMELESS PEOPLE through: 
MARYLEBONE PROJECT run by the CHURCH ARMY – A Day Centre, Residential and Transitional accommodation provider, re-settlement project and Educational and Training Unit for women. The Emergency Bed Unit – for which we have for some years helped to provide the funds for one of the 4 beds – offers a safe haven and refuge for women escaping domestic violence, financial crisis, sexual exploitation and mental health issues. 

Year Round Support – we also support the Marylebone Resettlement Project with non-perishable food and toiletries or household necessities like cutlery or bed linen/blankets.  Thank you to everyone who contributes food and household essentials via the basket in Church or handed in to the Parish Office. Please continue to donate these so we can help more people in need during the cold weather.  

Day-to-day Support – we respond to the needs of homeless people who visit the church, providing luncheon vouchers for the West London Day Centre for rough sleepers who apply to the office and allowing a few individuals, who need a place to shelter or sleep during the day, to rest in the back of the church. We have created an information resource for Church Watchers, giving useful advice to homeless and vulnerable people seeking particular support or services. In the face of a rising tide of homelessness in London, please help us fund and support people in need through our Mission activities.

Want to help someone sleeping rough but don’t know how? 
Call Streetlink on 0300 500 0914 and they will get a visit from the local Street Team who can put them in contact with the services they may need. 

FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS OR ASSISTANCE FROM ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET:- 
* If you would like to encourage others to take an interest in All Saints/keep up with what is happening here, please forward this email on to them, or to people you would like to invite to services or tell them about our websitewww.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk, which has a full colour 360 virtual tour for viewing the wonderfully restored interior of the Church – seewww.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk/history/virtualtour – before a visit or if unable to travel. 

* If you know of others (near or far) who would like to receive this regular update on what’s happening at All Saints please encourage them to sign up for the email on the All Saints website – see the tab News & Events> Weekly Newsletter. 

* If you would like prayers offered at All Saints, please email the Parish Administrator Mrs Dee Prior at: astsmgtst@aol.com. Or make use of the prayer request facility on the website at: www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk/prayer. 

* If you would like any pastoral assistance, please do not hesitate to contact:

The Vicar, Prebendary Alan Moses: alanmoses111@gmail.com. 

Or Assistant Priest Fr Michael Bowie: mnrbowie@gmail.com.

DAILY SERVICES AT ALL SAINTS 
On major weekday feasts, High Mass is sung at 6.30pm 

SUNDAYS in Church 
Low Mass 6.30pm (Saturday), 8am and 5.15pm. Morning Prayer 10.20am
HIGH MASS AND SERMON, 11am and   
CHORAL EVENSONG, SERMON and BENEDICTION, 6pm. 

MONDAY – FRIDAY
Morning Prayer 7.30am
Low Mass – 8am, 1.10pm and 6.30pm
Evening Prayer 6pm
(Except Bank Holidays – 12 noon Mass only)

SATURDAY 
Morning Prayer 7.30am
Low Mass – 12 noon and 6.30pm (First Mass of Sunday) 
Evening Prayer 6pm

Confessions 
A priest is available for confessions/counsel Monday – Friday from 12.30-1pm and at 5.30pm Monday – Saturday, or by appointment. (Special arrangements apply in Lent and for Holy Week.)

www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk and e-mail: astsmgtst@aol.com