All Saints Parish Newsletter 25th October 2013
Dear Friends,
Sunday’s Collect began life in the Prayer Book provision for Advent 2. Cranmer based it on the opening of the Epistle for that Sunday (Romans 15.4). So popular was it that the Sunday became known as “Bible Sunday.” It was, however, an interruption in Advent, a season even more encroached upon nowadays by the forward creep of Christmas. In Common Worship it has been relocated to the Last Sunday after Trinity.
As with all things familiar and well-loved, it helps to pause sometimes to consider what we are saying or doing. Here are just a few thoughts.
The Collect assumes that we “hear” the scriptures before we “read” them. Is this just an echo of an age when most people could not read? Or is there something more to it? The primary place in which we encounter scripture is still in worship where we hear it read as part of our “common prayer.” The invention of printing, and now the electronic revolution, has made it possible for us all to have our own bibles. This, and mass literacy, means that we can read scripture by ourselves. However, our private reading is secondary. So in our worship at All Saints, we do not import the manners of private reading into the liturgy. We do not print the readings in orders of service. We do publish the references well in advance, so people can look them up beforehand. But we listen to the scriptures being read or sung together, as a community rather than a random collection of individuals with their noses stuck in books. There is an intangible but distinct quality to this corporate hearing.
There is another sense in which we hear and read scripture as a community. This is the use of the Lectionary: the Church’s scheme of readings for Sunday, feasts and weekdays. This means that we are reading the same passages at the same time. We are reading with the Church, even if, for example, we are saying Morning or Evening Prayer alone rather than in church with others.
None of this means that we should not “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them” in our own prayers. The ancient monastic tradition of Lectio Divina and other methods of meditation like that of St. Ignatius Loyola, can help us in that process of inward digestion.
There are occasions when the scriptures speak to us with startling clarity and directness. But for most of us, most of the time, it is a cumulative process which requires that “patience” of which the Collect speaks. In an age, and often a church, impatient for instant results and obsessed with novelty, patience to persevere is a virtue we need to pray for if we are to find in scripture that “comfort” which is not just tea and sympathy but both a real spiritual strength and “the blessed hope of everlasting life.”
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Alan Moses
PRAYER DIARY
Please pray for those who have asked for our prayers: Harry Allan, Damon Brash, Peter Burbidge, Margaret Campbell, Rachel Clayton, Sheena Cruse, Rosie Davis, Arthur Fearns, Charles Forker, Denise Inge, Mason Jacobsen, Jill, Katherine Lee, Joshua Levy, Marimar Perez Fabo, Celia Shore, Stephen Short, Kate Thomas, Andrew Tillyard, David and Jo Vincent, Heather Walker, Wendy Wall, Fr Stephen Williams.
For the recently departed: Richard Tann, Eva Wiggins, Nicholas Oresko, Patrick Cullinan Brown, Frances Caldecourt (Priest), Brian Rixon.
At the anniversary of their death (during the coming week): Dorothy Gartside, William Lloyd Webber (Fifth Organist of All Saints), Phyllis Richards, Sister Dorothy Hilda (All Saints Sisters of the Poor – Sacristan), Tharu Tharakan, John Todd (Friend of All Saints), Marian Ross, Frank Leeman, Brother Bernard Dawson (Hospital of St. Cross, Winchester), Jane Pollard, Cecil Mead, Carol Searles, Janet Reid, Harold Wilson (Priest).
Worship on Sunday 27 October 2013:
HIGH MASS, 11am
Preacher: Fr Julian Browning
Music: Mass in B flat – Rachmaninov Hymn of the Cherubim – Rachmaninov
EVENSONG & BENEDICTION, 6pm
Preacher: The Vicar, Prebendary Alan Moses
Music: Service in B flat – Rachmaninov Ave Maria – Rachmaninov
NOTICES AND NEWS:
PENNY BOXES
Thank you to everyone who collected and contributed their small change via the Penny Boxes, which enabled £175 to be donated to the All Saints Foundation. Thanks also go to Priscilla Oakeshott for her hard work counting all those pennies!
– ALL SOULS COMMEMORATION LISTS –
The book for names of those to be remembered at Mass on
All Souls Day or at one of the November requiems (Tuesday 5th at 8am, Friday 15th at 1.10pm and Tuesday 26th November at 6.30pm) is on the lectern in the Baptistery. Please enter names under the appropriate requiem date and print names clearly. If you are unable to come into Church to add names to the list – please email astsmgtst@aol.com or telephone Dee Prior, Parish Administrator on 020 7636 1788 as soon as you can.
FUTURE EVENTS AT ALL SAINTS, THE ANNUNCIATION AND ST CYPRIANS:
Sunday 27 October – TEACHING THE FAITH AT ALL SAINTS – Ten-to-One Talk Series: WHY DO YOU DO THAT? – Bells. 4/12 talks by the Vicar. The bell is rung to announce the start.
***LAST OPPORTUNITY FOR EXHIBITION – closes Sunday 27 October***
TIMOTHY BETJEMAN AT ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET – the painter revisits a favourite Victorian church of his grandfather, poet John Betjeman, with a series of new works done in situ at All Saints. Anticipating the bicentennial of its architect, William Butterfield, with oil paintings and prints intimately depicting the church’s vibrant interior through various liturgical seasons, moods and rites. Open 12–6pm, in the Parish Room.
Wednesday 30 October, 11am – Memorial Service for Richard Tann, All Saints.
ALL SAINTS FESTIVAL 2013
THURS 31 OCTOBER – EVE OF ALL SAINTS 6.30pm
LITANY OF THE SAINTS IN PROCESSION, EVENSONG AND SOLEMN BENEDICTION
Preacher: Fr Robert Mackley, Vicar of Little St Mary’s, Cambridge
Music: Service in F minor—Gray
What are these that glow from afar?—Gray
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FRI 1 NOVEMBER – ALL SAINTS’ DAY 6.30pm
HIGH MASS
Preacher: The Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke, Archbishop of Armagh and
Primate of All Ireland
Music: Missa Brevis—Jonathan Dove
Glorious in heaven—Whitlock
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SAT 2 NOVEMBER – ALL SOULS’ DAY 11am
HIGH MASS OF REQUIEM
Preacher: The Venerable Douglas McKittrick, Archdeacon of Chichester
Music: Requiem Mass—Duruflé
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SUN 3 NOVEMBER – ALL SAINTS’ FESTIVAL SUNDAY 11am
PROCESSION AND HIGH MASS
Preacher: The Vicar, Prebendary Alan Moses
Music: Krönungsmesse—Mozart
Holy is the true light—Harris
SOLEMN EVENSONG, TE DEUM AND SOLEMN BENEDICTION 6pm
Preacher: Fr Ian Brothwood, Vicar, St Michael & All Angels Croydon
Music: Service in A – Stanford
Seek him that maketh the seven stars – Jonathan Dove
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Saturday 2 November, 3pm – St Cyprian’s Church, Clarence Gate NW1 6AX – CHORAL EVENING PRAYER & BENEDICTION. With the St Cyprian’s Singers directed by Julian Collings. Music: William Byrd – Responses, Herbert Sumsion – Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in G and Basil Harwood – ‘O how glorious’.
Monday 4 November, 7pm – THIS IS OUR FAITH – pre Confirmation group meeting, in the Vicarage.
Wednesday 6 November, 7pm – Anglican Catholic Future Talk at All Saints, follows Mass at 6.30pm – ARE ANGLO-CATHOLICS ‘LETTING STUDENTS DOWN’? by Fr Jim Walters, Chaplain of LSE.
Sunday 10 November – TEACHING THE FAITH AT ALL SAINTS – Ten-to-One Talk Series: WHY DO YOU DO THAT? – Incense. 5/12 talks given by the Vicar. The bell is rung at the start.
Mon 11 November – Sat 21 December – CARD AID SHOP in the Parish Room, opening times: 11am – 3pm Monday – Saturday (closed Sunday). Card Aid shops offer an unrivalled range of cards, together with the assurance that ALL profits from the cards sold are going to charity. Award winning Peace Oil will also be available here at All Saints.
-TELLING THE GOOD NEWS –
Saturday 16 November 10.30am – 3.30pm
at the Annunciation, Marble Arch, Bryanston Street
A day for members of the All Saints, The Annunciation and St Cyprian’s congregations – sharing the Gospel and exploring how we can become more ‘confident in speaking and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, more creative in reaching new people and places with the Good News in the power of the Spirit’ (Diocese of London’s Capital Vision 2020).
The day will be led by Fr Tim Sledge, Vicar of Romsey Abbey, who preached at All Saints on Corpus Christi.
Please sign the list at the back of the church if you would like to take part in this mission day, to assist with planning and catering. We hope many of you will come – no expertise or experience required – we are all learners in this process.
Monday 18 November, 7pm – MEETING OF THE ALL SAINTS PCC in the Dining Room (please note venue altered due to Card Aid in Parish Room).
Sunday 24 November, 7.15pm (following Benediction) – ORGAN RECITAL – CHARLES ANDREWS, Associate Director of Music. Programme includes: Bach, Widor and Reger. Retiring collection to support the Choir and Music at All Saints (suggested donation £3.50). All Saints Licensed Club/Bar below the Church will be open afterwards.
ALL SAINTS SUNDAY EVENING ORGAN RECITALS – 2014
Charles Andrews writes: After the success of the first season (ending on 24 November), a further six organ recitals will take place in 2014. Concerts take place after Sunday Benediction, and last forty minutes, providing an opportunity to hear repertoire which is too long for services, as well as music intended for Advent and Lent, when our organ is silent.
Next year our superb 1910 Harrison & Harrison organ, designed by Walter Vale, will be heard in recitals given by the organists of All Saints and we are delighted that Timothy Wakerell, Sub-organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, will also perform for us on 23 November. Admission is free (although voluntary retiring donations to support the Choir and Music at All Saints are always welcome!) and the bar is open afterwards for convivial gathering.
ORGAN RECITAL DATES FOR YOUR 2014 DIARIES:
26 January – Charles Andrews (Associate Director of Music)
23 March – Charles Andrews
11 May – Timothy Byram-Wigfield (Director of Music)
6 July – Nicholas Mannoukas (Dr John Birch Organ Scholar)
14 September – Charles Andrews|
23 November – Timothy Wakerell (Sub-organist, St Paul’s Cathedral​)