Dear People of God
Grace and Peace to you all
Geoff Lennard’s funeral will be conducted at Pettigrew’s Funeral Home, 444 Pacific Highway Belmont at 12:30pm this coming Wednesday, 8 November. We remembered Geoff before God at the All Souls Requiem on Thursday evening and we continue to pray for Mary and her family as they mourn Geoff’s passing. Mary will be moving into the supported accommodation section of the retirement community at Wallsend.
The Ecumenical Carol Service will be held in our parish this year. In order to avoid clashing dates with other commitments, it will be on 10 December in St Pauls. (17 is unavailable, 24 is Christmas Eve and although that would be entirely appropriate I doubt whether we would attract an ecumenical congregation: I know that many of our parishioners will be otherwise engaged!) If we came any earlier it would have to be an Advent Carol Service which might be familiar to many Anglicans but is definitely not on the ecumenical calendar of significant events! (Mention “Advent” in certain circles and you get a blank look!)
The Fashion Parade held last Saturday raised $326 towards our Mission target. Thanks to everyone concerned in our fundraising efforts.
The Christmas Fair will be held at Thornton on 2 December (even though it is only Advent!)
Wars happen when someone in power wants power over someone else. It’s the history of the world and is currently being played out in Ukraine and the Land of the Holy One. It’s the ordinary people who are caught in the middle, who are the real victims. Putin shoring up an increasingly shaky regime; Hamas and the Israeli government, which is already in a tenuous position and continuing to annex Palestinian land, at each others’ throats once again. Pray, and pray hard, for Israeli and Palestinian, Christian, Hebrew and Moslem, all religious descendants from the one stock, that together they may demand a peaceful resolution and refuse to further countenance the military and territorial ambitions of their “leaders”. And remember that prayer changes the one who prays, so if we pray for peace we must ACT for peace: if we pray for reconciliation we must BE people of reconciliation.
The Lord be with you.
Fr George
PROPERS for ALL SAINTS
Sentence
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for there is the kingdom of heaven (Mtt 5:10)
Collect
Eternal God, neither death not life can separate us form your love: grant that we may serve you faithfully here on earth, and in heaven rejoice with all your saints who ceaselessly proclaim your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
Readings
Revelation 7:9-17 The multitude from every nation
Psalm 34:1-10, 22 The Lord is good to those who seek him
1 John 3:1-3 Children of God
Matthew 5:1-12 The Beatitudes
Sermon (Fr George)
In the Name of God Amen
Do you ever have one of those times when you absolutely MUST do all those things you have been putting off for ages? Ringing friends you have been meaning to contact for most of the year and simply haven’t gotten around to it? Making a huge donation to the Op Shop because you have finally cleaned out the wardrobe and discarded all those clothes which you have either grown out of, or the kids have left home years ago and won’t be needing those outfits again (and their children wouldn’t be seen dead in them either). You probably have significant lists of your own!
We are just about in that “must get around to all those things” season in our liturgical year, when we clean the cupboard out in the “catch-all” observations before we come to the end of the year and celebrate Christ the King and the start the new year with Advent.
I’m referring, of course, to the two observations of the last week: All Saints and All Souls days. One way of looking at it is to regard it as commemorating those saints who are not otherwise in our calendars. The other, and more correct, way is to acknowledge that our understanding of saintliness is very limited and the true depth of it is known only to God.
Let’s look at two systems.
The Western Catholic tradition has a complicated process, still observed in the Roman system, and proposing a person for canonisation followed by and exhaustive inquisitorial process involving certification of a least two miracles attributed to the intervention of the candidate, a “devil’s advocate” whose task is to critically examine the verifiable facts of the person’s life to ensure that they have the required degree of holiness of life, and then for a Papal Decree announcing them to be a Saint and worthy of veneration (but not the degree of veneration due only to God). The first Australian to receive such a comprehensive treatment is St Mary of the Cross, aka St Mary McKillop, the Founder of the Josephite Order. The system has modified somewhat since the Reformation.
There is another tradition, well-known across the UK, which comes out of the Celtic Christian line. Many place names, particularly around Cornwall, Wales, Northern England and Scotland, derive from places associated with people who worked locally and who were regarded as having a particular saintliness about them. St Austel in Cornwall for example. Sorry AFL fans, but the name St Kilda appears to be a corruption of a Scandinavian word “skildur”, meaning rocky outcrop! My family’s local church at Kotara was under the patronal care of St Drostan, who was a follower, perhaps relative, of St Columba and was Abbot of Deere in Scotland. There were three known establishments under his patronal care: one in Scotland, one in South Africa, and one in Newcastle! There’s a story to go with that.
By and large the Anglican Church has not canonised anyone since the Reformation, although King Charles 1, who was beheaded after the English Civil War, is memorialised as St Charles, King and Martyr, but we have local traditions of declaring someone to be “Local Saint and Hero of the Church”. There are only two such of which I am immediately aware: one is Blessed John Oliver, being John Oliver Feetham, a former Bishop of North Queensland and the other is Blessed William Tyrrell, first Bishop of Newcastle.
However “saint” is a very broad term, and is derived from the Latin word “sancta” meaning “holy” and we are all called to be the “plebs sancta Dei”, the holy, common people of God. It would be a very brave person who could declare with any degree of certainty about the holiness content of any person and just who was “in” the kingdom and who was not, although many have tried.
And so we keep the Feast of All Saints, not so much as a “catch all” for all the individuals we do not separately acknowledge, but an acknowledgment that they are that “great multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made Flesh and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are one for evermore”, words which we will use when we come to the ecumenical carol service in December.
And All Souls? Although some keep it as the memorial of the faithful departed, I’m not brave enough to determine who is faithful and who is not, but I will gladly commemorate, name before God, all those people who have surrounded me on my journey of faith, whose names might be known to me, thank God for them and name them before God in thanksgiving.
There’s a passage of Scripture apposite to this time, from Ecclesiastes 44 “Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us”, which concludes “and some there be which have no memorial: who are buried as though they had never been. Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth for evermore”.
And so, thanks be to God, we keep All Saints and All Souls as complementary observances in a community that goes beyond the bounds of time and space and gathers us all into the Kingdom of God.
Amen
Intercessions
Let us pray for the preservation of the earth
For grace seriously to lay to heart the great peril in which we stand through our wanton use of the resources of the earth for selfish gain and the grace to accept the costs of repair of the environment
We give thanks for the beauty and abundance of the earth. Give us and all peoples grace to live in harmony with your creation, wisdom and generosity in our use of its bounty.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
Let us pray for peace and shared prosperity
For an end to hostilities in all places of strife and warfare, especially in the Land of the Holy One, in Ukraine: for reconciliation and justice within this land, and in all places of discrimination and racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or other violence. For the work of the United Nations and all agencies of relief and reconciliation
We give thank for leaders who serve the common good. Give wisdom to those who have authority in every land, that we may share with justice the resources of the world and work together in trust.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
Let us pray for our nation
For our Prime Minister Anthony, our Premier Chris, and leaders of Local Government: for all members of Parliament. For reconciliation between the First Peoples of this land and those who have come later
We give thanks for this land and the diversity of its people. Grant that we may so honour one another that all may be enriched by our common heritage and freed form despair, poverty and exclusion.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
Let us pray for the Church and its mission
For the grace to live in harmony with other Christians of different traditions and to find common purpose in mission and evangelism: for the Anglican Church throughout the world, for Justin Archbishop of Canterbury, the Episcopal Church of the Philippines, our sister Diocese of Guadalcanal, and for the Anglican Board of Mission Australia: for the church in this Diocese of Newcastle, our Diocesan Peter and our Regional Bishop Sonia; for the parishes of Denman-Merriwa and Murrurundi: in this parish for our clergy George and Gail, and for our Readers: for our fellow-Christians in the H2O Baptist Church, and all local ecumenical endeavours.
We give thanks for the good news of salvation for all people. Strengthen us for our work in the world, empower your Church to proclaim the gospel in service, word and sacrament. Unite in the truth all who confess your name, that we may live together in love to your glory
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
Let us pray for ourselves and our community
For the local businesses of Beresfield and Woodberry, the Hotel Tudor, Beresfield Golf Club, and Food War, and all who work or take their recreation in those places. For our residential and work communities, our neighbours and our friends
We give thanks for the fellowship of the communities in which we live and work. We commend to your keeping ourselves and each other, our families, those with whom we work and learn, our neighbours and our friends. Enable us by your Spirit to live in love for you and for one another.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
Let us pray for those in need
For Mary Lennard and her family in their grief, and for all those who are ill n body, mind or spirit; those who will ask for the sacrament of Unction today; for those who have sought our prayers or for whom prayer has been sought: Jenny, Indi, Barbara D, Val Frazer, Lynn, Betty, Les, Ann, Daphne, Bruce, Debbie M, Samual, John J, Nicole M, Jenny H, Didi, Peter McC, Susan, Elizabeth, Sarah, Heidi, Wendy F, Peter, Vicki L, Jenny M, Val D, Ben, Keith, Sammy Jo and Noah, Stuart McInnes, Due T, Derek, Zoe, Paul and Katrina, Levi, L:uke S, Arlo, Grace, Lisa, Ryan
We give thanks that you are the God who brings mercy and wholeness. Comfort and heal, we pray, all who are in sorrow, need, sickness or any other trouble. Give to those who care for them wisdom, patience and gentleness, and to us all, your peace.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
Let us give thanks for the departed
For our fellowship with the Blessed Mother Mary, Paul our Patron, and all the saints: for Geoff Lennard who has recently died, and for those who anniversary falls at this time, for Ray Searle, Norman Smart, Margaret Hamilton, and Gerald Durant: for all those whom we have loved and see no more
We give you thanks for your servants in every age. Grant that we, with all whom we have named before you, my be brought to a joyful resurrection and the fulfilment of your kingdom.
Almighty God, you have promised to hear us grant that what we have asked in faith we may, by your grace receive, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
SAINTS and COMMEMORATIONS of the week. 5-11 November
8 Saints, martyrs and missionaries and teachers of the Anglican Communion. There is certainly no shortage of these people across our tradition. Close to home we have the New Guinea Martyrswho died at the hands of the Japanese during the Second World War: they were priests, teachers, nurses and community workers, ordinary people doing ordinary things and in every country where the Anglican presence was there were and are large numbers of people who continue to give their lives in the service of the Gospel.
10 Leo of Rome, bishop and teacher (461) one of the earliest Popes to assert the central authority of the Papacy and who was regarded by the Byzantine Emperor as the “Patriarch of the West” (the decaying Roman empire was by now focussed on Byzantium/Constantinople/modern Istanbul
11 Martin of Tours, (387) soldier who renounced a blossoming military career to become a priest
Remembrance Daywhilst Anzac Day is held as a day of commemoration in Australia and New Zealand, Remembrance Day marks the 11th hour of the 11 day of the 11th month when the guns fell silent following the signing of the Armistice, ending the hostilities of the First World War. It is generally observed throughout the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly British Commonwealth) and in certain other countries where it is variously known as Veterans Day (US) and some other names. (It also marks the anniversary of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975)
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