29th December 2002
FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Any lone cloud in an otherwise clear sky has got some explaining to do. Very probably it has just got cut off from the main herd or has lost its mother, but occasionally it is a rogue cloud looking for someone to rain on. I must say, if I looked down and saw an old poet mooning over some daffodils, I'd be very tempted.
Miles Kington
Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
G K Chesterton
PRAYER OF THE WEEK
Grant me, O Lord, the single eye, that I my see the one thing needful, the thing that you want done. Don't let my vision be blurred by looking at too many things or trying to please anyone but you. Give me simplicity of heart, quiet confidence in you, and eagerness to know and do your will, like your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, my beloved Brother and Lord.
PITHY WITTICISMS
What do you call Santa's helpers? Subordinate clauses.
What do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long? Polaroids
Why don't blind people like to sky dive? Because it frightens the dog.
BETJEMANIC Fr Andrew Neaum
It was in Beechworth some years ago, at the excellent Second Hand Book Shop, that I found and purchased "Summoned by Bells", an autobiography in blank verse by John Betjeman covering his boyhood and life at Oxford.
I am someone who needs a Christian hero or two. Real flesh and blood, flawed heroes though, with whom I can identify, not ascetic monsters like Simeon Stylites whose heroic asceticism stank so vilely that it nauseated up to half a mile down wind! My heroes need to be human, fallible, flawed, and yet have their feet on solid rock. Samuel Johnson, for example, from one perspective almost a lunatic, from another the sanest man who has ever lived. Another is C S Lewis, mercifully rescued from his adulaters and hagiographers by A N Wilson's critical biography, and emer-ging, to my way of thinking, all the more a hero just because of his flaws. Both Johnson and Lewis were quintessential Anglicans, and as such help hearten me as one too, especially when many of those whose company I keep and friendship I enjoy seem so much to des-pair of, despise or decry sweet Anglicanism.
Betjeman too was an Anglican. I love and admire him enormously. Though he too had serious flaws, one of which was snobbery, I blush at how prone he was to butter up and defer to the important. His sycophancy to Princess Margaret in particular gave rise to a witty spoof written in Betjemanic style by Maurice Bowra:
Green with lust and sick with shyness
Let me lick your lacquered toes,
Gosh, oh gosh, your Royal Highness,
Put your finger up my nose.....
I have on my shelves his Collected Poems as well as two great volumes of his Letters, lovingly selected and edited by his daughter. She sets them in an illuminating biographical narrative which helps place them in context and which also, incidentally, helps explain why he was so greatly loved. Very recently a monumental biography of Betjeman by Bevis Hillier has been published. I am in the process of building up enough courage to buy that too.
Resolutely Anglican
Betjeman was a high churchman, an aesthete, a lover of beauty and tradition, an extremely knowledgeable and effective champion of Victorian architecture and a warm and faithful friend. His wife became a Roman Catholic, which disturbed him greatly, and friends, such as Evelyn Waugh, exerted all sorts of pressure to turn him Roman too, but to no avail, partly because, good Anglican that he was, he was a doubter, often clinging to faith "by an eyelid". The certainties of Rome or of sectarian Protestantism were not for him. As he says in "Summoned by Bells":
Those were the days when that divine baroque
Transformed our English altars and our ways.
Fiddle-back chasuble in mid-Lent pink
Scandalised Rome and Protestants alike:
"Why do you try to ape the Holy See?"
"Why do you sojourn in a halfway house?"
And if these doubts had ever troubled me
(Praise God, they don't)I would have made the move.
What seemed to me a greater question then
Tugged and still tugs: Is Christ the Son of God?
How right he is! I too could never be bothered enough to jump ship or work myself up to too great a lather about things which, when compared to the only great question that really matters and which tugs "and still tugs: Is Christ the Son of God", are fundamentally storms in tea cups, be they ever so wild little storms!
No Lightweight Laureate
He was made poet laureate in 1972, one of the very few in recent years who has been widely popular. Snobs and pedants have dismissed his verse as lightweight, but heavyweights like Auden and Larkin have been among his admirers and advocates. His verse is witty, urbane, satiric, light of touch, full of contemporary allusions, references to Anglican churches and worship and to doubtful faith as well as being chilled sometimes by an underlying melancholy, and fascination with, and fear of death. His poems about sun-bronzed, Amazonian tennis-playing girls are wonderful.
Every pew sheet should some time print the immensely moving "House of Rest", which tells of a clergy widow at the end of her days, listening for the bells for Eucharist to sound in the Market Square, when...
The veil between her and her dead
Dissolves and shows them clear,
The Consecration Prayer is said
And all of them are near.
And how many Anglican Christmas sermons, I wonder, have finished with:
And is it true? For if it is....
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
nd lives to-day in Bread and Wine.
May the soul of the lovely John Betjeman rest in peace and rise in glory. Amen.
READING THE BIBLE AT EUCHARIST
Next Sunday 5 January 2003: Epiphany of our Lord.
Please try to prepare your readings. Take it easy, go slowly enough for people to pick up the tiniest word or syllable. Don't drop your voice at the end of sentences or phrases/clauses, but instead, pronounce clearly last letters of words, for if you don't, people will hear something else or nothing, no matter how high we turn up the P.A. And when you come across one of those foreign words, respect its foreignness by giving it proper accent and character. Let's give the pronunciations our best shot.
A Reading from the Prophet Isaiah Chapter 60 verses 1 - 6
This comes from the second section of the Book Isaiah around the middle of the 500s BC. It looks forward to the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem. Conditions in their old native land will be poor, "covered in darkness". Pause a moment after verse 3. The glory of God is the light. The people will receive support from the surrounding nations, and even from far away. Camels will bring gold and incense. Sounds familiar? Yes, Matthew uses this chapter to back up his account of the wise men from the East in today's Epiphany Gospel. You can emphasize the key phrases in verse 6.
Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14
The glories of Solomon's Kingdom. Here again, tribute is paid by foreign kings, because of the peace and justice of Solomon. Again, Matthew alludes to this in the Epiphany Gospel, for "a greater than Solomon is here!"
A Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians Chapter 3 verses 1 - 12
The parallel passage in Colossians Chapter 1 verses 24-end also tells of the "mystery" revealed to the Gentiles, which is "Christ in (or among) you, the hope of glory." Here in Ephesians the mystery is the very fact that the Gentiles are getting the message of Christ, one of the key teachings of the Epiphany Celebration, for the foreign kings or wise men are Gentiles, like us. Emphasise the mystery, the Gentiles, and the "access to God in boldness and confidence."
Always try to present the Word with care. Thanks. Fr Ellis Jones
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations to Verbi Lascelles who celebrates her 92nd birthday today, also to Joyce Parkinson whose birthday is on the last day of the year, Tuesday and to Joan McDougall who celebrates hers on the first, Wednesday. There's a sheet on the narthex table, or in the porch of each of our parish churches for the names of those who would like their birthday or anniversary noted in the pew sheet.
NARTHEX USE
Groups that use the Narthex for any purpose and so need to book it or part of it, please advise the Church Office of dates for 2003.
SUMMER CAMP
On the Board and on the Table in the Narthex is news of a Summer Camp for young people aged between 12 and 15. It sounds great, so do have a look at it if you are in that age group or have children who are. It takes place from the 17th to 19th of Jan. at Wandiligong.
USED STAMPS PLEASE
Stan Windley continues to welcome used stamps for sorting and sending off to ABM. There should be a good swag from our Christmas mail, so don't forget him please.
IMPORTANT DATES
Feb 7th Meeting Place Opening and Dinner
Feb 9th Meeting Place Opening Service
Feb 13th Induction of the Dianne Watson - Emmanuel
Feb 19th Pastoral Care Committee 2.00pm
Feb 26th Pastoral Care Group Meeting 2.00pm
Mar 2nd AGM St John's
Mar 4th Pancake Party
Mar 7th World Day of Prayer ( Sacred Heart)
Mar 13th Street Stall
Mar 19th Friends of our Lady Eucharist & Coffee Morn
May 4th Patronal Festival
Jun 16th Friends of our Lady Eucharist & Coffee Morn
May 31st Synod
July 23rd Fish and Chip night
Aug 14th-16th Choral Festival
Sep 17th Friends of our Lady Eucharist & Coffee Morn
Aug 17th Possibly Confirmation Day
Oct 5th St Francistide Pet Service
Oct 25th Flower Show and Fete
Dec 3rd Combined Friends of our Lady & Pastoral Care
DUTIES up to & including 5th January
Cleaning & Tea Team 4
Vestry Dave Gillard
Mowing Malcolm Jackson
Narthex Stan & Alice Windley
Linen June Bird
Welcome Table Mary Nicholson, Linda McWaters
Door Beryl Anson, Diane Guthrie, Roslyn Johan
Readers Marion Ellis, Margaret Andrews, Anne Andrews
Euch Assistant Di Smith
Intercessor Celebrant
Servers Erin, Paige, Liz, Ryan, Catherine, Howard
ROSTERS
There is a list in the Narthex at St John' for the names of volunteers for duties on our Rosters! We are always short of Church and Narthex cleaners!
FOR PRAYER
The Sick
Ed Baumgarten, Jean Byrnes, Sally Craven, Gwen Goldsworthy, Lyla Hair, Joyce Hall, Julie Howe, Robert Jones, Gail Mahney, Anja Mosse, Janet Murray, Peter Nugent, Thora Pyke, Val Saunders, Grant Savage, Ray Schmidt, Jack Skilton, Dawn Smallpage, William, Pam Willoughby.
Rest in Peace
Bill Page, John Willoughby, Maimee Haines,
Anniversary of Death
Casey Humphreys, Ronald Bennet 29th, Andrew Cleland 30th, Richard Williams 31st, Jolene Klinberg 2nd, Brian Pockley, Norman Street 3rd, Rhonda Halse, Thomas Boord, Fr Frederick Loveless 4th.
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 30th December Josephine Butler
Fr Andrew's Day off
7.15am Mattins & Eucharist - St John's
10.30am Funeral - St John's
5.00pm Evening Prayer - St John's
Tuesday 31st December John Wyclif
7.15am Mattins & Eucharist - St John's
Clergy Hospital Visits
5.00pm Evening Prayer - St John's
Wednesday 1st January
7.15am Mattins only - |Emmanuel
9.00am Christian Meditation - Narthex
10.00am Pastoral Care Eucharist - St John's
5.00pm Evening Prayer (said) - St John's
Thursday 2nd January
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - St John's
5.00pm Evening Prayer - St John's
Friday 3rd January
Fr Ellis' Day off
7.15am Mattins & Eucharist (Trad) - St John's
5.00pm Evening Prayer - St John's
7.30pm Scottish Country Dancing - Narthex
Saturday 4th January
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - St John's
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist - St John's
5th January "Epiphany"
7.30am Said Eucharist - St John's
9.00am Uniting Church Eucharist - Emmanuel
9.30am Sung Eucharist - St John's
7.00pm Evening Prayer - St John's