PATRONAL FESTIVAL “ST AUGUSTINE”
22nd May 2011
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
TIME JOGS ON
The ABC's "Foreign Correspondent" in Jerusalem rented an apartment overlooking the Wailing Wall. Every day she looked out and saw the same old Jew praying energetically. He stood there from dawn to sunset, nodding his head and, form time to time, resting his forehead on the ancient stones. She wondered whether there might be a story in the old gentleman's marathon of prayer, so she introduced herself, "You come to the wall every day. How long have you done this? What do you pray for?" The old man replied, "I have come here to pray every day for twenty five years. In the morning I pray for world peace. Then I pray for the brotherhood of man. I go home and have a glass of tea at lunchtime and return to pray for the eradication of illness and disease from the earth. In the late afternoon, I pray for an end to anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry." "And how does it make you feel to come and pray every day for twenty five years for these worthy causes?" "The old man said, "As if I am talking to a wall."
PUTTING IT DELICATELY
What kind of sport has our distinguished guest had?" Lord Minto, one time Viceroy of India, asked the native bearer, who had attended an American guest. "Oh," replied the Indian, "the young sahib shot divinely but Allah was merciful to the birds."
RETURNING TO ZIMBABWE (25)
Andrew Neaum
This is the twenty fifth and final episode of an account of the recent trip
to Zimbabwe and Lesotho made by Diana and myself last October. All
the previous episodes can be found
http://www.andrewneaum.com/articles.htm
On our final morning in Zimbabwe I awoke very early, as is my wont, and enjoyed, possibly for the very last time, being carolled by the songs of a variety of the birds that had first awoken in me my love of ornithology as a teenager.
Thankyou
Don and Biddy, who had ensured more than anyone else that our visit was memorable and trouble-free, were hospitable to the last, wishing goodies upon us to take on our journey and then going out of their way to drop us off in the centre of town in spite of other pressing commitments. Their gener-osity, good advice and friendliness were all and more than you could expect of good Christian folk. It was hospitality of the sort celebrated by Roy Campbell in a largely unknown but favourite little piece of his verse "Driving Cattle to Casas Buenas" which ends:
....Wading through seas of fire and blood
(I never saw such flowers before)
I said to Apis, ‘What a cud
To make the bulls of Bashan roar!'
The church, with storks upon the steeple,
And scarcely could my cross be signed,
When round me came those Christian people
So hospitably clean, and kind.
Beans and Alfalfa in the manger -
Alfalfa, there was never such!
And rice and rabbit for the stranger.
Thank you very much!
We thought that our bus was to leave at noon and so arranged to be dropped off at Meikles Hotel, of blessed memory, in the centre of Harare. There we could enjoy a comfortable and leisurely coffee and write up our diaries before heading out into throng that always teems around African bus stations. Settled comfortably in the hotel lounge, our haversacks and bits and pieces shabby enough to invite theft from only the most desperate of thieves, we provided a strong contrast to the many, neat-suited, Chinese business men negotiating all sorts of deals with Zimbabwean government officials, or planning such deals among themselves.
After a quiet hour or so we decided to gather ourselves together to take a stroll to the bus station to ensure that our booking was in order and our tickets valid. We discovered there that our tickets were indeed in order, but that we had mistaken the time of our bus's departure. It did not leave at noon but at 8.00pm! We had a whole day to dawdle around Harare.
Cloistered
We decided to make the Cathedral's cloisters our base for the long wait and so commandeered a bench and settled down to read, talk or sleep. When I was a curate at the Cathedral from 1975 to 1977, these cloisters provided a tranquil spot in the very centre of the city for workers to eat their lunch as well as a convenient dossing down place for drunks to sleep off the effects of their excesses. It interested me that the drunks, if disturbed, almost to a man would claim once to have been a cathedral choir boy, as if this justified their presence. Their claim says more about the wish-fulfilment duplicity of drunks than it does about the dubious prospects of choir boys.
The cloisters are still lovely and relatively tranquil. Some of the fine, wooden memorial benches have been vandalised and many of them have had their metal memorial plaques stolen, but not the one we claimed as ours. I noted that Phyllis Hiller's memorial plaque was in place and unvandalised. She was my very first boss, for she managed the SPCK bookshop in Salisbury where, on leaving school, I worked for three months before going to university. She was a dour-faced, daily communicant at the Cathedral, one of those devout, old, anglo-catholic dames who draped themselves over the Lady Chapel's little stools at early morning Mass each day, in what one assumed to be an ecstasy of devotion. Those old girls, the backbone of the congregation, are now an endangered species, for there are none such here at Shepparton, and there was only one in Wodonga parish during my tenure. After the 6.00am Mass each morning we would share a breakfast of toast, gossip (political and ecclesiastical) and coffee. On some mornings the Dean would whisk me away to the Deanery for a breakfast of more lurid and concentrated gossip as well as monstrous sausages, eggs, bacon and particularly memorable toast made from his homemade bread that was so course-grained it scoured all the polyps, barnacles and wens from the oesophagus, alimentary canal, stomach and bowels on its indigestible journey through one's system.
Interesting passers by
It was not an unpleasant time of waiting for us in the cloisters. A pair of Heuglin's robins were residents of the garden, busily foraging in the centre of the bustling city. When I was a curate there all those years ago, a bird of prey, I forget exactly which sort, used to nest on one of the window ledges of a nearby skyscraper, feeding its nestlings with murdered city pigeons. Some wild creatures are adaptable to human-wrought habitat change, others not. The doves that croon so peacefully around St Augustine's have to be wary of a pair of goshawks that regularly patrol our neighbourhood with a taste for their warm flesh. The hawks are often successful, leaving evidence of their triumphs in pathetic little piles of bloodstained feathers.
As we sat in the cloisters we were greeted by not a few folk passing through, and were approached by a pair of women who had come to say a prayer in the cathedral and who praised our "ancestors" for constructing so beautiful a building. They asked us for our email address and one of them informed us that she was an official who had taken part in the last election. She told us of the terrifying intimidation that had been a part of it, claiming that those who were suspected of voting for the opposition were asked by Mugabe's thugs if they preferred "short sleeves or long sleeves", meaning did they want an amputation at the wrist or above the elbow. She also said that much of the voter intimidation took place long before any international observers were deployed.
For a while a lunatic of some sort sat in another part of the cloister and declaimed what appeared to be nonsense at the top of his voice for half an hour or so. A bishop and several clergy also sauntered through the cloisters from the Cathedral office buildings to the car park on other side. Because the bishop appeared to be hanging around and waiting for someone, Diana encouraged me to accost him to discover who he was. We rightly suspected him of being one of the pretender Kunonga's faction, and this proved to be the case, he claimed to be the Bishop of West Mashonaland. I asked him what side of the great diocesan political divide he was on and he said "the anti", by which he meant, I learned, the anti-homosexual. Further mild interrogation revealed little interest in reconciliation with the rightful bishop and the whole Anglican Communion, he seemed intent only on drawing boundaries and making distinctions, all based on what seemed to me to be frothing at the mouth homophobia. No matter how vehemently expressed this phobia, however, the dispute is far more about power, cash, egotism and tribalism, just the sorts of evil that crucified Jesus of Nazareth. The bishop of West Mashonaland I thought to be a thoroughly unpleasant fellow.
Welcome sanctuary
What I liked about our temporary camping in the cloisters alongside a great cathedral was the sense that the Church, even when divided and in a very sorry state, was performing its ancient duty, providing us with sanctuary, refuge and shelter when we needed it. We were, however, politely turfed out at 5.00pm, which proved to be lock-up time, and so had to make our way back to Meikles Hotel. Vandalism, the decline in societal standards and a growing irreverence for the sacred worldwide, even here in Shepparton, mean that it is foolish to leave churches and cloisters open all night.
We made out way from Meikles to the bus station after dark through great and noisy throngs of people with few, if any, intimations of danger and after a short wait boarded our bus for the long journey to Beit Bridge. The trip out of Zimbabwe was uneventful and, as with our trip int we were allotted choice seats right at the bus's front, giving us a clear view of the road ahead. We spent most of the journey falling in and out of sleep, arriving at the South African border at half past three in the morning. Clearing immigration and customs was this time far easier than on our arrival, taking a mere hour.
So ended a nostalgic trip to the country that helped to form me. I had first arrived there as a boy of eleven at the end of 1956 and finally gave up residence in the middle of 1982.
Ishekomborera Africa
Our visit was hugely enjoyable. We expected the worst and found it rather less than worst, largely because we went not to mourn Rhodesia, but rather to enjoy independent, black Africa as much as possible, while refreshing fading memories. Diana had not been bought up there as I had, but she had visited the country twice and so was no stranger to it. What we found most heartening of all was the resilience, kindliness, good humour and resourcefulness of the ordinary Shona people we encountered. They deserve a far better deal than despicable Robert Mugabe has granted them. Most dis-heartening of all was the divided state of the diocese and denomination to which my father gave the best years of his priestly life and into which I was ordained, but even this was lessened and lightened by the vibrant and attractive faith of ordinary parish priests and congregations. The Church is very, very far from moribund, and the faith of ordinary Anglicans was beautiful to share. The Dioceses of Mashonaland and Manicaland would have to be far more stimulating to work in than the affluence enervated and enfeebled Anglican Church in Australia.
Ishekomborera Africa, Ngaisimudzirwe zita rayo, Inzwai miteuro yedu, Ishe komborera, Isu, mhuri yayo.......Huya mweya, Huya mweya komborera, Huya mweya, Huya mweya woutsvene, Uti komborere, Isu mhuri yayo. (God bless Africa, Let her fame spread far and wide! Hear our prayer, May God bless us! Come, Spirit, come! Come! Holy Spirit! Come and bless us, her children!)
LUNCHEON TODAY
If you have booked in for the luncheon today, and it should be a very good one, the main course provided by Azem of Lutfiye's, please make your way over the hall after the 10.30am service and sit down at a table for a glass and nibble. Those who have neglected to book but who would like to come are welcome to come across and pay at the door. There should be enough food for an extra dozen, we estimate.
A GREAT DAY IN SHEPPARTON
St. Columb's Ministry Fair comes to our Church Hall on Saturday 28th May. This is a great opportunity to look at new ways of adapting to a changing world which present new challenges in worship. Fr. Peter Tinney, who is having some real success in Yea, will explore some new visions for the future at 10am on Saturday 28th May. This session will be useful for all those interested in the revitalization of the 10.30 Service. At 11.30 there is a session on Building a Parish Publicity Toolkit. At 1.15pm a short film "If God breathed the World". At 2.30pm Father Andrew & Di Cherry will lead a discussion on Prayer, Spiritual Directions and Rule of Life.If any of these topics are of interest to you do make the effort to attend. Lunch is provided. Heather Fitzgerald
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays:
Peter Ackland 22nd May
Mary Lindsay 23rd May
Betty Bush 25th May
WELCOME BISHOP DARLING
We welcome as both Celebrant and Preacher today, on this our Patronal Festival, The Right Reverend Barbara Darling. This is the first time that a female bishop has visited our parish and so in its own little way is a historic occasion.
CONFIRMATION CLASSES
Junior Confirmation Classes take place on Tuesdays at 4.15, in the Library. It is not too late to sign up!
MAJOR RAFFLE SUB COMMITTEE
A meeting to arrange for this year's prizes is to be held in Roz's Room at 4pm on Thursday 26th May. All welcome, we would love some new members.
KATANDRA: ST. MARY'S ANGLICAN GUILD
Invite you to a Soup, Sandwich & Sweets Luncheon in the Katandra West Hall on Wednesday 15th June at 12noon. Admission $10, trading table, lucky door, raffle & marvellous entertainment.
GARDEN WORKING BEE SAT. 28th.
Come along and brave the chilly morning, your help would be greatly appreciated in the garden, always a good time to prepare beds, rake leaves and have a good general cut back, very rewarding indeed.
NEXT OUTREACH DEADLINE
Get your pens and keyboards ready – articles for the next edition of "Outreach" are due in to Helen by 29th May please – either email to hmalcolm@bigpond.com or leave at the parish office.
BIGGEST MORNING TEA
The Shepparton Unit will be hosting their Annual B.M.T. in St. Augustine's Supper Room tomorrow Monday, May 23rd at 10.00am. Please come along and support this very worthy cause. Wilma/Bev
MONSTER TRIVIA NIGHT
The Kiwanis Club of Shepparton on Friday 27th at 7.00pm for a 7.30pm start hold a really great Monster Trivia Night at St. Augustine's Hall, with prizes and fun galore. Admission is $10, which includes nibbles & supper. All proceeds to: Heart Kids
ARISE 255
5-30pm-7.30pm 23rd May. Car Rally. Time to get your thinking caps on, and brush up on your team work. The Israelites wandered for 40 years, can you find your way home?
DATES FOR THE DIARY
May 23rd Biggest Morning Tea 10am/Supper Room
May 26th Raffle Sub-Committee Planning meeting
May 26th Stewardship Committe Meeting
May 28th Garden Working Bee
May 28th St. Columb's Ministry Fair/St. Augustines
June 3rd Synod
June 4th Synod
June 5th Alternative Worship Service
June 15th Katandra combined Guilds luncheon, 12noon
June 16th Parish Fair Planning Group meeting 4pm
June 14th "Moving On" Grief Support Meeting
July 17th Bishop's Visit
June 25th Garden Working Bee
July 30th Garden Working Bee
Aug 20th Wedding
Aug 27th Garden Working Bee
Sept 24th Wedding
Sept 24th Garden Working Bee
Oct 1st Wedding 2pm
Oct 8th Wedding 2pm
Oct 8th Wedding 3.30pm
Oct 22nd Parish Fair & Garden Party
Oct 23rd Confirmation
Oct 29th Wedding
Oct 29th Garden Working Bee
Dec 10th Wedding
Duties for 22nd May 2011
Readers 8.30 Bev Condon
Readers 10.30 Jenny Pleming, Norm Mitchelmore
Servers 8.30 Michelle
Servers 10.30 Jenny, Vanita, Valerie
Intercessors Bev Condon, Canon Andrew
Euc. Assts 8.30 John Griffin, Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 10.30 Greg Pestell, Jenny Pleming
Welcomers 8.30 Bev Reither, Beryl Goodfellow
Welcomers 10.30 Nola Brewer, Jenny Moran
Sidespeople 8.30 Gwyn & Merv Cowland
Sidespeople 10.30 John Pleming, Norm Mitchelmore
Tea 8.30 Bev Reither
Welcoming Table Dorothy Cook
Mowing 21st Gary Grant
Altar Linen for May Bev Reither
Duties for 29th May 2011
Readers 8.30 Pat Griffin, Victoria Heenan
Readers 10.30 Mary Pearson, Christine Jones
Servers 8.30 Michelle
Servers 10.30 Zeb Fernandez, Maddie & Sam Coates
Intercessors Victoria Heenan, Christine Jones
Euc. Assts 8.30 Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 10.30 Greg Pestell, Joe Fernandez
Welcoming 8.30 Bev Ralph, Heather Nichols
Welcomers 10.30 Volunteers please
Sidespeople 8.30 Trevor Batey, Joy Campbell
Sidespeople 10.30 Charlotte Brewer, Nola Brewer
Welcome Table Dorothy Cook
Altar Linen for May Bev Reither
Tea 8.30 Shirley Dean
Mowing None this week
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
Nicole Ackland, Lorraine Ashbury, Jeffrey Andrewartha, Deb Bagley, Liam Bognar, Kaye Boyle, Marlene Bovaird, Ian Carman, Collins Family, Tom Downie, Kath Grills, John Griffin, Frank Harder, Leigh Harder, Margaret Hoare, Katherine Holt, John & Kate Horder, Ross Judd, Hilder Lidgard, Lyn Morcom, Margaret Kidman, Albert Oxenbury, Isabelle Richards, Peter Swindells, Suzanne Singh, Patricia Sparkes, Florence Warren, Shirley Young, David, Bonny & Keith, Peter.
Rest in Peace:
Bobby Causon, Ken Ross, Alistair Knox.
Anniversary of death:
John McCluskey 22nd Jeffrey Saville, Frank Page, Donald McPherson, Florence Harry, Ethel Osborne, Jack Osborne 23rd, William Thorn, Patricia Gaylard 24th, Neil Dennis, Arthur Friday 25th, John Downing, Robert Hunter, Andonis Damianopoulos, John Murphy 26th, Milan Marcetic, Rohan Lynas, Geoffrey Waite 28th.
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 23rd May
Rector's day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Biggest Morning Tea/Supper Room
5.30pm Arise 255
Tuesday 24th May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Playgroup
11.00am Eucharist Shepparton Aged Care
1.30pm Funeral
4.15pm Confirmation Classes/Library
6.00pm Baptism Preparation
Wednesday 25th May
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine's
12.30pm Deanery Meeting - Yarrawonga
6.00pm EfM
Thursday 26th May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.15am Eucharist - Grutzner
11.00am Eucharist - Harmony
2.00pm Stewardship Committee Meeting
4.00pm Major Raffle Sub Committee mtg./Roz's Rm.
5.30pm Choir Practice - Rectory
Friday 27th May
8.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
11.00am Eucharist - Ave Maria
Saturday 28th May
Associate Priest's Day off
8.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.00am Garden Working Bee
10.00am St. Columb's Ministry Fair/Supper Room
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5th Sunday of Easter 29th May
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine's
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine's/Baptisms
8.45am Eucharist St Luke's Dookie