Dear Friends,
Today we celebrate two great leaders of the early Christian church, the apostles S. Peter and S. Paul, whose stories are in the Scriptures. The three readings today catch some of the measure of those two and remind us of the foundation on which we are built. And during the week we celebrated the birth of S. John the Baptist, who in his birth and in his death pointed to Jesus Christ, God’s special ‘one who is to come’.
Eight young people of the School were baptised last Wednesday, and they and four others will be welcomed to Holy Communion this Wednesday at the final School Mass for the term. As you know, the Anglican Church’s policy is that all baptised persons are welcome to receive Holy Communion and that therefore we shouldn’t need an ‘admission to Communion’ ceremony. Our ‘welcome’ to these young people is a pastoral opportunity to teach and remind them what they are involved in, and to encourage them to continue in that way. Please pray for them, and for all our young people.
It was a great pleasure for many of us connected with Years 7 and 8 to take part in the School’s biennial Victorian Soirée on Friday evening. We danced the Palais Glide, the Gay Gordons, the Boston Two-step, the Circle and Snowball Waltzes among others, all dressed in elegant Victorian gowns and suits. Congratulations to all those who again made this wonderful evening possible.
The Education Review Office visits S. Michael’s School this week. By Friday, we shall all be more than ready for the winter break of two weeks.
Michael Graveston has indicated that expanding family commitments make it impossible for him to continue with his excellent leadership of the Youth Group, which has been operating in conjunction with another parish. We appreciate the great commitment he has made to this responsibility, and relieve him of it now, with the thanks of the whole parish community.
As our church population comes and goes, we need from time to time to explain again some of our customs and understandings. I am going to attend to this sometimes in my sermons, as I do today. There are some explanations in the green Mass Book, and we plan to expand these into a further booklet. We must also remember that it is only within the greater Christian understanding of who we are as people and Church that customs have a more than arbitrary significance. Their meaning comes from a wider and deeper context, and so being renewed in our understanding of theology today is an essential basis for understanding them and bringing them to life.
I give notice of the Parish Review that we are required by the Diocese to undertake from time to time, and which we intend to enjoy in August, over the weekend of 16-17 August. We shall give more details in the next weeks, but please make a note now in your diaries to keep the Saturday morning free for this.
May God bless you all.
Peter Williams
