Dear Friends,
Today is Holy Cross Day, a festival of the whole Church which happens to fall on a Sunday this year. We use this day, on the opposite side of the circle of the year from Easter, to reflect on the power of the cross as the central Christian fact and symbol, and to celebrate Christ’s liberating work for us in his death.
Despite the origin of the festival being connected with the Emperor Constantine, the one who first made Christianity respectable, we need to remember that the Cross of Christ is a symbol of the reversal of values. As Bishop John Taylor has said:
At the Cross it is clear that life is represented by the man who died there,
and death by the people who put him there.
This afternoon at 4:30 pm we welcome Dr Edric Baker to S. Michael’s for a talk and DVD show about the work of his Kailakuri clinic in Bangladesh, where the poorest of the poor are tended and assisted to learn skills for health. The Vestry is giving him a donation for the work, and invites us all to supplement that. Envelopes are available, and I shall carry a bag for cash donations today.
Michaelmas is close. Please purchase tickets for the dinner as soon as possible, and invite friends to this splendid occasion. Our new Bishop will be presiding at the Solemn Mass, and Dr Imogen de la Bere, former churchwarden, choir member and School pupil, will be preaching. The Bishop has indicated that in her first months she wishes to visit and listen to us, so that she may respond and lead appropriately.
At the Diocesan Synod last weekend, the revised St Michael’s School Statute and Constitution, which the Parish had presented, was ratified. This will strengthen the special character of St Michael’s School, and enable the School Board to be effective in pursuing the Objectives which the Parish has set for its School. At the recent Anglican Schools’ Conference, I noticed that a major concern in our schools throughout the country was the keeping and strengthening of their Christian and Anglican character, in the face of forces that want these schools to be something else. I am grateful to those who put themselves out to assist with our work of revision.
May God bless you all.
Peter Williams
Holy Cross Day
The Festival is associated with the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on 14 September, 335. The Romans had destroyed Jerusalem in 135 but later built a new city on the site. At that time the hill of Calvary was buried under tonnes of fill.
Two hundred years later, the Emperor Constantine decided to erect a number of buildings to honour the principal places associated with Jesus. His mother, Helena, was supervising the excavations for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when she discovered in the rubble a piece of wood that she identified as a relic of the true cross.
This was housed in the new church, and since then the Holy Cross has continued to be honoured on this day.
