Dear Friends,
Today is Mothering Sunday and we welcome the whole S Michael’s School Community as it joins with the Parish for the Mass this morning. As is our custom, we bless flowers and give them to our mothers and caregivers, thanking them for their care and nurture of us.
After the Mass there will be a sausage sizzle in the grounds, as well as morning coffee in the hall. I have asked the Revd Lynne Horwood to preach this morning. She is well known to all of us, both as a member of the Parish clergy staff and also as the School’s Deputy Principal and Year 8 teacher.
There are only two weeks left of this School term. Because Holy Week is in the first week of the School holidays, we shall mark the main events of the Holy Week story with a short School service at 8:45 each morning of next week. These services will be in the church and all are welcome to join us.
This is a good opportunity to remind School families that every year we offer school pupils the opportunity to be baptised. We certainly do not put pressure on anyone to be baptised. But while young people are at S Michael’s and surrounded by the life of a Christian community of faith, they have a good setting in which to grow into their baptism and be prepared to consider their own commitment to Christian faith as young adults. A letter will go out to School families very soon, and we shall spend Term Two preparing the young people, and they will be baptised early in Term Three. Please talk about this together and contact me or the Revd Lynne Horwood if you wish to ask questions.
It was good that some of us from S Michael’s were able to support the Peters family by joining with them at Catherine’s funeral. Thank you to all who have supported them in spirit, with sympathy and prayer. We shall continue to do so.
On Friday evening I took part in the ordination in Dunedin cathedral of Michael Wallace to the priesthood,. I took him the greetings and prayers of all of us at S Michael’s. He has been appointed to another term as General Secretary of the World Student Christian Federation in Geneva and will return to serve in New Zealand after that.
Holy Week is fast approaching. This is the liturgical centre of our life at S Michael’s, and I hope that we can prepare ourselves, and others whom we know, to take part in this fully.
May God bless you all.
Peter Williams
Lent Readings: Week Four
Monday Isaiah 65: 17–21 John 4: 43–54
Tuesday Ezekiel 47: 1–9, 12 John 5: 1–3, 5–16
Wednesday Isaiah 49: 8–15 John 5: 17–30
The Annunciation Isaiah 7: 10–14 Hebrews 10: 4–10 Luke 1: 26–38
Thursday Exodus 32: 7–14 John 5: 31–47
Friday Wisdom 2: 1, 12–22 John 7: 1–2, 10, 25–30
Saturday Jeremiah 11: 18–20 John 7: 40–52
