4th March - From the vicar's Warden

Greetings

 

 1. The Requiem mass for Margaret Knights will be held at Lamb and Haywood on Wairakei Road at 10:00 on Saturday, 5 March

 

 2. A St Michael's Mass will be held on Sunday at 17:00 on Sunday, 6 March at St John's Bishopdale, 2 Chedworth Avenue, Bishopdale.  We will follow this with a finger food supper (Chedworth Avenue is off Cotswald Avenue, which is on the right opposite Bishopdale Park, off Harewood Road as you come from the city).

 

3. A St Michael's Mass will again be held on Wednesday, 9 March at St John's Bishopdale.

 

Again please spread the word.

 

St Michael's appears to be structurally sound but remains within the cordon.  It has a yellow sticker mainly due to the damaged Old stone Building.  We will keep you informed of when we can return to St Michael's.

 

Robert Maclagan

26th Feb 2011 - Vicar's Warden

This morning the church and school were inspected by Holmes Consulting.  Both were given Yellow stickers.  I understand the Yellow sticker for the church is mainly connected with the state of the old stone building  I attach some photos taken by the school Principal who accompanied Holmes Consulting.

The proposed ecumenical service planned for Hagely Park  has been postponed.

Tomorrow, Sunday 27 February, The St Luke's congrgation will celebrate a parish outdoor Eucharist, in St Albans Park at 9.30am. Gather at the corner of Barbadoes Street & Edward Avenue, where there is plenty of parking. Bring folding chairs or blankets to sit on the ground, and be sure to dress warmly. The parish voicemail (366 2253) will be updated Sunday morning should the weather situation change.  St Michael's people are invited to join them.

We will inform you of any home eucharists to be held next week when they are organised.

Pleas spread the word to those who are not on this ad-hoc email list.

Robert Maclagan

20 Feb 2011 - Letter from the Vicar

Dear Friends,

The first words Jesus uses in John’s Gospel are “What are you looking for?” and then “Come and see.” He invites people to come on a journey with him and learn to see and ‘be’ again. John trusts that if we follow Jesus in his story to the Cross and beyond, we may be ‘born again’, suddenly seeing everything in a new and deeper light. We may come to trust and know God’s promise of blessing ‘from the inside.’

What Jesus promises is that we shall discover, to the depths of our being, what he knew: that we are all God’s beloved ones in whom is God’s delight. That with God there can be an intimacy and security that we all long and thirst for.

If we put ourselves out during Lent, by one means or another, to follow Jesus and ‘come and see’, we may be surprised into the grace of God. Seeing with his eyes, we may discover that we are more loved than ever we believed. And that is what most of us need to experience. It will transform us.

The gathering of God’s people together week by week in rich liturgy can provide the setting for joyous immersion in faith, and mark us as new beings for ever. I hope that we can always be prayerfully offering that to others, for God so loved the world.

Soon we shall be entering the season of Lent and then six weeks later, Holy Week, when the Liturgy at S. Michael’s will be leading us through the central events of the Gospel. I hope that we can approach that expectantly, and invite others to join us, so that we may all accept the gracious call to “Come and see.”

May God bless you all. 

Fr Peter Williams
 

God’s Generous Love
 

What God says to you in Jesus is this: You are forgiven. Nothing more. Nothing less. This is the message Jesus spoke and lived.

But is it really good news? And for whom?... It looks as if the good news was originally good for ordinary people, people who were not particularly pious, not particularly respectable. To them, God said in Jesus, ‘You are forgiven’.

God might have said it more simply: ‘You are loved. I love you.’ This message is true, but it would have been ambiguous. It might have meant, ‘I love you because you’re good.’ It might have meant, ‘I still love you and would like to go on loving you, but I won’t tolerate your behaviour much longer.’

Instead, God says something quite unambiguous: ‘You are forgiven.’ What this means is, ‘I love you anyway, no matter what. I love you not because you are particularly good nor because you are particularly repentant nor because I’m trying to bribe you or threaten you into changing. I love you because I love you.’

William Countryman The Truth about Love; Re-introducing the Good News

13 Feb 2011 - Letter from the Vicar

Dear Friends,

Lent begins very late this year, on 9 March. There are still three Sundays before Ash Wednesday, and so we have more time to think what we shall do during this special season of the Church.

The culmination of Lent, and of course the reason for it, is the great Easter celebration, which this year will be on 21–24 April. At S. Michael’s this is very much the centre of our liturgical year, and we make special provision for the whole week from Palm Sunday (17 April) until Easter Day. In this 160th anniversary year we are privileged to have as our Holy Week preacher Bishop George Connor, retired Bishop of Dunedin.

In preparation for Easter you may like to join a special Lent study group, or a Lent prayer group, which we shall arrange at suitable day and evening times. These will provide opportunities to ask all the things that you have not got around to asking before. I hope that one daytime group will be at a suitable time for School parents and caregivers. A schedule of such opportunities will be available at the church during the next three weeks.

In particular there may be some of you who would like to be prepared to be baptised or to renew your baptismal commitment at Easter. It is for this purpose in particular that the forty days of Lent were first set aside, and it is a great gift to a congregation to have some among it who are preparing in this way. Please contact me if you are interested.
On Sunday 6 March, we shall give thanks for the harvest. Because Lent and Easter are late, we can celebrate this closer to the actual time when we harvest the produce from our gardens and farms.

The daily Mass at S. Michael’s is the focus of this parish’s ministry of prayer, which I take very seriously. Through Christ we are glad to offer prayer for the sick and the troubled. The parish list includes people having an acute health (or other) crisis, those having planned surgery or treatment, and those in their last illness. It also includes some chronically ill, those in pain, frailty, or disability over a long period. By printing the list this faith community commits itself to pray for these people, and we must all take our part in that. This does not mean that the whole list, or indeed any of it, needs to be read at every Mass. The important thing is not that the names are paraded, but that the people are prayed for. Each of us can do this in whatever way is convenient—at home, at spare moments during the day, and while waiting for Mass to begin. That is why the list is provided. Of course we can pray with greatest understanding for the people we know. Between us all will be covered.

This being the case, it is acceptable, in the Prayers of the People, to offer the list as a whole, without reciting any or every name. I certainly undertake to read all the names at one of my Masses each week. At other times, I trust that all those whom we carry on the list and in our hearts are being gathered up in the prayer of Christ among us. He knows every need, and invites us to share in his compassion through our prayer.

May God bless you all.

Fr Peter Williams

06 Feb 2011 - Letter from the Vicar

Dear Friends,

Today is Waitangi Day, the day on which we celebrate the birth of our nation that took place when the Queen’s representative signed the Treaty with the chiefs of the various Maori tribes. That there is such a treaty as a declaration of intention for national life is a blessing for us all, as we try to make our country a good place for all who live here. But that alone does not make living together an easy matter.

In 1986, Sir James Henare wrote an introduction to a useful little book by Hiwi and Pat Tauroa about Maoritanga. He said, ‘Knowledge is the dawn of understanding. Understanding is the first sign of tolerance, and tolerance is the bright light of racial harmony. Someone once said, rather cynically, that tolerance was composed of nine parts apathy to one of brotherly love. Unfortunately apathy has been prevalent in New Zealand for far too long, and many, unwitting or otherwise, have believed it to be a formula for racial understanding and tolerance. The deliberate exodus of the Maori from their rural isolation into the urban community, for economic reasons, is a major factor of Maori evolution that has brought both races into closer contact and greater awareness of the other’s cultural and racial differences. Each ethnic group has something to give the other and something to learn from the other.

Barriers are being created unnecessarily by the hypersensitivity of the Maori, and by the insensitivity of the Pakeha to Maori aspirations. But with goodwill, greater understanding, and better knowledge of the other’s values and culture, these barriers can be demolished.’ 

Our Church has even re-written its Constitution to promote a serious respect for all our different ways. Many of us in the 80s and 90s took part in events to learn Maoritanga, and perhaps we need to do so again. Today we celebrate what we do enjoy together, and pray for good and healthy relationships with the tangata whenua, as well as with all other groups who have settled in this land with us.

May God bless you all.

Fr Peter Williams

A Thanksgiving for our Country:

Blessed are you, God of the universe.
You have created us, and given us life.
Blessed are you, God of the planet earth.
You have set our world like a radiant jewel in the heavens,
and filled it with action, beauty, suffering, struggle and hope.
Blessed are you, God of Aotearoa New Zealand,
in all the peoples who live here, in all the lessons we have learned,
in all that remains for us to do.
Blessed are you because you need us,
because you make us worthwhile,
because you give us people to love and work to do
for your universe, for your world and for ourselves.
                        A New Zealand Prayer Book/ He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa.

30 Jan 2011 - Letter from the Vicar

Dear Friends,

It is good to be gathered as this community of faith again, as schools return and workplaces reopen for the year. I hope that those of you who have had holidays have been refreshed, and that all are feeling renewed for another year. Johnann and I have had a good holiday, in Wellington and Taranaki, and for the last few days I have been enjoying the sun and the sea on Stewart Island.

We return to a special year for S. Michael’s  as we celebrate 160 years of the church in this place. In the Mass we ‘proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes,’ as has been done here for all those years. Our bell, which arrived with the first settlers, will be rung 160 times at the end of Mass. Later we shall meet for the picnic at Mona Vale.

Today we celebrate Candlemas, the fortieth day after Christmas, when according to the Gospel story, Joseph and Mary take their first-born son to be presented in the Temple, and Simeon recognises him as ‘the light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of God’s people Israel.’ The light theme, which is so pervasive in the celebration of Christmas and its associated festivals, is undoubtedly more telling at this time in the northern hemisphere. But of course the light is a universal symbol of all that challenges the darkness of much human experience, and speaks of the hope that there is in Jesus Christ and the Gospel he embodies and proclaims.

Primary schools, including S. Michael’s  Church School, begin again tomorrow. Here we shall gather at 8:40 for an assembly, when we shall pray God’s  blessing on the new school year. Then as each class goes to its room, it will be blessed with those who teach and learn there. We welcome back our pupils and our hardworking staff.

Next Sunday is our National Day, Waitangi Day. We shall commemorate that at our usual Sunday services. We are fortunate in Aotearoa-New Zealand that, so early in our story, some people had the wisdom to frame and promote a Treaty between the indigenous peoples and the new European settlers. It gives us some bearings today when we have to face what we have become, and the chequered history that has brought us here. And we can be proud that it was the Christian leaders of the day who largely brokered the Treaty. Whatever political issues still surround it today, we can all honour the Treaty on our national day as the expression of an intention of respect and justice towards each other.

The Revd Lynne Horwood is not now teaching in the School, but working fully in the Parish. This is a great gift to us and we are seeking to use the opportunity for growth of the church community. Lynne will also be studying, and involved for about six weeks in intensive Clinical Pastoral Education training. 

I hope there may be a few people who wish to be prepared specially for baptism or to renew their baptismal promises at Easter. They will meet throughout Lent in a small catechumenal group. Would any of you, or your friends, like to join this group for your own renewal, or as a ministry to new believers? Please contact me soon.

May God bless you all. 

Fr Peter Williams

“A Most Exceptional Parish”
January 1851: The floor of the V-hut was burnt-off ground…, the seats were boards..., packing cases covered with canvas made an altar…
July 1851: In the new temporary church, the congregation “beamed with joyful satisfaction”.
December 1856: Bishop Harper was enthroned in the extended building, which had “a very churchlike appearance within and without”.
July 1861: “…a well-ordered church, with reverent ritual, choir, organ, and a large congregation.”
By 1867: the cohesiveness, sense of loyalty and financial buoyancy of the newly defined parish were such that it was able to contemplate building a new parish church.
Michaelmas 1870: Bishop Harper lays the foundation stone of the new church.
April 1872: Last service in the “quaint old church”.
May 1872: First service in the present church, “without any exception, the finest wooden church in NZ.”
1894: The new vicar, Walter Averill, commends the “dignified” and “reverent” services at S. Michael’s.
Christmas 1897: There were palms, ferns, other pot plants and white lilies and Canterbury bells in the pulpit, and the font was wreathed with evergreens and white blossoms.
1911: Fr Burton told the congregation that “with their help, and by God’s grace, he would, before a year elapsed, light such a flame in that parish and this city that would never go out in the lifetime of those present in that church that night.”
Later: With doctrine and ceremonial went a distinctive style of pastoral care..., and an equally distinctive style of mission. But one parishioner was less impressed, “S. Michael’s is getting higher and higher. We must reach heaven soon.”
Under Fr Gault: It was an impressive show that went on in the sanctuary at the far end of the church, beyond the chanting choir… Clouds of incense rose as the Mass progressed… Processions were grand…
With Fr Raphael: Changes came, designed to show the real meaning of the Eucharist, to involve the people not only in the worship but also in the mission of the Church. The sanctuary was re-ordered; there was renewed vigour and an outgoing attitude.
1968 Fr Philip: “The eucharistic pattern slowly leaves its imprint upon those who regularly and faithfully take part in it. This is the genius of S. Michael’s… It has the power to draw one back again.”
1996 Fr Jonathan: “The parish is burgeoning with new life and initiative.”
January 2001 Fr Peter: “As we offer ourselves again, this day and every day, we pray that this may continue to be a holy place and a caring community…”
As Fr Perry wrote in 1926, S. Michael’s has been
 “a pioneer church in more than one direction. God has been with us of a truth.”
(With thanks to Marie Peters for use of material from: Christchurch-St Michael’s)

S. Michael’s bell came out from London in the Charlotte Jane. It was brought from Lyttelton in June 1851 and hung in a simple belfry.
In 1858 it was sent back to England for recasting after developing a crack. “Perhaps its absence had made people more aware of its value to the community, not just as a church bell… but also as an alarm and even more as a regulator of timepieces for the whole town…”
In 1861 the bell was hung in the present belfry. Designed by Benjamin Mountfort and Isaac Luck, the bell tower was considered to be “a great ornament to the town”

Christmas 2010 - Letter from the Vicar

Dear Friends,

It is with great joy that we gather together again with Christians everywhere, to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s ‘Word made flesh’.

This is the 159th time that Christmas has been celebrated on this site. In 2011 both this Parish and its School will be 160 years old, a milestone that will be celebrated appropriately throughout the year.

May those of you who are visitors to S. Michael’s be blessed by your visit, and may God keep you safe as you go upon your way. Some of you are people who have moved away, but for whom S. Michael’s will always be home. We love to welcome you back. Others will be seeking to keep this festival in a significant way, and so have come to this holy place. May the Spirit of the Christ-child grow in you, and may you discover with all of us, that indeed ‘God is with us’, as he always promises.

Today in this lovely church, decorated with candles and flowers, and filled with music and wonderful people of faith and goodwill, we celebrate the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We celebrate the birth as we attend to the Christmas crib, and place the Christ-child there, as we listen to the readings from the Scriptures and let their wisdom and proclamation seep into us and shape us, and as we gather at the altar and receive God’s gracious gift of himself, offered before us, in the Body and Blood of Christ. We do all this in the confidence that, whatever our state in life at the moment, whatever the cloud that may cover us and ours, Jesus Christ is living within and among us.  He alone brings new life and in the darkness enables us to find light.

Thank you, on behalf of us all, to those who have done so much to make our celebration of the festival so very special. Musicians, servers, readers, sacristans, flower arrangers, printers and publishers, cleaners, pastoral visitors, clergy, and all the rest who keep this wonderful ship afloat.

Our cash collections at Christmas are all given to the Christian World Service Appeal. CWS is a proven agency which addresses the underlying causes of poverty and injustice through its community-based development programmes. In the past the government has supplemented the funds raised by churches, but this situation is changing, leaving some CWS partner programmes unsupported. Our contributions are needed this year more than ever. Envelopes are available today, as gifts are tax deductible. Please give generously at this time when we ourselves receive so much.

May those of you who are having annual holiday at this time keep safe, and return refreshed for the year ahead.

May God bless you all

Fr Peter Williams