The Welland-Fosse Benefice: Prayers and Notices.

 Sunday 31st January 2021:  Epiphany IV

• Please remember in your prayers those who are sick: Janette Saunders, Sandie Parsons, Jane Williams and Will Beattie.
• Today, the Zoom Service will be at 11am.
• Zoom Morning Prayer continues on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8.30 am., given that the pandemic still rages around us. Compline is on a Thursday at 6pm. If you would like an invitation, contact Sally Smith.
• ‘Just the Job’ – an entertainment for our 5 parishes. Starts on Zoom, 7pm on Monday 15 February and fortnightly thereafter. It brings together 3 people with similar career backgrounds who share something of their work for 5 minutes after which we are invited to ask questions. On 15 February: ‘The Artists’. Each session last for 40 minutes. Join us by emailing our Zoom host Martin Beattie at mfn.beattie@btinternet.com
• Study the final chapters of the Gospel of Mark with The Rev’d Simon Aley; Tuesdays at 7.30 pm starting on the 9^th We start by looking at the importance of Mark in Lent, going over some of the chapters we have already studied where there might be a Lenten angle. Each session lasts 1 hour and is stand-alone. The notes will be distributed by email in advance of each week and participants are asked to read the passage from Mark ahead of the session. So all are welcome but if you want to join us please let me know so I can ensure you get all you need and get your Zoom invite. Please contact Simon to join by emailing simon@oakhamteam.org.uk
• Compline on Sundays in Lent begins on 21^st February at 6pm. The short service will be followed by an 8 minute presentation on each of the 7 Virtues given by visiting speakers. Martin Bettie is our host. Please contact him if you wish to join the Zoom service.
• All our churches are open for private prayer at particular times:
  BARROWDEN: Every day from 10am to 3pm
  DUDDINGTON Every day from 10am to 4pm
  MORCOTT: Sundays from 10am to 3pm
  SOUTH LUFFENHAM: Every day from 10am to 4pm
  TIXOVER anytime by request at Manor Farm.

This Week’s Meditation:

One of the most important things needed by humans is hope. During the past difficult months hope has been the one feeling that has kept many people going. Life has been so hard for so many and yet without hope there is only despair which we have seen etched on the faces of various people; those who have suffered the death of loved ones without the ability to say a proper farewell; those who have worked continuously in our hospitals facing the death of patients every shift; those who are vulnerable and have nothing to sustain them.

Thomas Hardy wrote these words in his poem “Song of Hope”

O sweet To-morrow! –
After to-day
There will away
This sense of sorrow.
Then let us borrow
Hope, for a gleaming
Soon will be streaming,
Dimmed by no gray – No gray!

Hardy was not known for his hopefulness and coined the word “unhope” in one of his other poems. But he too seemed to accept that there was hope as he included it in his poem “The Darkling Thrush”

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

Where do we find the hope that we need when everything seems bleak and difficult? Jesus brought light and through that light, hope into the world. He walks with each one of us and weeps with us. St Paul wrote:

May God the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.

May you be blessed with hope.

See wellandfosse.org for much more information, including contact details for The Very Rev Christopher Armstrong and the churchwardens