The Welland-Fosse Benefice: Prayers and Notices.

 Sunday 6^th December 2020:  Advent II

 

• Please remember in your prayers those who are sick: Janette Saunders, Ann Hensby, Belinda Forbes, Bishop John Holbrook, June Fitton and Will Beattie.
• Pray too for the souls of the recently departed, Noel Witts and Peter Ratcliffe.
• Today, Holy Communion will be celebrated at Duddington Church at 9.30am, and the Zoom Service will come from South Luffenham at 11am. Compline at 6pm will come from Barrowden Church with a short presentation to consider the Advent themes of darkness and light in the music of Bach.
• Zoom Morning Prayer continues on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8.30 am., with Compline on Thursdays and Sundays at 6pm.
• Audrey Kilsby (Church Lane, Duddington) is holding a Garage Sale today, 10 am – 3pm in aid of the orphanage in Tanzania.
• The Benefice Carol Service will be premiered on Sunday 20th December at 4pm. Book the date!  We can’t sing together indoors so we have FILMED worship at our five churches, editing footage to create a service of readings and carols that we can all enjoy and singalong. It will ‘broadcast’ online on 20 December so we can watch it ‘together’.  It will stay up throughout Christmas to be enjoyed by anyone. Weblink to follow nearer the time. 

 

BARROWDEN:

The Barrowden Advent Calendar opened its first window on 1st December at the Exeter Arms on the Village Green.  Once open, each window will remain open every day until December 27th. 

 

MORCOTT:

Our Advent Windows project is brightening these dark days: every evening at 5pm a new window lights up and by Christmas Eve we will have a full set of 24 windows (the last being at St Mary’s).

 

SOUTH LUFFENHAM:

• Thank you for Foodbank donations. We have several boxes full again. Christmas items need to be with me by next weekend please. 
• Keep looking out for our Village Advent Calendar – the windows this week were all lovely! ✨
• Church is open every day so that you can see the Advent Rings and crib. 

 

THIS WEEK’S MEDITATION:

We are a people seeking signs. Around the world, people are waiting for the vaccine. We all get excited by new announcements of imminent arrivals.  And of course, in our communication-mad age, each sign is accompanied by denouncements and fake news. We’re also waiting for a decision on Brexit.  Will it happen with a deal or no-deal? And then of course, we all look for clear direction from the government when they too – in this turbulent time – are as confused as most of us and doing their best to cope. There will be other signs which we personally are looking for but one final sign which we corporately wish to see is a better tomorrow.  What will the new normal look like?

 

So it was in Jerusalem just before the birth of Jesus.  Tensions abounded between the Jews, the Greeks and the Roman insurgents. It was a bleak time for them as it is for us.  The Church has rolled up all these concerns in the season of Advent. For me, it is an edge-of the-seat affair – longing for Christmas like any child. We express our hopes through Advent Wreaths with their countdown of candles or, this year, our wonderful Advent Window displays. 

 

One person who confounded all this expectation was John the Baptist, a biblical figure who sits between the Old and the New Testaments and on whom the churches today focus their attention.  He lived a humble and counter-cultural life, dressing and eating simply. He re-directs the aspirations of his generation by pointing to God as the only hope by which we can set a new course.

 

            “I John, not reed but root;

            Not vested priest nor saviour but a voice

            Crying daylong like a cricket in the heat …..

            I dwell among the blistered rocks

            Awaiting the wide dawn, the wonder

            Of His first coming, and the Dove’s descent”.   Sidney Keyes

 

See wellandfosse.org for much more information, including contact details for

The Very Rev Christopher Armstrong and the churchwardens