The Welland-Fosse Benefice: Prayers and Notices.

 Sunday25th July 2021:  Trinity VIII (St. James’ Day)

 

• Please remember in your prayers those who are sick: Sylvia Martin, Derek Barker, Sussie Clements, Judith Piggott and Jane Williams. Pray too for the departed, including Peter Holland and Jim Cunningham.
• Zoom Morning Prayer continues on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8.30 am with Compline on Thursday at 6pm
• Next Sunday we are in church at Duddington at 9.30am and in Barrowden/on Zoom at 11am. Please bring a mask to church as there is so much uncertainty and wariness among people still.

 

SOUTH LUFFENHAM:.

Sunday 25th July 9.30 Holy Communion (CA) 
Sunday 8th August 9.30 Holy Communion (Canon Tim Alban-Jones).
Sunday 15th August 3pm Songs of Praise on the Village Green.

 

MEDITATION

 

Cardinal Basil Hume was a Benedictine monk who lived at Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire until his preferment as Cardinal Archbishop. Those who remember him will picture a slim, agile figure with a quiet sense of humour who chose his words carefully. He was born into a Catholic family from Newcastle where his four brothers and sisters would ensure that he was well grounded and rounded. He was drawn to the religious life but that monastery in Ampleforth ran a busy boarding school catering for boys and girls.  During the term, life was hectic for Basil as he taught languages and history throughout the school as well as being a housemaster and coach of the school’s 1^st XV rugby team. He had quite a workload professionally, on top of which he had to maintain the discipline of a monk.  Nevertheless, Basil enjoyed life, recording simple pleasures like being taken out to tea in Thirsk by parents of pupils or fishing in the lakes.

 

Today, Sunday, is St. James’ Day. It’s not often we have a saint’s day on a Sunday, but it does allow us an opportunity to contemplate the saintly life. The life of Cardinal Hume is as good an example as any as it is almost contemporary with ours. What were the marks of saintliness in his life?

 

Firstly, there was a thirst for God and the things of God. He went to church as a child and in his busy professional life he found time – made time – to pray and worship. In one of his later books Basil talks about the tension between the desert and the marketplace. For a saint, it must be the quiet pull of the desert for prayer.

 

Secondly there is stability. Monastic communities can be raw, just like family relationships can go sour. Benedictine monks take a vow of stability, never to leave their home community, however joyful or painful it may be. Is this value of stability relevant to us today?

 

Thirdly, there is obedience and for Basil, there were always conflicting loyalties: to the pupils in his charge; to his monastic brothers; to the Abbot of the Community and then to the wider church when asked to leave the delights of the Yorkshire countryside for a frantic existence at Archbishop’s House, Central London. For him, this was God’s will and there was a pattern to it: the pattern of service.

 

Fourthly, Hume was fearless in following the path of the gospel, even though it was often compromised. He would not be bullied by either CND or the conservative hawks over the nuclear deterrent and he was very happy to stand up to the Home Office over the imprisonment of innocent citizens.

 

Finally, his whole world view was influenced by the magnetic force of God. A previous headmaster of Ampleforth College was attending the annual Headmaster’s Conference. One headmaster talked about the way his school prepared its pupils for life. The Ampleforth headmaster was heard to retort, sotto voce, ‘How fascinating. At Ampleforth we always seek to prepare our boys for death’.

 

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

The Very Rev Christopher Armstrong and the churchwardens