Category: Rector’s Blog

It continues to be a great disappointment that we cannot worship in our church building at the present time.  We can only hope that this “fast” does not need to continue for too long now. Despite not being able to be in church for Ash Wednesday or meet in person for Lent groups,  it is important that we keep the season Lent, a time for reflection, reappraisal and for penitence. Lent is about walking with Jesus as we journey with him towards His final days of Holy Week and to the Cross.  It is a very good time to find some extra time to spend with God.

This booklet includes some words and prayers which you can use each day.  Lent is a time for saying sorry but we must not see it as a time for “beating ourselves up”.  It is not only a time to remember the things we regret doing, or not doing, as individuals, though we may want to do that.  It is a time to lift up to God the injustices across the planet, the damage we are doing to each other and to the Earth, the structural sins which beset our world and asking God for guidance and healing.

Many people like to read a book during Lent and I list a few titles below that you might wish to consider.

I am aware that not everyone is on the internet or Facebook or can use Zoom but we are, in the absence of not being able to be in church, worshipping in the following ways:

• Ash Wednesday:  a Celtic service will be live streamed on Facebook at 12 noon.
• Each week during Lent: Sundays 10 am Zoom Eucharist
• Each Tuesday: 7pm Zoom Eucharist.
• Every evening at 9.00 pm: a Celtic Service of Compline is posted on Facebook

Messy Church on Zoom – there will also be Messy Church in Lent and at Easter.  Details will be given on Facebook and email. Our Facebook is St Deiniol’s Church in Wales Hawarden For a link to any of our Zoom services please email Revd Alan on 794alan@gmail.com

Best wishes, Revd Andrea Jones, Rector 01244 520992

Some suggested readings in Lent:

• Saying Yes to Life by Ruth Valerio
• Living His Story by Hannah Steele 
• Looking Through the Cross by Graham Tomlin
• Thy Will be Done Stephen Cherry
• Candles in the Dark Rowan Williams

Reading the Bible in Lent

Some people like to use the time of Lent to read a chapter of the Bible each day or to read a psalm (in addition to the one in the order of service below).  Here are some suggestions taken from the Church in Wales Lectionary, that is the readings set for each day, and you might want to use whilst praying the short service below.

Wed 17 Feb Luke 15.11-end	Thur 4 Mar Heb 3.1-6	Fri 19Mar Hb 10.26-end
Thur 18 Feb Gal.2.11-end	Fri 5 Mar Heb 3.7-end	Sat 20 Mar Heb 11.1-16
Fri 19 Feb Gal 3.1-14	Sat 6 Mar Heb 4.1-13	Sun 21 Mar 2 Cor 11.16-12.10
Sat 20 Feb Gal 3.15-end	Sun 7 Mar2 Cor 5.20-end	Mon 22 Mar Heb 11.17-31
Sun 21 Feb 2 Cor.4	Mon 8 Mar Heb 4.14-5.10	Tue 23 Mar Heb 11.32-12.2
Mon 22 Feb Gal 3.23-4.7	Tues 9 Mar Heb 5.11-6.12	Wed 24 Mar Galatian 4.1-5
Tues 23 Feb Gal 4.8-20	Wed 10 Mar Heb 6.13-end	Thur 25 Mar Heb12.14-end
Wed 24 Feb Gal 4.21-5.1	Thur 11 Mar Heb 7.1-10	Fri 26 Mar Heb 13.1-16
Thur 25 Feb Gal 5.2-15	Fri 12 Mar Heb 7.11-end	Sat 27 Mar Jeb 13.17-end
Fri 26 Feb Gal 5.16-end	Sat 13 Mar Heb 3.1-15	Sun 28 Mar John 12.1-19
Sat 27 Feb Gal 6	Sun 14 Mar 2 Cor 9	Mon 29 Mar Col 1.18-23
Sun 28 Feb 2 Cor 5	Mon 15 Mar Heb 9.1-14	Tues 30 Mar Gal. 6.11-end
Mon 1 Mar 1 John2.1-8	Tues 16 Mar Heb 9.15-end	Wed 31 Mar Rev 14.18-15.4
Tues 2 Mar Heb 2.1-9	Wed 17 Mar Heb 10.1-18	Thur 1 Apr Eph 2.11-18
Wed 3 Mar Heb 2.10 – end	Thur 19 Mar Heb 10.19-25	Good Friday  1 Pet 2.11-end

A short service of prayers and reflection for use in Lent

Opening Prayer: God of our days and years. I set this time apart for you that I may be formed into the likeness of Christ and that my life my glorify you.

• The Beatitudes
• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are those who mourn,for they shall be comforted.
• Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,for they shall be satisfied.
• Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
• Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
• Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Reading (See the readings listed above or choose a Bible reading): Psalm 130: Out of the depths I have called to you, Lord. | Let your ears be open to hear my voice. | If you recorded all our sins who could come before you? | There is forgiveness with you:therefore you shall be feared. | My soul is longing for the Lord, more than those who watch for daybreak. | O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy. | Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

Confession and Forgiveness: Compassion and forgiveness belong to the Lord our God, though we have rebelled against him.Let us then renounce our wilfulness and ask his mercy by confessing our sins in penitence and faith. Wash away all my iniquity Lord, have mercy. Against you, you only have I sinned Christ, have mercy. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Lord, have mercy. May almighty God, who sent his Son into the world to save sinners, bring us his pardon and peace, now and for ever.

Intercessions: A time to pray by name for those people and situations that we want to especially place before God today.

The Diocesan Lent Prayer 2021: Sovereign Lord, all our beginnings and endings are encompassed by you. Help us follow in the footsteps of Christ and seek your Kingdom with all our hearts. In Jesus, may we find firm footing for our feet and clear direction to our travels. With his life and love breathed into our witness, may we stand with him, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Final Prayer: God of compassion, through your Son Jesus Christ you have reconciled your people to yourself. As we follow his example of prayer and fasting, may we obey you with willing hearts and serve one another in holy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

copyright: New Patterns of Worship Archbishops Council 200

The season in Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, the 17^th February, is in many people’s minds linked in some way to campaigns like Dry January or Go Sober in October.  A few weeks when we give up something we are sure we eat or drink too much of – maybe alcohol or chocolate.  In more recent times there has been a movement to take something up during Lent rather than abstaining from something.  Maybe go a run each day or give a bit more to charity.

Neither of the above approaches is wrong. It certainly does me no harm at all to eat a bit less cake for a few weeks and it is never a bad thing to consider our charitable giving. But the real purpose of Lent is to focus on God and it is time for reflecting on our own life and faith. 

Lent is a penitential season.  It has traditionally been a period of abstinence in preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ triumph over death, His Resurrection and that has involved giving things up and making sacrifices.  In our society one of the biggest issues we face is that we live out of balance.  Treats are no longer treats because we can buy chocolate muffins every time we go to the shop. Easter eggs appear in the shops straight after Christmas and one needs an iron will to walk past cream eggs!  We no longer have 9 to 5 jobs because modern technology, which should in theory liberate us, enable us to be available for work from getting up to going to bed. We don’t concentrate on eating our meals because we either watch TV or look at our phones.

Lent gives us an opportunity to become a bit more balanced.  Part of this process is being easy with ourselves, admitting we are not perfect and setting gentle goals.

This year when we are in lockdown it gives us the ideal opportunity to slow down a little, become more mindful of our daily routines, care for ourselves, be that spending a bit more time planning and cooking our meals, or taking a bit more time to walk slowly and appreciate the world around us. We may be separated from friends and family but we might take up the rather forgotten habit of letter writing. A friend of mine sends a postcard every day in Lent to someone she hasn’t seen for a while.  Or rather than a letter maybe a phone call.

You may want to go further. Another friend of mine always fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays by not having lunch on those days and only eating modest meals.  She finds that helps her appreciate food more.  

It’s always good to find some more space in your life to spend a bit more time in quiet listening to God.  Many people enjoy reading a book during these weeks and either discussing it with friends or simply reflecting upon it themselves.  I’ve listed some titles at the end of this post.

Whatever you do though I would urge you do two things – one is definitely look to this season as a time to reflect, reappraise and rebalance but always in the joyful expectation of the joy of Easter day. Secondly, be kind to yourself.  Don’t set yourselves goals that make you feel inadequate or doom you to failure.  Don’t let Lent feel like an additional burden as you juggle all the other things we are facing with the pandemic.  

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth “Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Our Lenten journeys with Jesus should give us greater freedom to live life more fully and to grow closer to Him.  We should never see Lent as a time of simply giving up things so life becomes more dull and difficult but a time that can show us new things about ourselves and about our relationship with God. 

Some suggested Lenten reading:

• Living His Story by Hannah Steele 
• Saying Yes to Life by Ruth Valerio
• Looking Through the Cross by Graham Tomlin
• Thy Will be Done Stephen Cherry
• Candles in the Dark Rowan Williams

Rev’d Andrea Jones, Rector St Deiniol’s Church, Hawarden

The day which we here in the Church in Wales celebrate as the Feast of the Epiphany is in some countries the day that Christmas is celebrated because this is the time that we remember that the coming of the Messiah, the birth of Jesus, is not just something for the Jewish people but for all of humanity.  We are told the Magi, the wise men, came from the east and made a long journey following a star until they reached the place Jesus was born and they presented him with gifts.  There are a lot of details which have grown up around the story of the Magi which do not appear in St Matthew’s Gospel.  We usually see three figures depicted – but St Matthew doesn’t tell us how many there were only that they brought three gifts.  The names we have given them – Balthazar, Melchior and Caspar, so familiar from the solo parts of the carol “We Three Kings” don’t appear in the Bible either. And of course they are not described as kings at all in the Gospel story. We read that they came from the east which might mean they came from Babylonia, or Persia, where the word magi originated. 

What is clear is that these travellers felt compelled to follow this star.  They didn’t know their final destination.  They travelled outside their own country and presumably way out of their comfort zones. Perhaps understandably, the first person they sought out was King Herod, a person of power, someone who surely knew what was going on. When it became apparent that this was not the case  they continued to follow the star until it stopped over the place where Jesus had been born. 

The story has a lot to tell us in our lives which we often see as a journey.  I recently heard the Christian journey described as an “off road excursion”.  Life doesn’t turn out how we expect and trying to plan can sometimes end up being futile (2020 has  shown us that!) but looking back our lives often make more sense in retrospect when we can see where God has guided us and the times we were following our own particular stars and the times we made a wrong turning. I am often struck how in life we often turn to “King Herods” we think power, wealth, success or possessions are what matters in life and forget that Jesus was born in an outhouse and that his family were ordinary people, certainly not from the ruling classes.  If we do describe Jesus as a king, and we often do, we are talking about a very different kind of ruler to the despotic leaders of the world.

We hear in the Gospel that the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to King Herod but to find another way home.  Like the Wise Men this might be a good time, at the start of a New Year when we are making resolutions, to plot a better route for our own lives and look afresh and how we are following Jesus.

The three gifts that the Wise Men brought to Jesus – gold, frankincense and myrrh have been the subject of endless discussion down the centuries about what they symbolised.  But this is also a good time to reconsider our own gifts and what we bring to Jesus.

Perhaps that’s never been summed up better though that in the last verse of the poem by Christina Rosetti which is familiar to most of us as the carol In the Bleak Midwinter. Rev’d Andrea Jones 28 December 2020

Nobody knows the actual date that Jesus was born and most people don’t imagine it was the 25^th December.  Here in the Northern Hemisphere, however, the 25^th December, so close as it is to the Winter equinox,  the shortest day of the year, is a very good day to celebrate the birth of Christ.  Not just because we need a time of celebration, of feasting and alleviating the short dark depressing days although that is important and should not be easily dismissed, but because we celebrate the coming of the Jesus, the Light of the World coming to illuminate the darkness.

And it is important to remember that everybody’s lives are made up of good times and bad and that life is not like a double page spread in one of those Good Housekeeping magazine photoshoots that are featured in the December editions or a smiling, beautiful family sitting round a Christmas table on a TV advertisement – who never fall out, and whose Christmas fayre is always perfect.  Real life is much more messy than that.

And times now are difficult.  Covid has turned our world upside down leaving so many people in dire need with people losing loved ones, unable to visit members of their families in care homes and anxious about their jobs and the future. Yet it is not the only issue, across the world there is war, famine, we see people fleeing murderous regimes and making perilous journeys to try to bring their families to safer climes sometimes dying in the process.  We worry about climate change and the world our children will inherit.

But if the world seems a dark place that means we need Christmas more than ever.  Christmas is not just about fairy lights, carols singers and robins on Christmas cards.  Joseph and Mary found shelter in a stable, having been unable to find any better lodgings for the night.   Let’s not forget that they had to flee their homeland after Jesus’ birth and were refugees in Egypt.  The birth of Jesus actually led Herod to an act of great violence against children.  This story is just about as far away from the impeccable staged home photographs I referred to earlier as you can get.  All aspects of being human are in that story.

And Jesus brings hope and light to all humanity. The nearest we can get to describing just what it is like when we let Jesus into our lives is to describe it as a light shining in the darkest corners of our world.  God came into the world as a helpless vulnerable baby but he brought light and hope.

My purple stole has a lighthouse embroidered on it with shafts of light reaching out – for me that symbolises how I see Jesus in my life – constantly shining and calling me safely home, however difficult the times. Sometimes I forget to keep my eye on the lighthouse but it is always there, ready to guide me.

There is light amongst the darkness. The prophet Isaiah foretold that “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
Those who lived in a land of deep darkness- On them a light has shone” (Isaiah 9:2).  

This year, perhaps more than ever, we need to fix our gaze on Jesus, on our  lighthouse, guiding us from stormy seas safely into harbour. Rev’d Andrea Jones, Rector, 18th December 2020

I have seen on social media that this year, which most people would say has hardly been the best year ever, that people are putting their Christmas trees and decorations up early – even earlier than normal.  The argument is that we need to have something to celebrate. Now I know that over the years Christmas has started to arrive earlier and earlier.  Few of us decorate our trees on Christmas Eve – I certainly don’t I am too busy that day! In more ordinary times we sing carols throughout December and most of us have had more than one social gathering to celebrate Christmas by the time the 25^th December arrives. I also appreciate the need to say we are not defeated by this virus and we will celebrate this year whatever the restrictions but I do think that if we miss the season of Advent out altogether we lose something very precious.

For some people, my grandson included, the most notable thing about Advent is opening that little door on the calendar every day and getting a chocolate but Advent is of course much more than that.

Advent is an opportunity to prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus Christ.  It is a time of waiting but also of being ready. Our Gospel reading for Advent Sunday this year urges us to be vigilant – “Be on watch, be alert for you do not know when the time will come” (Mark 31:33).  

The weeks before Christmas are all about preparing.  It is a time of lists!  But let’s be honest a lot of those lists are about buying presents and wrapping them, ordering food and writing cards.  However, it is just as important that we prepare ourselves spiritually for the coming of Jesus.  It is important that we stay vigilant, and be alert to the numerous ways that God can speak to us in our everyday lives.

We can do that by allowing ourselves a little bit more time to pray each day (you might join us for Night Prayer on Facebook each evening, or try the Pray as You Go app).   We also hold a Zoom Compline service every Tuesday evening at 7.00 pm which during Advent will also include a time of reflection. Some people like to spend a little time each day in silence, perhaps spending a little time reflecting on the daily Bible passages given on our newssheet.  Prayer walking is another way.  I find walking the paths around our village helps me be  more aware of  God’s creation. There are numerous ways of being attentive to God, of letting God into our lives and Advent is an opportunity to find a little bit more time to do that.  It is also very refreshing amongst all the other busy preparations for the “big day”.

Marking the season of Advent in these ways is just as uplifting as putting up your Christmas tree early.  I hope you will join us and travel through this season together.

Inaugural message from The Rector, Rev’d. Andrea Jones

October

As the seasons of the Church’s year unfold they cover all aspects of our human experience.   We have times we celebrate with joy (Easter), times of saying sorry (Ash Wednesday), times of feasting like Christmas and times of abstinence like Lent.  The different services and traditions we hold and keep help us to feel closer to God.  On Ash Wednesday we mark our foreheads with ash, on Good Friday we kneel before a cross, at Christmas we sing traditional songs and welcome the new born Jesus in a service at Midnight and on Easter morning we gather at dawn in the cross in our churchyard to celebrate Jesus’ defeat of death.  These rituals are important to us. They are very important to me and have been all my life.

This year with the arrival of Covid-19 everything changed. During the holiest week of the Church’s year our church doors were locked. We could not celebrate together the Risen Christ at dawn. We could not light candles at All Souls to remember those who have died.  When our churches re-opened services we have not been able to sing and we have to follow new regulations to keep us safe.  I mourn a lot of what we cannot share at this time – not least the friendship and camaraderie of our social events and the fact we shared handshakes and hugs – touching is now denied us.

However, this stripping away of so much of what we are used to has made me realise afresh that God is with us, still with us, always with us whatever we are going through. Most of my life I have felt pretty much in control of things.  Now it can feel like things have spiralled out of control. We are anxious about the future, we face restrictions on our freedom, which even though necessary, are unprecedented in peace time.  Yet God is still with us. I once met with some Pakistani Christians who visited the Diocese of Manchester from the Diocese of Lahore. They faced terrible persecution in Pakistan as well as being at the “bottom of the heap” in the eyes of society. Yet their faith shone through and they never doubted that God was with them.  I feel I have much to learn from Christians who don’t have it as easy as I do.

And in the midst of the pandemic the Holy Spirit is at work! New creative things have happened in lockdown. Different ways of worshipping God and sharing our Good News have appeared.  Not everyone can meet on Zoom but it is a way of many of us being able to share in worship on those Sundays when churches are not allowed to open.   The clergy team who are a rather disparate lot geographically now meet not just twice a week but daily for Morning Prayer.  The Celtic Compline services which we post on Facebook are seen by many – we have even had feedback from Australia.  We’ve seen lots of new ideas about sharing and fundraising and being together.

Hello from the Rector, Reverend Andrea Jones. Hope you enjoy reading about our beautiful church. Do come and join us: we have a service every Sunday at 8.00am & 10.00am. Before attending, please ring the Church Office on 01244 534912 for an update on the ‘social distancing’ measures currently in place. We will talk again soon…