November Church News
November Church News
Greetings from the congregation at St. Mary’s to the wider community of Wenvoe and St. Lythan’s. If you are unable to come to church at 9.30 am on Sunday, please join us online at ipcamlive.com/stmarywenvoe
November is a month of remembering, beginning with All Souls Day on 1st November when the names of passed relatives and friends are solemnly called out in church in an Act of Remembrance of the Faithful Departed followed by the National Remembrance of those in our armed services and civilians killed in the two world wars on November 8th. Details of our services below.
Many of you will have wondered at the letters TSSF after Vicar Lyndon’s email address. You can read all about it below with Lyndon’s contribution to the Church News.
Harvest & 800th Anniversary of Feast of St Francis of Assisi by The Rev. Lyndon Hutchison-Hounsell TSSF
The feast of Saint Francis from the town of Assisi in Italy was on the 4th October, and this year was the 800th anniversary of death of Francis on that day. I am a third Order Franciscan. That’s what the letters TSSF behind my name mean. Francis called all people in the church of his day to refocus on those things that are truly important, to respect the dignity of all human beings and to be good stewards of the earth. He called for a rebalancing of the theological understanding of the physical and the spiritual, of creation and the Creator. And, in this rebalancing, his hope was for all people to find a deeper respect for all that God has created, and to experience creation as infused with the Divine, to recognise the whole of creation as sacred and to be respected.
Francis, who was the son of a rich merchant, abandoned his privileged lifestyle and humbled himself with the poor and the outcast. He even spent time working in the local leper colony. Francis called himself God’s Fool, God’s Jester, the one who was foolish and humble enough to reflect the reality of injustice in his day back at the people in authority.
At this time of year, we give thanks for the harvest. But this year we do so with some lament over the dry summer that we have had; the drought that reduced the yields of crops; the drought that caused some farmers to use up to two months of their winter feed for their livestock because the grass did not grow. What will they feed them in the winter? We are so grateful for the work of our farmers who provide the food we eat. We lament the hardship that some farmers will have to endure. We hope and we pray that they will not lose their farms. Hopefully, enough support will be provided. We need our farmers to produce our food.
Francis of Assisi called us to care for all people and all living creatures and the whole Earth. We are reminded to live in balance in a sustainable way. We have seen the devastation caused by the increasing temperatures, the wildfires and the floods and the melting glaciers. How in the world do we respond?
There are many small things we can do to make a big difference. Many of our neighbours have focused on species decline by intentionally planting a garden on their land that helps to foster the growth of bees and butterflies.
In the hymn written by Francis of Assisi, a hymn praising the Sun and Moon, and the four scientific elements of his day, Earth, Air, Fire and Water; Francis transforms our thinking about our relationship with the earth. Francis teaches us that the whole universe and all the creatures on Earth are our brothers, our sisters, our siblings on whom we depend for food and health. We are all interdependent, which hopefully reminds us to give thanks and to love and care for the whole of creation. so let us commit to being the good stewards of that which we have been given as humans co-existing with all other living things.
Thanks be to the Creator, Our God.
All Souls Commemoration of the Faithful Departed at 2.00 pm November 1st at St. Mary’s. Many names have already been submitted to Vicar Lyndon and there is still time to get names included. Phone Vicar Lyndon on 029 2280 6018. You do not have to be part of our church family. This is open to all in the community.
Remembrance Sunday 8th November: Please join us for Remembrance Services. At St. Lythan’s – this will be at 8.30am with Eucharist. In Wenvoe, the Community Remembrance service will be at 10.00am followed by the procession to the Village War Memorial. A collection will be taken and shared with the Royal British Legion who take such great care of those left injured in war. Many thanks are given to those who sponsored the large poppies on the lamp posts throughout the village.
Church Sponsored Events During the Month: The Chattery met on 8th October with a good number of friends catching up on family/local news. The Wenvoe Quiz Night was a resounding success with £437.00 raised to buy new chairs for use in the Church Hall.
Our harvest celebration services ended with a gathering at St. Bleiddian’s Church at St. Lythans, where the church was decorated with a splendid array of the fruits and vegetables of the fields. Thanks to the dedicated band of people who clean the church and arrange things for the service to take place, as well as providing the light refreshments.
By the time you are reading this the clocks will have ‘gone back’ and the darker evenings are with us once again. Here is a prayer for the Advent Season.
Eternal God,
as the days shorten
and the evenings draw swiftly in
we light a candle
to enlighten our minds
and stir our hearts
so that he of whom the prophets spoke
may find us watching and waiting to welcome him,
the Light of the world,
for he is Lord forever and ever. Amen.
Parry