NEWSLETTER
–
MARCH 2008
WOMEN’S
WORLD DAY OF PRAYER
This
year’s date is
Friday 7 March,
and the local service is at St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney, at
2pm. Material has been produced by women from Guyana, on the theme
‘God’s Wisdom Provides New
Understanding’. You’re asked to
bring cakes for a shared afternoon tea following the service. Men and
children are also welcome!
NOTHING
TOO STRENUOUS…..
….but
all active hands are needed for a couple of hours on Saturday 8
March. The challenge is to ‘de-clutter’ our
premises and tidy
them up. We no longer have the luxury of lots of storage space so
that we never need to get rid of anything; we need to be ruthless so
that we can put all available space to better use. We start at
10.30am, and will finish with a simple shared lunch at 1.30pm. Please
come and help – there will be plenty to do, and it should be
a
satisfying process!
HOLY
WEEK & EASTER
In
1961 Father Joe
Williamson, the
controversial vicar of St Paul Dock Street, preached at St
Paul’s
Cathedral. (In those days St Paul’s was a separate parish,
with a
long history of animosity towards St George’s; some bodies
may have
turned in their graves when the parishes were united ten years later,
and in the process we ‘acquired’ St
Paul’s School, a link which
we value enormously – see below.) Fr Joe had more or less
invited
himself to preach: it was to be a great set piece, speaking out about
the evils of homelessness and prostitution, and the work at Church
House, Wellclose Square (now owned by the diocese, and recently taken
over by squatters). He took a fortnight off to prepare it. He
was petrified at the
prospect of preaching it, and of coping with the media attention he
hoped would follow.
The
Dean was kindness itself:
‘speak
for as long as you need’, he said – dangerous
advice given the
length of what he had prepared and the fact that another service
followed. The Archdeacon was chilly, since Fr Joe was critical of the
bishops. The media certainly went to town, with a press conference
that day and a string of stories in the coming week. When you current
Rector preaches at St Paul’s Cathedral in May (not, I hasten
to
add, at my own invitation) I do not expect similar
treatment….
Our archives have picture
of Fr Joe,
in flamboyant style, leading the Good Friday ‘Way of the
Cross’
down Cable Street, kneeling in the gutter of a thoroughfare that had
become world-famous as a result of the race riots 30 years earlier,
and in his time had been taken over by a bewildering variety of
African and European all-night cafés, knocking shops, robber
landlords and drug dealers. In those days, Cable Street was indeed a
‘Via Dolorosa’, giving an authentic local context
to the keeping
of Holy Week. What is the local context now, half a century later, in
a much-changed parish? Where does the way of the cross take us today?
In the 4th century, Bishop
Cyril of
Jerusalem had the brilliant idea of using the whole of the city of
Jerusalem (then as now a compromised and divided city, which a Muslim
scholar once memorably termed ‘the City of Wrong’)
as the theatre
or arena for proclaiming the passion and resurrection of Christ,
using what they believed were the ‘actual’ sites.
We know about
this from a Spanish pilgrim, whose name is uncertain but is usually
known as Egeria, and who wrote enthusiastic postcards back home about
all that she saw and took part in. The crowd moved around the
city; in the
appropriate places, they groaned and hissed when the story of the
traitor Judas was told, they wept in the garden, they followed the
way of Jesus through the streets to Calvary. It was a strenuous week
that made a powerful impact. Each day the bishop sent them home to
rest in readiness for the next day’s instalment.
In
this way the tradition of Holy Week developed, and Christian
communities around the world ‘create their own
Jerusalem’, from
Palm Sunday to Easter Day – in city centres, suburbs and
villages.
Moving between churches, sharing worship across the traditions and
bearing witness to the community are appropriate ways of marking
these days. So we shall begin on Palm Sunday, gathering in the
courtyard with palm leaves and processing into church, where we shall
turn our leaves into crosses and share in a congregational reading of
the passion gospel. For the latter part of the week, we will share
services with St Mary’s, meeting there on Maundy Thursday to
mark
the institution of the Eucharist and keeping watch as we remember how
Jesus left the intimacy of the table for the darkness of betrayal and
the agony of the garden. St Mary’s will join us at St
George’s on
Easter Eve at 8pm, for the great and
dramatic Vigil
service, which includes the lighting of new fire, the renewal of
baptismal vows and the first communion of Easter. There will also be
a joyful Eucharist on Easter morning, at 10.15am.
On Good Friday, all the
local churches
join together for the Walk of Witness, for which the (approximate)
timetable is:
11am St Anne
Limehouse + 11.15am
Our Lady Immaculate + 11.30am Departure + 11.45am Royal Foundation of
St Katharine + 12 noon St Dunstan & All Saints + 12.15pm St
Mary
& St Michael, Commercial Road + 12.30pm Watney Street Market,
followed by refreshments at Percy Ingles. The cross is carried
between each stop, at which there will be a reading, prayers and a
song or hymn.
Join us for
all or part!
Our own
service on Good Friday – a stark and moving service, lasting
about
an hour and a quarter, is at 2pm. We hope that some will be able to
stay afterwards to help clean and prepare the church for Easter.
Marking
Holy Week as fully as you can – attending the services, or
making
time for reflection where this is not possible – is vital if
you
are to know the true cost, and joy, of Christ’s Easter
victory. In
the words of an old saying, ‘no cross, no crown’.
WORKSHOPS
IN SCHOOL
Because of the
exceptionally early
date of Easter, most schools are still in session during Holy Week
and Easter Week. With this in mind, the diocese has supplied resource
boxes for parishes and schools to help share the message of Easter.
St Paul’s School will be using this material for a series of
workshops, and an act of worship, on the afternoon of Maundy
Thursday, and coming into church on Easter Tuesday. We shall also be
distributing palm crosses to all pupils who wish to receive one.
ELECTORAL
ROLL REVISION
In
preparation for our Annual Parochial Church Meeting on 27 April, the
Church Electoral Roll will be revised, in accordance with the rules.
Any who wish their names to be added to the roll, or whose addresses
or personal details have changed, should complete a form (available
at church, or from Wendy Ramanoop, our Electoral Roll Officer) before
30 March. This is when the roll will close for revision; the revised
version will then be published for checking. It is important that
everyone who regards St George’s as their church should be on
the
roll – it gives you rights and responsibilities, and is a
measure
of the health of the church.
INTERFAITH
OPPORTUNITIES
One
of the targets of our parish Mission Action Plan is to develop our
links with those of other faiths and cultures in the local community,
and we are working on ways of addressing this. On Saturday 1 March we
are invited to a Tea Gathering at the Darul Ummah Centre, 56 Bigland
Street, from 6.15pm to 7.30pm, and I hope a number of our members
will join me there, to meet and exchange views with people from the
local community and find out more about the Centre’s work.
Muslim
concern about environmental issues is a fairly new development, and a
group called LINE (London Islamic Network for the Environment) holds
a monthly Sunday afternoon forum, with speakers from various faiths.
Their website www.lineonweb.org.uk
tells you more.
The
Sottyen Sen School of Performing Arts have been using space in our
church for their rehearsals for several weeks now, having outgrown
their previous meeting place. We are delighted to host them, and they
are delighted to have this link with us. They are passionate about
preserving and sharing their rich cultural traditions – song,
dance
and drama – and perform regularly around the borough and
further
afield. Why not look in one Saturday (11am – 3.30pm) for a
chat and
a cup of tea, and help us build this link?
TWO
MUSICAL EVENTS FOR PASSIONTIDE AT ALL SAINTS POPLAR
On Saturday 8 March you can
join in a
‘come and sing’ performance of Stainer’s
Crucifixion:
note-bashing at 2pm, full rehearsal (obligatory) 4pm with tea at 6pm
and the performance at 7pm. Or turn up to listen –
it’s free! The following Saturday, 15 March, the London
Docklands Singers,
accompanied by the Marcel Sinfonia, will be performing Bach's St John
Passion at 7.30pm. Tickets for this are £10 (with
concessions).
JUBILEE
CAMPAIGN
The speaker at one of our
Lenten
sessions was Wifred Wong, a university friend of our Treasurer
Richard Powell. Wilfred now works full-time for the Jubilee Campaign,
monitoring and campaigning for persecuted Christians around the
world, and he gave a very challenging talk, detailing the situation
around the world. In addition to persecution by governments of
various political flavours, there is also much persecution in
countries (such as Nigeria and Pakistan) whose constitutions claim to
guarantee religious freedom, but where the authorities turn a blind
eye to violence, intimidation and forced conversion by
fellow-citizens. If you would like to know more, and be put in touch
with the Jubilee Campaign to receive their bi-monthly newsletter,
please speak to the Rector.
