#488 Sweet especial rural scene
I had a day out this week from my regular routine of nosing through hymnbooks and surplices, and snuck my way onto the parish quiet day, where we we saw ourselves in tree and seed. I sat under oak and yew, feeling their deep roots, their solid trunks, and their branches swaying yet unbroken in the wind. And it’s always a comfort to a mouse to know that small seeds can turn into something mighty!
By the end of the day, my heart felt lighter and my whiskers calmer. Still, I won’t deny I scurried home gladly: I had a feeling the nearest oak tree might be providing some acorns for my supper…
Fr Sam writes
It has been a month of many “firsts” for me in Wokingham, and on Monday I attended my first PCC meeting here. It is a great pleasure to arrive in a parish that has so much competent organisation going on! I am enormously grateful – as I am sure everyone in the parish is – for all the work done by churchwardens, PCC members, administrator and more to build up our common life. The PCC wanted to offer particular thanks to our churchwardens for all the work they did in the vacancy.
As well as the usual consideration of finances and the regular business of the churches of our parish, we discussed the renovation of the toilets in the parish rooms and a new group for the young adults of our churches. Two wildly different aspects of our church’s work – and both essential!
This Sunday
This Sunday we hear perhaps the most confusing of all the stories Jesus told: the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16.1-9). Does Jesus advise us to be dishonest? What does he want us to do with wealth?
We also hear words from the prophecy of Amos, who was concerned particularly with justice in society and was angry at the rich of his own day for exploiting and ignoring the poor.
Services this Sunday (14th after Trinity)
8am: BCP Mass at St Paul’s (Fr Sam Tanna-Korn)
9.30am: Parish Mass at St Paul’s (Fr Sam Tanna-Korn)
Organ Prelude: Vater unser im Himmelreich – Georg Böhm
Anthem: My eyes for beauty pine – Herbert Howells
Voluntary: Praeludium in D (BuxWV 139) – Dietrich Buxtehude
10am: Morning Worship at Woosehill (Revd Cara Smart)
11am: Community Eucharist at St Nicholas’s (Fr Sam Tanna-Korn)
6.15pm: Evensong at St Paul’s
Officiant: Fr Sam Tanna-Korn
Preacher: Louise Turner, Director of Music
Organ Preludes:
Christ, der du bist der helle Tag – Ad Wammes
Te Lucis ante terminum – John Rutter
Canticles: King’s College Service – Joanna Forbes L’Estrange
Anthem: My eyes for beauty pine – Herbert Howells
Organ Voluntary: Fiducie – Ad Wammes
Ride ‘n’ Stride
Saturday 13th September was Ride & Stride Day, to raise money for Berkshire Historic Churches Trust, and for St Paul’s. Nigel and I both cycled around to a lot of the churches in the Wokingham area to support this charity.
If you have yet to pass over your promised cash or electronic money to us, Nigel and I will again be at the back of the church after the 9.30 service this week to collect any sponsorship money as cash. If you don’t use cash, you can pay by BACS directly to the church account:
Account Name: PCC St Pauls; Sort Code: 20-11-74; Account Number: 80683752; with the reference of “Ride n Stride”.
If you would like to support this and missed us before, you can still give some money and sign one of our sponsorship forms!
Andrew
This week’s calendar: the tax-collector evangelist
This week’s major celebration is the feast day of St Matthew the Evangelist. He was a tax-collector, and therefore was seen (probably accurately) as a cheat, a liar, and a collaborator with the occupying Romans. And yet Jesus saw him and called him from his sinful life to be his disciple. Tradition holds that he was then the writer of the gospel that bears his name, and took the good news of Jesus into Africa, before he was martyred in Ethiopia.
He is one of the best examples of a central Christian claim: no one is beyond the redeeming work of Christ. No matter our background or what has gone before, Christ calls us to do his work in the world.
