On Wednesday April 11 at 3pm there is to be a service of the Stations of the Cross followed by building the Easter Garden. While this is aimed at school children, we guess adults would be welcome. There is to be a special Passover meal in the Church Centre that evening - click here for full details.

There will be visiting Presidents at the Eucharists on Sunday April 22. Evening Prayer that day will be said at 6.30pm Keep an eye on the weekly notice-sheets in church for full details.

During the period covered by this magazine there will be Choral Eucharists on the evening of Monday April 23 (St George's Day) and Thursday May 24 (Ascension Day), both beginning at 7.30 pm.

The Ascension Day Eucharist will be followed by the first meeting of the new PCC, which is normally fairly brief and consists largely of appointments to committees and election of officers. In addition on Monday May 14 (St Matthias) the Eucharist will be celebrated at 9.30am.

We hope to be able to keep St Mary’s open between 3.00pm and 5.00pm on most Sundays throughout this summer, unless there is something else going on; and also once more to advertise the fact that, thanks to the presence of people dusting or flower-arranging, it is also normally open on Wednesday and Saturday mornings all the year round. There will be a list in church for people to sign up for those Sunday afternoons when you might be available to help out - or please have a word with Margaret Freeman. The church will also be open all day on Bank Holidays during the summer, as usual - three of which are in the period covered by this magazine. On these days we shall be open from 11.00am until 5.00pm.

Christian Aid Week starts on Sunday May 13. The usual army of distributors and helpers will be needed so let Eileen England know you can help before she comes looking for you!

Congratulations to the ringers for organising the splendid “Pub Games” evening on March 17. Everyone seemed to have a splendid time reliving their youth, playing games they hadn’t seen for years. A useful £436 was raised towards the fund for the refurbishment of the bells. We understand the fund is nearing its first milestone of £10,000 already. Well done, everybody - only nine more milestones to go!

Easter preparations

On Sunday April 8 we begin Holy Week - the annual celebration of the events of Jesus’s death and resurrection. As those events are at the heart of our faith, the services that mark them are uniquely important in the Church’s year, and substantially different from our regular celebrations. If you haven’t been to any of them before, why not make this the year when you try to come to them all? The atmosphere of prayer, as it builds through the week, becomes very powerful and very personal. Leaflets giving full details of all the services in Holy Week are available in church.

The week begins with the 9.30 Eucharist on Palm Sunday. We assemble in the Church Centre to hear the Gospel reading of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. Our palm crosses are blessed, and we sing appropriate hymns as we walk in procession out of the Centre, around by the churchyard wall, through the lych-gate and into church. Then the whole narrative of Jesus’s arrest, trial, death and burial is read, with members of the congregation reading the words of individuals as the story develops.

An experiment for Holy Week

All those of us who came on the parish pilgrimage to Israel five years ago agreed that one of the real highlights of the trip was the opportunity we had of sharing in a Passover meal. This took place at the Biblical Resources Scripture Garden at Tantur, just outside Bethlehem. As well as providing an unusual and very vivid insight into one of the key festivals of Judaism, today just as much as in Jesus’s time, this helped us all see and understand how the Eucharist has grown out of the Passover meal itself. We viewed the familiar readings about Jesus and the disciples on Maundy Thursday night in a completely new light, and I’m sure that whenever we have celebrated Maundy Thursday in church over the years since, the meal at Tantur has been well to the fore in many of our minds. It incidentally also provided us that day with a wonderful lunch, as we grappled with our lamb stew eaten with pitta bread, our bitter herbs dipped in salt water, our homemade fruit puree and our four glasses of wine . . .

Ever since, Cassie and I have been saying how much we wanted to try the experiment of a similar Passover meal at St Mary’s, in the hope that many people might be interested in discovering the roots of our Eucharist and the meaning of one of the many layers of symbolism behind what we do week by week. Obviously Holy Week provides the best opportunity to do this, so that we can have the memory of Passover fresh in our minds as we share in the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday night.

So this year you are warmly invited to join us for Passover supper on the evening of the Wednesday in Holy Week, April 11, at 7.30 pm in the Church Centre. I am greatly indebted to Revd Tim Jeffreys, of St George’s, Waddon, who has done this frequently with that congregation, for some practical suggestions about how the evening should be arranged. What we hope to do is this:

The Centre will be laid out with our normal tables, arranged around three sides of a square as they would have been in Jesus’s time. We shall keep as near as possible to the outline of a modern Passover meal. It will begin with readings from Exodus, telling parts of the original Passover story, interspersed with the traditional questions and answers as to the meaning and symbolism of this night. There will be a ‘service-leaflet’ giving all the words everyone needs, and we hope that the questions can be asked, and answers given, by a man, a woman, a child, as traditional and appropriate. As the meal progresses the necessary elements of food and drink will be produced, explained and shared; there will also be the opportunity to sing one or two well-known hymns as the ‘commentary’ on what we are doing, plus some readings from the New Testament to keep us in touch with Jesus and his disciples as they kept Passover together.

The second of three elements of the evening will be the opportunity to share in a real meal together, and there will soon be the inevitable lists in church to sign up - both to say if you would like to come, and to indicate what you might come with, so that we can enjoy a ‘bring and share’ supper together. The simpler the food, and the nearer to the ideal of lamb stew, fruit and pitta bread, the better. It does not hurt to remember that Passover is a time of huge rejoicing and conviviality, as well as the solemn memorial of God’s tremendous acts for his people in the past!

Finally - just as we are around the tables, once some of the dishes have been cleared away, we shall join in a simple celebration of the Eucharist together, using some of the bread we have been eating, and the wine we have been drinking, to provide the gifts which will be taken, blessed, broken and shared. This should be one of the most powerful moments of the evening - it is not often we have the ability to recognise how it must have felt when Jesus took the ordinary constituents of the Passover meal and for the first time gave them a new meaning for his disciples then and now.

We will make as much use as possible of side lighting and candles - the lighting in the Centre not being particularly atmospheric! Finally, in order to arrange the tables as described above, and to retain the right atmosphere for the occasion, we feel that we might need to limit numbers to about 45 people. For this reason, as well as the practicalities of catering, please sign up as soon as possible on the list under the tower. We look forward to welcoming you to what we hope will be a very special part of our Holy Week celebrations.

Humility and service

By Maundy Thursday (April 12) the events of the week have led us to the Last Supper with Jesus and his disciples, during which he washed their feet as a practical example of humility and service, and instituted the Eucharist as the means by which we remember him day by day. The Sung Eucharist at 8.00pm therefore includes readings which tell of both those actions, and there will be a list under the tower for you to add your name if you would like to be one of the 12 having their feet washed in a memorial of this event

At the end of the Thursday Eucharist we commemorate Jesus’s time in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed for strength to face the agony that would await him next day, and his disciples first of all fell asleep waiting and watching with him, then ran away and left him alone in the hands of those who came to arrest him. We mark his abandonment by formally stripping the altar and the sanctuary of all the Lenten hangings at the end of this service, leaving it stark, bare and disfigured - and while this is being done we read Psalm 22, the cry of loneliness and desperation which Jesus himself quoted on the cross.

Those who wish to do so then move into the Carew Chapel to begin “watching” with Jesus in the garden. A continuous vigil of silent prayer is kept up from the end of the evening’s Eucharist until the start of the Friday afternoon service. There will be another list under the tower, dividing this time into half-hour sections. Please indicate when you will be “on watch” by initials or a simple tick. And most important - don’t feel you have to come alone, especially if you are going to be there in the early hours of Friday morning. It is a wonderful thing to do with another person, or with a small group of friends, or even as a family.

On Good Friday Churches Together has organised the usual Procession of Witness through Wallington at lunchtime. We start at 12.15pm, and details of the route will be announced as soon as they are to hand. The event will end by 1.30pm, allowing people to be in church in ample time before 2.00pm. The walk is led by someone carrying a large cross, and we stop at various places along the route for readings, prayers and hymns.

Our own afternoon service will begin at 2.00pm. There will be about an hour’s meditation, including anthems sung by the choir, congregational hymns, the familiar Passion readings from Isaiah, Hebrews and St John’s Gospel, intercessions at the foot of the stark wooden cross and plenty of time for silence and reflection. It is an opportunity to focus on the reality of Jesus’s death and to thank God for his love, even at this most difficult and painful time of the year.

Finally our celebration of Easter begins with the Paschal Vigil at 6.00am on Easter Sunday morning. This service has its roots in what the earliest Christians did in the early hours of every Sunday morning. We proclaim Christ as risen by the kindling of new fire and the lighting of the new Paschal Candle, and our own rising to life with him in Baptism forms the theme of the rest of the service.

We read the Old Testament narratives of the creation, the flood, and the crossing of the Red Sea - occasions when through water the great power of God has been shown - and make the link with the water of Baptism when we were washed into new life by our membership of the church. Accordingly we take the best opportunity there is to renew our own Baptismal promises, and are sprinkled (depending on the Rector’s aim) with water from the font. The symbolism of Christ rising from the darkness of sin and death is reinforced as the world around us itself comes back to light and life at the start of a new day.

As I said, if you’ve never been before, please try to make this the year in which you come to these special events and services; and if you have, then you will look forward to having your own faith tested and renewed once again as we walk with Jesus through this Holy Week.

* * *

On Sunday 1 April (Lent 5) at 6.30pm, instead of Evensong, the choir will present the well-known Passiontide cantata The Crucifixion by Sir John Stainer. Andrew Wilson will play the organ, and Sam Hudson will conduct; the tenor and bass soloists will be Stephen Brown - well known to St Mary’s congregation as a member of Chimes Musical Theatre - and Simon Pearce, Director of Music at St Margaret’s, Addiscombe.

There will be refreshments afterwards in the Church Centre, in payment for which donations can be made on the night towards the Bishop’s Lent Call; there will also be a general retiring collection in aid of church funds, specifically this year’s Shopping List. As well as being a suitable act of worship for this time of year, this promises to be an hour of glorious music. Please invite all your friends to come!

Selwyn Tillett

APCM ahead

If you would like to take part in the elections during the Annual Parochial Church Meeting on Tuesday April 3, but are not able to attend the meeting itself, then you can apply beforehand for a postal vote. Application forms are now available, and the whole system was described in the March magazine. Your voting paper must be returned to The Rectory between April 10 and 17; all the votes will be counted on Monday the 23rd, and the results given in church on Sunday the 29th.

That gives plenty of time for the new Churchwardens and PCC members to attend the Archdeacon’s Visitation and Swearing-In at Christ Church, Sutton, at 8.00pm on Wednesday May 16.

USPG news

Long but probably essential notice! USPG (The United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) is one of the organisations to whose work St Mary’s makes a regular annual contribution. Having stood at £750 for several years, the Finance Committee has been glad to increase this to £1,000 this year, which represents our major charitable giving to the missionary work of the church.

USPG celebrates its 300th birthday in June this year, and participating parishes like our own have been asked to mark this with a special act of worship and thanksgiving. Our celebration will coincide with the Guides’ and Brownies’ next visit to join in our worship - that is, at the 9.30am Eucharist on Sunday June 10. We are arranging to have a speaker from USPG with us at that service to talk to the largest possible audience about their continuing work.

That Sunday is also Trinity Sunday, but displacing the Trinity (ever so slightly) causes the least disruption to the pattern of our other Sundays that month - June being complicated this year, as you will see from the table of Sunday Readings elsewhere in the magazine. Accordingly, as well as celebrating the Trinity at the 8.00am Eucharist on Sunday the 10, there will be an additional Sung Eucharist for the Trinity on the Saturday evening, June 9, at 7.30pm. So no-one with a particular devotion to the Trinity need feel done out of the opportunity to “keep” them in style with suitable words and music!

PCC notes

A report from the Churchyard Committee to the PCC on Tuesday March 6 - the final meeting of the current parochial year - indicated that the re-siting of the standard lamp could go ahead without the need of a faculty. It is hoped that before too long the lamp will be illuminating the path, not the tree branches! Clear direction signs to the Church Centre, and resurfacing the paths, will take a little longer. However, following advice regarding suitable materials, etc, these two projects can be moved on a stage further.

For some time the PCC has been considering designs for a votive candle stand, and its most appropriate location. The one now beside the lectern is “on approval”, but more designs are being sought before a decision is made.

Concern has long been felt about the parking problems in Church Road - the double yellow lines being a particular headache. It was good to learn, therefore, that the borough’s parking policy is being reviewed, and St Mary’s will be making representations to the appropriate quarter. There is also the prospect of parking bays, including one for disabled parking, being placed in Church Road. Although not specifically designated for St Mary’s, these places could alleviate the pressure in Church Road.

Finally, looking ahead to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting on April 3, the PCC put the final touches to its annual report and approved the treasurer’s financial statement, both of which will be presented at that meeting. Members expressed their gratitude to Cassie Tillett for the amount of work she had put into the preparation of the accounts, and for their very clear presentation.

Diana Harries, Secretary to the PCC

Take a deep breath

April 22 will be the 20th anniversary of the London Marathon, and I am privileged to take part on behalf of the National Asthma Campaign.

My training for the 26.2-mile (42km) spectacle is progressing although some niggling “mileAGE” injuries are plaguing my efforts. This, however, I try to put into perspective as at least this is of my choosing and my lungs are coping unaided, unlike those who suffer with asthma.

We all know people with the tell-tale inhalers, many of them friends and family, and the numbers are increasing, at about 3,000 new cases each year. Some 3.4 million people, 1.5 million of whom are children, already have asthma or are affected by it.

I am one of the 700 “Gold Bond” runners each hoping to raise £1,000 towards the vital research needed to help our next generation of children, but appreciate the efforts, pressures and obligations already on us, what with the many fundraising events currently on TV and such worthy causes as St. Mary’s tower and bells.

Please spare a thought for those whose breathing needs medical stimulus at best and at worst, hospitalisation and death for around 1,500 people each year, when I wave my sponsorship form over the coming weeks after service on Sunday mornings.

Will Shoults

(National Asthma Campaign Place No. 17291)

Something to celebrate for MU

This year the Mothers’ Union celebrates its 125th birthday and it now seems a good time to reflect on all that has been achieved during that time.

Mary Sumner (neé Heywood) was born in 1828 at Swinton, near Manchester. Her father was a scholar and a banker while her mother’s family owned land in two counties. Mary grew up in the beautiful surroundings of Hope End, in Herefordshire and was educated at home. She spoke three foreign languages and became a very accomplished singer. Yet, what she valued most when she reminisced about her family home was its Christian atmosphere. Daily scripture and prayer formed the basis of lives lived in service to others.

While completing her musical education in Rome she met George Sumner, the youngest son of Charles, Bishop of Winchester. They married in July 1848 at St James, Colwall, and so began 61 years of life together.

For the first 30 or so years Mary was fully occupied bringing up her three children and supporting her husband’s ministry of Old Alresford, near Winchester. In 1876, however, she decided that a new organisation for the young women of the parish was necessary - this when already a grandmother herself! She was spurred into action when her eldest daughter gave birth to her first baby and she well remembered her own feelings of inadequacy when charged with the awesome responsibility of a new life. She believed that the primary need for mothers was to raise their children in the love of God and this could only happen if their lives were rooted in prayer, and women from all classes needed to understand that motherhood was a profession for which they needed to be well equipped and that there was more to it than simply providing for the physical needs of their offspring.

Mary’s first meeting of what was to become the Mothers’ Union was a disaster! She fell prey to an acute attack of nerves and had to postpone the whole thing until a week later. Thus was the first MU branch formed.

Then in 1885 Bishop Ernest Wilberforce of Newcastle was called upon to address a women’s meeting made up of poor and anxious folk. Feeling suddenly that he had little of relevance to say to such a gathering he asked Mary Sumner to speak in his stead. This she agreed to do, and so it was that at Portsmouth Church Congress Mary made her first “public appearance”. She painted a picture of low moral standards in the country and passionately asserted that the power for change lay in the hands of mothers - if women would be united in prayer and committed themselves to a Christian life, the nation would be transformed.

The meeting responded to her passion and conviction with a rousing ovation and it was on this wave of public enthusiasm that the Bishop of Winchester decided to make the Mothers’ Union a diocesan organisation.

By 1892 the MU was active in 28 diocese in all aparts of the British Isles and membership stood at 60,000. By 1900 this had increased to 169,000 and in 1893 diocesan presidents began to meet annually in London. In 1896 a Central Council was formed and a central constitution agreed and the vision that lay behind the MU was emphatically endorsed when Mary was elected the first Central President that same year. In the following year the greatest seal of approval was given when Queen Victoria became Royal Patron.

In 1888 the MU was started in London, Ontario, and in 1889 in Secunderabad, India. In 1897 it was decreed that Lady Day, March 25, should be observed annually as a day of thanksgiving. In 1900 the first MU service was held in St Paul’s Cathedral and branches were formed in Hong Kong and Madagascar. In 1909 Mary Sumner resigned as Central President and in 1917 8, Deans Yard was rented as the first Mary Sumner House. In 1923 the foundation stone was laid for Mary Sumner House on its present site in Tufton Street, Westminster. The building was paid for entirely by members and was officially opened in 1925. In 1926 the MU was granted a Royal Charter. In 1930 the first World-Wide Conference was held and in 1936 the Diamond Jubilee Fund was launched, the proceeds to be used for the expansion of work overseas.

Importantly, in 1952 evidence was given to a Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce and in 1969 (17 years later) there came the Divorce Reform Act and divorced women were admitted to the MU.

I have omitted many dates of some note because I believe a string of dates can become tedious, but in 1994 the new units of Action and Outreach, Finance and Central Services, Marketing, and Prayer and Spirituality were formed. These four units today form the core of MU work, feeding down from a central head of each one through to diocesan, deanery and branch level. The new constitution was decided in 1995 and now in this first year of the 21st century we have members from outside the UK serving on the Central Board of Trustees.

Mary Sumner could not possibly have imagined the MU of today. The incredible growth and development of the MU has been driven by our will to address a need where it is found, and one million members in 60 countries share a commitment to Christian family life.

In June the Queen will be at a service in Westminster Abbey to give thanks for the past 125 years. It is my sincere hope that the MU will move on in the years ahead to even greater achievements, still supporting family life and giving help where it is needed so badly.

I am proud to be a member!

Mary Tapp

Some thoughts about May

The month of May is probably named after Maia, the Roman goddess of growth and increase. It is called Mios Bochuin in Gaelic and means “the month of swelling” and in Anglo Saxon it is Thrimilci, the month when cows give milk three times a day.

May is generally considered to be the blossom of the hawthorn, though it is sometimes used as a term for any seasonal flowering greenery.

May 1 (May Day) was known as Beltane, the Celtic festival of summer’s beginning.

“Button to chin till May be in,

Cast not a clout till May be out”

says the old rhyme. The second line can be taken in two ways, either don’t shed your clothing till June, or it’s safe to do so when the may comes out, i.e., when the hawthorn blossoms.

May 8 is “Furry Day”, or Floral Dance Day, at Helston in Cornwall and May 12 is St Pancras’s Day. He was a Roman boy martyred at the age of 14 and is a patron saint of children and is invoked against headaches. (Is there a connection?)

May 29 is Oak Apple Day, the anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II. He entered London in triumph on May 29, 1660, which was also his birthday. The oak leaves and oak apples traditionally worn on this day commemorate his miraculous escape after his defeat at Worcester in 1651, when he hid from Parliamentarians in an oak tree.

Ascension Day and Rogationtide are nearly always celebrated in May. Rogation days were the three days preceding the Ascension, when priests and people processed round the fields asking God’s blessing on the crops.

It was a favourite season for “Beating the Bounds” of parishes. During these processions, local boys were beaten over the parish boundary markers until milder convention decreed the markers, rather than the boys, should be beaten! For the adults, however, these “Rogation Gangings” were festive events, enlivened by “much perambulation, beer and picnic feasting”. (Sounds like the bellringers outing! - Ed.)

May seems to be the month of Changelings. These were supposed to be fairy children substituted for mortal children (cf. Strephon in Iolanthe). Very well-behaved, obedient children were often regarded suspiciously as being changelings. (No worries with my two!)

Because the May skies are open to receive Christ at His Ascension, it was believed that any rain that fell came straight from heaven and had special properties. So water from holy wells was considered specially blessed and Well-dressing ceremonies became popular.

Around May 21 are the Frankin days. According to a Devon legend, the sharp frosts which can occur at this time are the revenge of Frankin, a beer brewer put out of business by competition from cider. He vowed his soul to the Devil in return for three frosts around the 21st, hoping they would kill the apple blossom and ruin the cider crop.

Elderflower comes into bloom - but beware; the flowers and berries are good for remedies and wine but avoid using elderwood for any purpose at all. It is believed to be a useless and dangerous timber. Judas hanged himself on a elder tree and some say Christ’s cross was made from elder. Since then, it is said, the tree has been cursed with a foul smell and bent, fragile branches. Elderwood cradles cause children to sicken or die and even if the smallest quantity of elder is burned in the fire, the Devil will sit on your chimney. You have been warned!

Jean Kimber

From the registers

Baptisms

Feb 11 Heather Marie Holloway, 44 Guy Road

Alex Thomas Harry Flaherty, 19 Weihurst Court, Carshalton Road, Sutton

(By permission of the priest-in-charge of St Barnabas, Sutton)

Mason Ellis Seagrott, 14 Northway

Wedding

Feb 3 Lee Simons and Claire Pechkaytis, 36 Wandle Rd

Thinking of you

The Editor and his wife will be celebrating Easter some eight hours earlier than the folk in Beddington as we will be in Perth, Western Australia, with a party of bellringers from Surrey. (Actually we’re in desperate search of sunshine and warmth.)

From there we fly via Alice Springs to Cairns in Queensland for some snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and perhaps a meander through tropical rain forests while the rest of the party tastes the delights of Adelaide. Then it’s back on the airplane and on to Sydney to join the rest of the party for an international ringing competition. It’s not quite clear how “international” this is going to be as the only other team to have declared so far is from Australia! Now we know how the Test team feels.

Then it’s a long drive to Melbourne, though with spells of ringing on the way. On the way home Hong Kong beckons, so we’ll spend a couple of days there. See you mid-May when perhaps spring will have arrived.

WHAT’S ON THIS MONTH? - April

Sun	1	LENT 5
		Stainer’s Crucifixion	6.30pm
Tue	3	Parents and Toddlers meet in Church	10.00am
		Annual Parochial Church Meeting. Church Centre	8.00pm
Wed	4	St Mary’s Guild: Pam Vernon will speak about her adventures in Antarctica. St Mary’s Court	2.30pm
		Churches Together Lent meeting, St Elphege’s	8.00pm
Thu	5	MU&OG: Motoring and Motorcycling in the 1920s and 1930s. A talk by Roy Buchanan. Centre	8.00pm
Fri	6	Sherwood Park School Easter service	10.30am
		Women’s World Day of Prayer Coffee Morning. Beddington Gardens Methodist Church	10.00am-noon
		Last Lent lunch at the Rectory	12.45pm
Sun	8	PALM SUNDAY
		Procession of Palms and Sung Eucharist	9.30am
Mon	9	Eucharist	7.30pm
Tue	10	Eucharist and Stations of the Cross	7.30pm
Wed	11	Stations of the Cross and building the Easter Garden	3.00pm
		Passover Meal and Eucharist	7.30pm
Thu	12	MAUNDY THURSDAY
		Sung Eucharist of the Last Supper	8.00pm
Fri	13	GOOD FRIDAY
		“Walk of Witness” through Wallington	12.15pm
		Liturgy of the Day	2.00pm
Sun	15	EASTER DAY
		Paschal Vigil	6.00am
Mon	16	Bank Holiday - Church Open Day	11.00am-5.00pm
Wed	18	St Elphege’s Patronal Mass	8.00pm
Thu	19	MU&OG: Celebration of the MU’s 125th anniversary. Church Centre	8.00pm
Sun	22	EASTER 2
		Said Evening Prayer	6.30pm
Mon	23	St George: Sung Eucharist	7.30pm
Sun	29	EASTER 3

Daily prayer topics in April

SUN 1 Remember Christ’s suffering for our sakes

Mon 2 The children of refugees and all who lose their own homes

Tue 3 Our Annual Parochial Church Meeting, happening tonight

Wed 4 The last Lent Group meeting at St Elphege’s

Thu 5 Health clinics and counselling services

Fri 6 Sherwood Park School, holding its Easter service today

Sat 7 The Trustees and residents of St Mary’s Court

SUN 8 Help to see the triumph which comes through true humility

Mon 9 The readiness to follow God’s will rather than our own

Tue 10 The strength to bear all trials and difficulties

Wed 11 Faithfulness in all our work