On Sunday, 1 February (The Presentation of Christ in the Temple – otherwise Candlemas) – the new lighting and re-wiring system will be in place for Bishop Nick to come and preside and preach at the 9.30 Eucharist. We shall begin as usual in the church Centre, where our candles are blessed, and then walk in procession into church, singing a hymn that proclaims Christ as the light of the world. The whole service will then proceed by candlelight until the dedication of the new system. Wine and nibbles in the Centre afterwards.

All weekday services will resume as usual from Monday, 2 February onwards, except on Wednesday 4^th when there will be no Eucharist.

On Sunday, 8 February the Guides & Brownies will play their usual important part at the 9.30 Eucharist.

On Sunday, 22 February, Pam Vernon formally becomes Deanery Presiding Member of the Mothers’ Union, and there will be a special ceremony to mark this as part of the 9.30 Sung Eucharist. The ceremony will be conducted by the Rural Dean, Chris Wheaton, vicar of the Good Shepherd, Carshalton Beeches, who will also preach at that service. Once again there will be refreshments in the Centre afterwards, as there will be visitors from many other churches and branches of the MU.

It is to be hoped, of course, that there will still be a St Mary’s branch of the MU by then – but no one has yet come forward to take over from Gwen Whiting as our Enrolling Member. Gwen retires officially at the AGM on the previous Thursday night, 19^th February.

Shrove Tuesday on 24 February will see our popular Pancake Party take place in the Centre, from 7.30 pm onwards. To join in the fun, get your tickets from Pat or Betty - cost £3.00. All proceeds will go to the Shopping List.

On Ash Wednesday, 25 February, the normal Eucharist takes place at 10.00 am, and there will also be a Choral Eucharist at 7.30 pm. Both services include the imposition of ashes, and probably no-one needs reminding by now that the ashes are made by burning last year’s palm crosses – so please ensure you have returned yours to Selwyn, either in church or through the Rectory letterbox, by Shrove Tuesday lunchtime at the latest.

At 7.00 pm on 26 February, by popular demand, Pam Vernon will be showing her slides and talking about her trip to the Antarctic peninsula. The venue will be Carshalton Library.

Churches Together are not organising any joint groups or events through the body of Lent this year, in the hope that as many people as possible will be able to take part in an all-day event (details here) in preparation for Holy Week on Saturday 3 April. Accordingly it may be even more important than usual to be able to attend a devotional exercise of some kind during each week of Lent.

The Friday Lent Lunches, starting on 27 February, will take place at 12.45 pm at the Rectory throughout Lent (with the exception of 5 March, which is the Women’s World Day of Prayer, and Good Friday). There will also be an additional Eucharist every Friday in Lent, once again apart from 5 March and Good Friday. This service will normally be at 7.30 pm except on Friday, 19th when it will be at 9.30 am.

What’s on in February?

SUN	1	CANDLEMAS
Mon	2	Magazine Panel meets at 35 Vanguard Way	6.00 pm
Tue	3	Churches Together meeting at Holy Trinity, Wallington	7.45 pm
Wed	4	St Mary's Guild. Jackie & Leslie Cozens lead a Musical Meeting	2.30 pm
Thu	5	MU&OG. A 'Getting to Know Us' meeting. Church Centre	8.00 pm
Sat	7	Trustees of St Mary's Court meet at St Mary's Court	10.00 am
		Ringers' Quiz Night. Church Centre	7.30 pm
SUN	8	THIRD BEFORE LENT
		Guides and Brownies at Sung Eucharist
Tue	10	Social Committee meets at 2 Caraway Place	8.00 pm
Thu	12	Sutton Deanery Synod meeting at St Oswald's, Cheam	7.45 pm
SUN	15	SECOND BEFORE LENT
Wed	18	MU Corporate Eucharist	10.00 am
SUN	22	LAST BEFORE LENT
Mon	23	Magazine Panel meets at 35 Vanguard Way	6.00 pm
		PCC meets. Church Centre	8.00 pm
Tue	24	Shrove Tuesday
		Pancake Party. Church Centre
Wed	25	Ash Wednesday. Choral Eucharist	7.30 pm
Thu	26	Slide show and talk by Pam Vernon about her trip to the Antarctic peninsular. Carshalton Library	7.00 pm
Fri	27	Lent Lunch at the Rectory	12.45 pm
		Eucharist	7.30 pm
SUN	29	LENT 1

Readings for Sundays and Festivals in February

Sun 22 Feb

Last before Lent

Exodus 34: 29-35 (page 811)

2 Corinthians 3: 12-4: 6 (page 813)

Luke 9: 28-43 (page 813)

Wed 25 Feb

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17 (page 97)

2 Corinthians 5: 20b-6: 10 (page 101)

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21 (page 102)

Sun 29 Feb

Lent 1

Deuteronomy 26: 1-11 (page 818)

Romans 10: 8b-13 (page 820)

Luke 4: 1-13 (page 821)

Sun 1 Feb

Candlemas

Malachi 3: 1-5 (page 60)

Hebrews 2: 14-18 (page 63)

Luke 2: 22-40 (page 63)

Sun 8 Feb

Third before Lent

Readings to be presented by Guides and Brownies

Sun 15 Feb

Second before Lent

Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-25 (page 807)

Revelation Chapter 4 (page 809)

Luke 8: 22-25 (page 810)

Saints in February

Tue 3 Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, missionary in Denmark and Sweden, 865

Tue 10 Scholastica, (sister of St Benedict) abbess, 543

Sat 14 Cyril and Methodius, missionaries to the Slavs, 869 and 885

Tue 17 Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, martyr, 1977

Mon 23 Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, martyr, c155

Music at Evensong in February

Sunday 22 February

Canticles: Holman in F Minor

Anthem: All The Ends Of The World - Boyce

Sunday 29 February

Canticles: Brewer in D

Anthem: It Is A Thing Most Wonderful – Ireland

Sunday 1 February

Canticles: Sumsion in G (atb)

Anthem: Holy Is The True Light - Harris

Sunday 8 February

Canticles: Stanford in A

Anthem: Save Me O God - Boyce

Sunday 15 February

Canticles: Dyson in F

Anthem: Almighty and Everlasting God – Gibbons

It's a leap year - but when did we start leaping?

The present "Gregorian" calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582, but only adopted in Great Britain in 1752 and Russia in 1917. The problem is that there is not a whole number of days (mean solar days) in a year (tropical year), because there is no physical link between the Earth's spin on its axis (day) and orbit around the Sun (year). In fact one year is approximately 365.2422 days. Inserting an extra day every four years makes the average calendar year 365.25 days long. This was introduced by Julius Caesar round about 50 BC. By 1752 the calendar was 12 days out compared with the sun. In that year September 2nd was followed by September 14th and there were riots in the streets with people demanding "Give us back our 12 days". Gregory agreed that 3 leap years in every 400 years would no longer be leap years. That makes the average calendar year 365.2425 days, compared with the correct value 365.2422. The rule chosen was that if the last two digits of the year are both zero (1900, 2000, 2100 ...) then it is only a leap year if the first two digits are divisible by 4. Thus 1600, 2000 are leap years, but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. That is considered good enough, for the time being. Of course, if you are really serious about time and want to keep atomic clocks in step with astronomical ones you have to insert a leap second once or even twice a year because the earth is slowing down!

…so now you know.

Friends are the people who know the song in your heart

and sing it back to you when you forget the words

The Valentine Bug

According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion Valentine Cards will be sent this year, making St Valentines Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year (after Christmas). The sending of anonymous cards or small love tokens has been very popular since the 17th century, and certainly looks set to continue.

Who buys them? An estimated 85 per cent of card buyers are women. Valentine's cards may denote love, but the numbers of cards involved suggest that many women buy for more than one man!

Valentine cards of yesteryear attract collectors, and you may wish to visit one of numerous antiques and fine arts shows that are held around the country. Some very attractive Victorian and Edwardian cards can be found for less than £30.

The oldest known Valentine still in existence is a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture are the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. A few years later the Duke's vanquisher, Henry V, hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a Valentine to Catherine of Valois.

A big puzzle is why such a soppy custom still exists today in this tough, no-nonsense age of women's rights. After all, the bulk of those 1,000,000,000 cards (and doubtless thousands more emails) will end up in recycling bags or waste bins. Few are likely to survive and become collectors' items.

Women’s World Day Of Prayer

Friday, 5 March 2004

Wallington services will be as follows:

10.30 am ST MARY'S, BEDDINGTON

Speaker: Mrs Marion Simpson

Refreshments to follow

7.30 pm ST PATRICK'S, WALLINGTON

Speaker: Mrs Nicholas Baines

Refreshments to follow

Jingle all the way … to the bank!

After three years of frantic fundraising, St Mary’s ringers have been rewarded by the PCC. The application for a Faculty to rehang the bells has gone before the DAC and been approved. With over £60,000 in our bank account, we can look forward to the day for which some of us have been waiting for 30 years!

With a new frame and fittings, the bells will be easier to ring and, following the necessary building repairs, the regular piles of rubble on the floor under the tower, will be just a memory.

The ringers have looked back at the varied ways in which we have raised the money. The social events in church were all fun, from the Pub Games evening to the Tramps Supper, the Karaoke Night and the Beetle Drive. The Parish Concert last August raised the highest in-house amount.

A sponsored swim and a sponsored peal raised over £5,000 and Michael Chilcott’s cycle ride to York was exceptionally lucrative. We sold “Sutton Seeds” to our gardening friends, held Open Days and provided refreshments for several events. Stewart and I took our sales table to a Ringing Roadshow in the Midlands and relieved unsuspecting ringers from far and wide of £468!

Last December saw a marathon undertaking by the Handbell band, who rang for five hours in ASDA. Tower bell ringers, dressed in bell-shaped sandwich boards and Santa hats, collected £258 from the Christmas shoppers. Stewart managed all five hours without a moan, though the rest of us covered our hands with ASDA plasters as the blisters began to form.

Our fundraising won’t stop yet, though. We need a small contingency fund to cover extra repairs and, not least, the redecoration of the belfry. Events planned for this year so far are, the Quiz Night on February 7, a talk on the history of the church by John Phillips, a local historian, and the return of the entertaining Davalles on October 2.

Life hasn’t been all fundraising; we have found time for other activities. Our Outings have been most enjoyable and included a “Mini-ring” outing. As its name suggests, a mini-ring is a ring of bells that is very tiny, with the largest bell weighing less than 1cwt, (compared with our heaviest bell at 18cwt). Nick Kimber organised this trip, with all the rings near him in Hampshire.

We rang on 12 bells housed in a garage, on 10 in someone’s living room, on 12 in the Southampton University’s Students Union, on 6 squashed in a landing space in a terraced house and on 8 in a Wendy house at the bottom of a garden, where the heaviest bell was just 10ozs! It was a really “fun” day out, with everyone piling into Nick’s house for lunch and into a Chinese restaurant for dinner.

We also had a couple of group theatre trips, one to see The King and I and the other to Abba - the Musical, both of which were very enjoyable. We’ve continued with our after-practice-night curries to celebrate birthdays - there’s one most months - and we’re all looking forward to Chris and Tamasine’s wedding on July 31.

You’ll miss us in the summer if the work goes ahead. Chris is threatening to play a CD from the tower - or you could buy gloves for the handbell ringers… Jingle Bells will never mean the same again!

Jean Kimber

PCC Notes

There have been two meetings of the PCC in recent weeks, the first of which was a special meeting on Sunday, 28 December, the sole purpose of which was to complete the necessary paperwork in connection with the Tower & Bells project, for submission to the Diocesan Advisory Committee. Bearing in mind that the Tower & Bells Fund had passed the magic figure of £60,000, and taking into account the estimated costs and current state of our financial reserves, the PCC agreed that the work should begin at the earliest opportunity, and accordingly agreed to apply for the necessary Faculty.

When we met on 19 January, we heard that the DAC had accepted the PCC's proposal (which had been "commended for its clarity") and have recommended the project for Faculty approval. The next stage will be a site meeting of all interested parties, after which, if all goes well, we will receive formal approval and the work can commence. Tower & Bells fund-raising will continue, however, to ensure that all contingencies are covered.

We received an up-date on the progress of the re-wiring project, which is on target to be completed in time for Candlemas on 1 February, when the new system will be dedicated by Bishop Nick.

We also heard that the Gothic Knight had been removed for cleaning, prior to being re-laid in its new stone. It is hoped that Sir Roger will be safely settled in his new home by the middle of March.

With regard to church heating (or rather the lack of it), it was reported that the cause of the breakdown was being investigated. By the time the PCC met, no clear answer had emerged. There were, however, encouraging signs that the problem might only be a minor electrical one, but until further tests were completed this could not be confirmed.

The PCC considered a draft of a new Mission Statement based on the results of the recent PCC and congregational questionnaire. The final version will form part of the Annual Report which will be presented at the Annual Church Meeting in April.

Cassie, in her capacity as Treasurer, presented the budget for 2004 which had been approved by the Finance Committee. The shortfall between estimated income and expenditure indicated that a little under £7,000 was required to keep the regular housekeeping bills paid. In addition £9,600 was all that is now required to clear our mortgage on the Centre. The PCC ratified the budget and agreed that, in the same way as last year, the total Shopping List be split into two parts - the regular housekeeping and the mortgage.

The PCC next meets on 23 February, when the major topic for discussion will be the Annual Report and Draft Financial Statement for 2003, in preparation for the APCM on 21 April.

Diana Harries - Secretary to PCC

Pews in church - were they always there?

When you look round some really old churches you'd be excused for thinking that the pews within them were put in when they were built, but actually they are a fairly modern invention.

Before the Reformation it was a lot more like the Christian Orthodox church today where people would stand or kneel during the service. When there was a procession, the verger would be at the head to clear a way through the congregation scattered about the floor. There was some seating, usually around the base of columns or against the walls. These were used by the elderly and infirm – hence the origin of the expression 'let the weak go to the walls'. The Reformation placed a greater emphasis on the sermon, and considerably more time was given to it, so that seating of any type became almost an essential.

Early seats or benches were made of thick oak planks, the ends plain and flat-topped; later the tops were simply shaped and later still they were decorated. This was particularly true of the high ends that faced towards the aisle. Wood carvers seem to have been given a free hand and there are some wonderful examples of humour as well as skill. The most common were a 'poppy head' (from the French word poupee meaning puppet or figurehead) which had three sections and were often carved as animals, figures or flowers. Many wealthy people left money in their wills for carving whole bench ends, so look out for these too.

Have a think about how you use the seating in church. Do you spend much time sitting during the service or could you actually do away with it and go back to pre-Reformation days? What do you spend most time doing in your services? Many of us have stopped kneeling when we pray altogether, and I wonder what that says – apart from our knees are beginning to creak?

…and those attending the 9.30 Sung Eucharist on 18 January found themselves not only without pews, but without the entire church. With no heating and inefficient temporary lighting, it had been decided that the service should take place in the church Centre. Thanks to the imagination of all who so effectively converted the Centre into a place of worship (and even accommodated a reduced choir), a very enjoyable service went like clockwork. Selwyn's sermon was the only item missing - sacrificed as a concession to the hard seats (but are they really less comfortable than the pews?)

Churches Together Lent Event

A DATE FOR YOUR DIARY: Saturday 3rd April

An all-day arts event at the new Trinity Centre, Holy Trinity Church, Maldon Road, Wallington

(attendance must be pre-booked)

Workshops will include: graphic art, creative writing, stained glass, art, drama… and more!

Simple last-day-of-Lent Lunch & Refreshments.

This event will be presented by Pilgrim Hearts whose aim is to help us discover our creativity to convey the Christian message.

Further details to follow.

The Bishop’s Lent Call

For details, see the March 2004 magazine.

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple / Candlemas

In bygone centuries, Christians said their last farewells to the Christmas season on Candlemas, 2 February. This is exactly 40 days after Christmas Day itself.

In New Testament times 40 days old was an important age for a baby boy: it was when they made their first 'public appearance'. Mary, like all good Jewish mothers, went to the Temple with Jesus, her first male child - to "present him to the Lord". At the same time, she, as a new mother, was 'purified'. Thus we have the Festival of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

So where does the Candlemas bit come in? Jesus is described in the New Testament as the Light of the World, and early Christians developed the tradition of lighting many candles in celebration of this day. The Church also fell into the custom of blessing the year's supply of candles for the church on this day - hence the name, Candlemas.

The story of how Candlemas began can be found in Luke 2:22-40. Simeon's great declaration of faith and recognition of who Jesus was is of course found in the Nunc Dimittis, which is embedded in the Office of Evening Prayer in the West. But in medieval times, the Nunc Dimittis was mostly used just on this day, during the distribution of candles before the Eucharist. Only gradually did it win a place in the daily prayer life of the Church.

Polycarp c69 – c155: 2 February

Polycarp was one of the most important Christians in Roman Asia in the mid-2nd century, because of his link between the time of the Apostles and the earliest Christian Fathers. This disciple of John the Apostle became Bishop of Smyrna and defended orthodox Christian belief against the heresies of Marcion and Valentinus, the most influential of the Gnostics. Irenaeus of Lyons, who as a boy had known Polycarp, praised his gravity, holiness and majesty of countenance.

Near the end of his long life, Polycarp paid a visit to Rome to discuss with the bishop there the possibility of agreeing a uniform date of celebrating Easter. When they found they could not agree, they amicably agreed to differ, and parted in good faith.

Polycarp returned to Smyrna, where a riot broke out at a pagan festival. The crowd suddenly turned on the Christians, whom they called 'atheists'. Polycarp was on a farm nearby, neither provoking nor fleeing martyrdom. When his captors arrived, he invited them to eat a meal, while he prayed alone for an hour. Then calmly, he agreed to go with them to his interrogation.

All the pagans' threats and promises did nothing to shake Polycarp. When ordered to execrate Christ, Polycarp gave this dignified reply: "For 86 years I have been His servant and He has never done me wrong; how can I blaspheme my king who saved me?... I am a Christian: if you wish to study the Christian doctrine, choose a day and you will hear it."

The crowd were outraged, and cried first for the lions and then for Polycarp to be burnt at the stake. He was bound, but an official killed him with his sword before his body was burnt. Later, grieving Christians collected his bones and buried them. They also wrote an account of his trial and martyrdom, which is the earliest authentic example of its kind.

In England there are no ancient and only a few modern churches dedicated to this deeply courageous saint of the Christian Church.

'Jonny' Kirby

We are sorry to record the death of 'Jonny' Kirby whose funeral took place in Bournemouth two weeks ago. Many from St Mary's will remember her with affection. May she rest in peace.