Pewnews Feast of Michael and All Angels 27 September 2020
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PewNews Feast of Michael and All Angels 27 September 2020 From the Vicar Parish Office Today is the Feast of Michael and All Angels in which we are reminded that Sarah Rogers beyond our world of utilityand function lies mystery, beauty and gift. Ours is a Wilbury Road, Hove, BN3 3PB world alive to God, a world in which God strives to be known, a world that 01273 733331 communicates beyond itself, a living sign of the life of God itself. Today is our [email protected] APCM in which we look back at the year that has been and consider our Open: 9.30am – 12.30pm financial and strategic health. But if we only focus on the technical necessities Tuesday and Thursday of our life, then we will miss what belongs at the heart of things: our life together with God. There are a number of things that we have held onto even Vicar in these difficult times and I think it is important to highlight these as they tell Fr Ryan Green us much about the resilience of this community as a community of faith, love 01273 746849 and hope. The first thing is our desire to continue to meet together as the [email protected] People of God here in this place. Even in the middle of lockdown while our Curate church building was forcibly closed, this desire brought us together online at Fr Angus Reid our Zoom masses. No longer did we take it for granted that we could simply 01273 746849 meet, but now we worked hard to do so as even the older members of our [email protected] congregation got family and friends to set them up on Zoom. During this time we even managed to see each other more closely as the barriers between Interim Director of Music young and old broke down and we got to know each other better. We must James Elias always remember that the Church is this ‘gathered community,’ and that we [email protected] need each other in order to become the people we are called to be. The second Associates thing is the continuation of our Faith Formation group. It was been so amazing Fr David Ingledew to spend time with a group of people who are serious and excited about their Fr John Joyce faith, and this group has continued to meet fortnightly, even in the most difficult times of isolation and lockdown, again through Zoom. We have Churchwardens continued to explore God’s mission and ours in the world and to speak Ann Joyce courageously about faith and vocation. However adaptable we will need to be [email protected] as Church in the future, those things at the heart of who we are – our Adrian Herbert commitment to God and one to another, and the vibrancy of our faith – are the [email protected] things that will ultimately see us through. Secretary of the PCC Glo Boughton Fr Ryan Treasurer Tony Mollett Giving to All Saints [email protected] No cash? Tap to donate! Safeguarding officer You can donate by debit or credit card. Choose from the three donation Sue Atkins amounts and tap your card on the reader located at the welcome desk. Health & Safety Officer Gift Aid: Adding value to your donation Peter Millar If you are a UK taxpayer and do not have a set of planned giving envelopes, website please place your donation inside a white envelope (available from the www.allsaintshove.org welcomers). Remember to fill in your details completely or we cannot claim Gift Aid (a further 25%) on your donation. Regular Giving Should you wish to make regular donations to All Saints, our preferred Electronic versions of the latest Sunday method of giving is via the Parish Giving Scheme. Further information about sermons and the current issue of PewNews the scheme is available online at www.parishgivingscheme.org.uk. Forms are availabe to download on the website. are available from the Parish Office. Today’s Readings A reading from the book of Genesis We can sometimes place God and heaven Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. He came to a certain place and at a distance, making them abstract with stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of no relevance to our lives. Not only do we the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed close ourselves offfrom God, but we flatten that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the world, evacuating places, history, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside interactions, even worship, of depth. The him and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; image of Jacob’s ladder dispels such paltry the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring vision. Heaven and earth are entwined. Our shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to world teems with spiritual richness beyond the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall imagining, even spiritual beings in God’s be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you active service – angels – who both worship wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until God and work alongside God in our lives. I have done what I have promised you.’ Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, For God is ever near us, bidding us to step ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’ And he was afraid, and said, through the gate of faith onto the ladder of ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is love into God’s life so that we may enter the gate of heaven.’ more deeply into our world's vital mystery, Genesis 28.10–17 right where we are. Did we not know it? A reading from the Book of Revelation This account of a war between opposing And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. angelic forces can be bewildering. We often The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no demythologise such accounts into longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that irrelevance or overindulge them as in ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole popular culture’s interest in angels and world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with demons. But what of illness, oppression, him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, ‘Now have come the poverty, war? Let us hear the voice of salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his heaven: in Christ’s dying and rising, God Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses has shown nothing can overcome God’s them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of love for us. Let us, together with Michael the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in and his angels, embrace Christ’s victory the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But knowing it entails real spiritual struggle woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, that will attract savage resistance from the because he knows that his time is short!’ powers of destruction. We need not fear. Revelation 12.7–12 Christ has called time on their deceit. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John Amid today’s celebration ofMichael and all When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an angels, our Gospel reminds us that the Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come forces of spiritual goodness serve the to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called greater goal of our personal encounter with you.’ Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ God in Christ. Nathanael is overcome by Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig how Jesus knows him in a way true only of tree? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell God. The gateway between heaven and you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending earth, Jacob’s ladder, is here fully revealed upon the Son of Man.’ in Jesus. All the angels of heaven are John 1.47–51 enlisted in Christ’s loving concern for each person. Do we share in this greater thing? Today’s Mass All Saints Food Spread We continue to raise funds through our Food Spread project Collect to provide food deliveries for local charities. See Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted the www.justgiving.com/campaign/Allsaintshovefoodspread for ministries of angels and mortals in a wonderful order: grant details.