THE BRIDGE December 2020 To order your monthly copy for 2021, please see page 10 within and complete and return the form on the back cover of this issue Issue No 271 50p 1 The Benefice of Lostwithiel Parishes Services for December 2020 NB Thursdays throughout December from Thursday 3rd to 17th +31st St Bartholomew Celtic Eucharist at 10am and Bradoc. Taize Evensong at 6pm Sunday, 6 [ Advent 2] Boconnoc Matins 9.45am Bradoc Choral evensong 6pm St Bartholomew Eucharist 11.00am St Brevita, Lanlivery Eucharist 9.30am St Veep BCP Holy Communion 9.30am St Winnow Family Eucharist 11.00am Sunday,13 [ Advent 3] Boconnoc Matins 9.45am Bradoc Carols & Celtic Eucharist 11.15am St Bartholomew Eucharist 11am St Bartholomew Lostwithiel Town Carols 3pm St Brevita, Lanlivery Carol service 6pm St Veep Christingle & Nativity 11am Tuesday,15 St Winnow Family Carol service 6pm Wednesday,16 Boconnoc Nine Lessons & Carols 7pm Sunday, 20 (Advent 4] Boconnoc Holy Communion 9.30am Bradoc Carols with Bradock Heights,,Maryland 6 pm St Bartholomew Morning Prayer 11.00am St Brevita, Lanlivery Morning Prayer 9.30am St Veep Family Eucharist 11.00am St Winnow Christingle & Family Communion 11.00am Thursday,24 Christmas Eve Boconnoc Christmas Eucharist (BCP) 10pm Bradoc Eucharist-The Midnight Mass 11.15pm St Barts & St Winnow Crib & Christingle 5.30pm 2 Friday,25 Christmas Day St Bartholomew Family Christmas Eucharist 9.30am St Brevita, Lanlivery Worship at the crib 9.30am St Veep The Christmas Eucharist 11am Sunday,27 (The First Sunday of Christmas) Bradoc United Benefice Eucharist of Christmas 10.30am The Revd Paul Beynon(Rector) 01208 592765 Revd Sheila Bawden(Associate Priest) 871344 Catherine Murphy -Church Office 01208 872232 [email protected] RIP. We pray for God's love and peace on Steven Carne - William Charles Ray Hick - Vivien de Lancy Boucher Year's mind for December: Edith Hilary Woolcock - Christine Parsons - Anne Gregory - Brinley John Edwards - Bethan Charles - William John Haley - John Charles Rowe - Nicola Jane Dawson - Anne Botterill - Margaret Edith Anne Boger - David McCarraher - John Robert Foot - Katie Heard - Geoffrey Leonard Tomlinson - David Horton Tolson Francis Santas on the Run goes Freestyle! Children’s Hospice South West’s (CHSW) annual Santas on the Run event is back but not as you know it! Tak- ing place over the weekend of the 11-13 December, supporters will be able to choose their distance, route and their festive dress. CHSW’s festive fundraiser usually takes place at Eden each year but the local children’s charity has taken the decision to hold it virtually this Christmas due to the pandemic. Kiley Pearce, Events Fundraiser from CHSW, said: “This year, Santas on the Run is going freestyle! Whilst we can’t all come together at Eden, together we can still spread some joy and laughter and we’d encourage everyone to go crackers with their festive fundraising! Whether you twinkle in tinsel or rock it like Rudolph, you can get creative with your costume and complete a distance of your choice, your way.” CHSW’s Santas on the Run has taken place at Eden since 2015 and before that was held in St Austell town centre. Over the years it’s seen thousands of people join together raising vital funds for CHSW and it’s Little Harbour children’s hospice in St Austell. Together with community partner Whirlwind Sports, CHSW is asking this year’s participants to raise sponsorship or make a donation to enable the charity to continue to provide care for children and families when they need it most, whether that be in the hospice, at home, or virtually. Kiley continued: “Over the weekend of 11-13 December we will have a warm-up for people to join online each day as well as lots of prizes including for the best-dressed family, child and dog! Individuals who raise £15 or more will also receive a medal. It’s undoubtedly been a challenging year and we would encourage people to get involved however they like this Christmas but most importantly help us raise money to continue supporting local children living with life-limiting conditions and their families.” Registration is free! Simply register your interest at www.chsw.org.uk/santas and join the charity’s event on Facebook by searching ‘Santas on the Run – goes freestyle’ 3 From the Rector’s desk, If like me you simply can’t believe that its December already, and Christmas is but a few short weeks away, then imagine what the shepherds must have thought when the angels told them God’s Son had been born in a stable and that his mission was to bring peace on earth and goodwill to everyone! Unbelievable - right?! The angelic message is even more unbelievable when we consider that the region into which Jesus was born and grew up in was deeply divided, politically oppressive, religiously intolerant, socially polarised, culturally confused and generally devoid of peace and goodwill to anyone! For those who remember the Brexit episode this probably sounds all too familiar! As for healing a fractured Palestine in the middle of the first century goes,– it is probably easier for President Elect Biden to unite the divided states of America! Perhaps Henry Wadsworth Longfellow felt the despair that we all feel when we see peoples of the world divided, entrenched, and polarised, prompting him to write- ‘And in despair I bowed my head, ‘’There is no peace on earth,’’ I said, ‘’for hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men’’ Longfellow’s despondency notwithstanding, the angelic herald deliver their incredible and incredulous message of hope and optimism to the wide eyed and disbelieving shepherds, who despite their better judgement make a visit to the stable – and discover things to be exactly as they were told! Peace on earth and goodwill to all peoples might have sounded as much of a utopian pipedream to those first recipients of the Christmas message as it does to us today, that is until we remember that their lives were transformed by their encounter with the transcendent God who lay in the manger! It is this astonishing possibility that changes everything and makes the impossible possible. It is what happens to Longfellow as he suddenly launches from despair into hope as he concludes his ode- ‘’Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘’God is not dead, nor doth he sleep! The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men’ The hope that all peoples of the world might find peace, end warfare, cease their acts of terror and aggression and show goodwill to each other is enshrined in the message of the angels, and will live on for as long as people celebrate Christmas itself. But if we are to find peace on earth, then our loyalties will have to transcend our race, our tribe, our class and our partisan perspectives; only then might the dream that eluded Martin Luther King Jr become a reality for all of us. And so, may the joy of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, the worship of the wise men and the peace of the Christ child be yours, this Christmas. Revd. Paul 4 The Nature of Hope. Reflections on Advent and Christmas 2020 by Canon John One of the church’s themes in Advent is ‘hope’. This year, in the midst of a nerve-wracking election in the USA, Britain’s Brexit withdrawal farragoes, the climate change crisis and a lethal Coronavirus pandemic and before the new ‘lockdown’ I foolishly offered to preach on ‘hope’ at the Advent Sunday benefice service on the 29th November. Of course, the preacher has to base his or her sermon on experience or it is a hollow exercise; so every sermon invokes some self-examination. Also there is the need to separate hope from optimism. The theologian Anthony Kelly puts it neatly, ‘hope begins where optimism reaches the end of its tether’. Therefore I had to ask myself, why, at this most stressful and demanding period in human history when I am not optimistic I still have hope? Hope is a very personal and elusive quality. For me it was electrifying during the highest point of vitriol, and lowest point of love and respect in the American election to read the words of the young New York congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who wrote, ‘Hope is not something you have, hope is something you can create with your own actions.’ Yes! I thought I have hope that the USA will come through because there are people like her working for the poor in the Bronx and throughout America creating hope through change. And thank God the majority of voters chose hope rather than fear. Then conversations with my grandchildren about climate change strangely give me hope for the future because they have all taken action to do something about it. They represent a powerful movement mitigating the disturbing effects of global warming. As a result of the actions of our young people around the world, climate and the importance of a Green New Deal are coming to the top of the global agenda: perhaps just in time! For Britain the Brexit debate has been settled but one of the saddest aspects has been the vilification or demonisation of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers; those without hope in their own countries. Across Europe we see immigration policies driven by fear rather than compassion; fear driving out the possibility of a peaceful future as the subtlety and fragility of human existence is lost behind labels.