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“Christmas is coming”

A very fading memory from Christmas in my “childhood”. 

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat.  If you haven’t a penny half penny will do, and if you haven’t half a penny, well God bless you.  When I was a child there were people who didn’t have a penny and the poem applied to them.  The focus was upon the crib in the stable; very sincere and very much the heart of Christmas.  Since last Christmas the focus on Palestine and the people of Palestine highlights the message of the children who lost their lives during the time of the flight of the Holy family into Egypt.  This was brought about by the forces of Herod.   The truth is the same today as the forces of evil always seek the opportunity to inflict death and destruction upon the innocent.  Our constant need remains for God’s salvation, otherwise the constant power of evil continues to prevail. 

In our preparation for Christmas, so we are presented with the challenge that is bringing upheaval to our parishes.    Bishop Richard has been preparing a plan for our Diocese, which is a work in progress.  A lot of progress has been made and now it is our time to respond to this situation.  We need to adapt.  Our present situation has been impacted by the limited number of priests.  This is not likely to change, so the priests will cover the different church communities.  Each community will have much more responsibility to develop and grow. 

For ourselves I think we are as prepared and ready, so it is time to implement this.  The challenge presented to us is that we are expected to provide the results of an audit this coming Friday, so priority must be given to this.  Jackie is ready to work to provide this audit, but we need to have names and contact details (email & phone number). 

Deacon John Writes:

On Saturday November 2nd, All Souls Day, after Mass, I blessed the Memorial Garden at St George’s and all the graves in the garden. I then went to Willingdon cemetery and blessed the graves there. A good gathering came to the Church garden and a much smaller group accompanied me to the cemetery. Thank you to all who supported me and a special thank you to Anne who transported me.

Last Sunday I preached about Remembrance Sunday and included two poems. I found it quite emotional reading these poems. I was in Plymouth when war broke out. My father was an air raid warden during the war. I remember the air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden and I remember having to move from one shelter to another several times one night as bombs fell around us. In the   chaos of movement I got separated from my parents but was safely returned home the following day. I was 5/6 at the time. My    father was a schoolteacher and his school was evacuated in its entirety to Penzance for the rest of the war. The poems I referred to were: 

Laurence Binyon’s poem ‘For the fallen’:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
           Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
           At the going down of the sun and in the morning
             We will remember them.

John McCrae wrote the poem “In Flanders Fields” In the spring of 1915, shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, after seeing poppies growing in battle-scarred fields.

In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow  Loved and were loved, and now we lie             Between the crosses, row on row        In Flanders’ fields.
That mark our place: and in the sky   Take up our quarrel with the foe;
The larks, still bravely singing, fly     To you from failing hands we throw
Scarce heard amid the guns below.    The torch; be yours to hold it high, We are the dead. Short days ago If ye break faith with us who die
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders’ Fields.

That poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of Remembrance.