Dear Friends
Remembrance
Remembrance Day. On a day which causes us to look back in sadness, perhaps it is helpful to consider the act of remembering as being in opposition to ‘dis-membering’. Where ‘dismembering’ means to take apart, ’re-membering’ can be a putting back together of sorts. It may be a putting back together of pictures of the past. But perhaps as we ‘re-member’ with sadness the pictures and pains of wars long past, we can turn our concerns, our prayers, to a world which is crying out for peace. And I hope we can ask: how we can start to put back together those places, people, relationships damaged so severely by violence and warfare?
Some conflicts cause us to have strong feelings about which ‘side’ may be in the right, and which in the wrong. And yet during a war, on all sides: lives are lost, families are broken, young lives are damaged, our Earth is harmed. In times of conflict and violence, there can be no ‘winners’, only those who perhaps lose least.
Let us be a people who concentrate our prayer and prophetic voices on a call for peace, always peace. And may our actions model our words and prayers and embody peace. Each and every one of us. This was the teaching that Jesus lived and taught us to live.
We can live this out by:
- supporting all the members in our communities
- caring for our beautiful world
- speaking out against injustice.
In the words of the hymn writer, Fred Kaan:
Put peace into each other’s hands
and like a treasure hold it;
protect it like a candle flame,
with tenderness enfold it
Peace, Nicola
| CALENDAR | |||
| NOVEMBER | |||
| 1st | SUNDAY | 10.45am | Morning Worship led by Rev Phil Chilvers We shall be joined by our friends from Headingley Methodist Church |
| 8th | SUNDAY | 10.45am | REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY. Morning Worship led by Rev Tim Lowe, Member of the Partnership Ministry Team |
| 10th | Tuesday | 12.30pm | Guild Lunch |
| 11th | Wednesday | 9.30am | Elders’ Meeting |
| 15th | SUNDAY | 10.45am | Morning Worship led by Rev Phil Chilvers |
| 22nd | SUNDAY | 10.45am | Morning Worship, including the Sacrament of Holy Communion, led by Rev Dr Rosalind Selby This will be our Christmas Gift Service. |
| 29th | SUNDAY | 10.45am | ADVENT SUNDAY. Morning Worship led by our Minister, Rev Dr Nicola Robinson |
| 12noon | Advent Lunch | ||
GIFT SERVICE
Once again we are supporting Leeds Women’s Aid and the Salvation Army as our Christmas Charities.
The Gift Service this year will be slightly earlier than usual so that I can get the donations to the charities, and will be held on 22nd November when gifts of toiletries, clothes, toys etc can be brought. Teenagers are the age group usually missed out so items suitable for that age group would be most welcome.
Monetary donations can be handed to me anytime up to the 22nd. Cheques should be made payable to Leeds Women’s Aid or the Salvation Army. Gift Aid Forms will be available in the vestibule.
Many thanks in advance for your generosity which makes such a difference to so many lives, not only at Christmas but throughout the year.
Susan Bollon
ADVENT LUNCH
We shall be holding our Advent Lunch on Sunday, 29th November following Morning Worship.
It is a simple lunch of soup and a roll followed by Apple Pie. All our welcome to join us but Sue Bollon would be grateful if you could sign up on the list during refreshments or let her know so we have an idea of numbers.
In Memoriam: it is with great sadness we announce the passing of Mrs Jessie Ray Hanning on 11th October in St. James’s hospital. Ray attended Sunday Morning Worship regularly until she became more frail during the Covid pandemic, but it was a great pleasure to see her again at our 60th Anniversary earlier this year. The funeral will take place on Thursday 12th November at 2:30pm at Lawnswood Crematorium.
SAFEGUARDING
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding is the protection of people’s health, wellbeing and human rights no matter what age or gender so that they can live free from harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, we all have a moral responsibility to spot signs of abuse or neglect and report them. The three ‘R’s of safeguarding are RECOGNIZE warning signs, RESPOND appropriately and REPORT concerns to the right team.
All our ministers and Elders are trained in Safeguarding and we have policies and procedures we can access should the need arise.
Sunday 15th November is Safeguarding Sunday. Could I suggest that on that day we take a short time to think about those who are vulnerable or suffering and use the following prayer as our support.
‘Dear God, we pray for all those who have suffered hurt and harm whether they are known to us or not, we know that you know them by name. For those who feel trapped, grant them a way of escape, For those in pain bring comfort and healing. For those who seek justice, may they have courage and strength. Give to all who suffer, people who will listen, support and walk with them.
Amen’
Susan Bollon
A really encouraging and productive Ministry Team Away Day exploring our gifts and strengths and how they can be shared across our eight Partnership churches. Thank you to our churches for enabling this.
Over the past couple of months two of the Partnership team have joined us for lunch. Why don’t you think about it too?
This month it will be held on Tuesday, 11th November. Just let us know you would like to come.
Two inspirational women are remembered in November, Queen Margaret of Scotland and Hilda of Whitby. Both orphaned at a young age, daughters of powerful men reportedly murdered. Both highly influential in the life of the early church who brought about changes that resonate through the centuries.
Saint Margaret of Scotland was born into Wessex Royalty c1045 and became Queen of Alba from 1070 to 1093 as the wife of King Malcolm III. She was sometimes called “The Pearl of Scotland”
Born in exile, raised in Northumbria, Margaret was shipwrecked in 1068 with her mother and siblings as they tried to flee to the continent after the Norman conquest. They landed on the Scottish coast – perhaps at a place now known as st Margaret’s Hope – from where King Malcolm III gave them refuge.
Malcolm was a widower, with two sons, Donald and Duncan, and would have been attracted to marrying one of the few remaining members of the House of Wessex, the Anglo-Saxon royal family. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret took place in 1070. They had a family of eight, 6 sons and 2 daughters.
It is generally agreed that Queen Margaret was a strong, pure, noble character, having great influence over her husband, and through him over ecclesiastical aspects of Scotland. Her religion was of the newest Roman style and to her are attributed a number of reforms of the church in Scotland. The manner of observing Lent changed and now commenced on Ash Wednesday (rather than the following Monday as had been the practice) and the observance of Saturday (Sabbath) was abolished making Sunday the day of rest.
Each day she served orphans and the poor before she ate and she washed the feet of the poor. She rose at midnight each night to attend the liturgy, invited the Benedictine Order to establish a monastery in Dunfermline, Fife in 1072, and established ferries at Queensferry and North Berwick to assist pilgrims journeying from south of the Firth of Forth to St Andrews in Fife. She herself used a cave on the banks of the Tower Burn in Dunfermline as a place of devotion and prayer, now St Margaret’s Cave. Margaret also instigated the restoration of Iona Abbey.
She spent much of her time in prayer, devotional reading, and ecclesiastical embroidery. Malcolm, more warrior than scholar, so admired her piety that he had her books decorated in gold and silver; one of which, a pocket gospel book with portraits of the Evangelists, is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
King Malcolm, and their eldest son, Edward, were killed in the Battle of Alnwick against Robert de Mowbray, the Norman Earl of Northumbria, on 13 November 1093. Not yet 50 years old, Margaret died on 16 November 1093, three days after the deaths of her husband and eldest son. It was said she died of grief. She was buried before the high altar in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife. Three of her sons became kings of Scotland.
Hilda, born c614, again of Royal descent, followed the Celtic tradition brought from Iona by Aidan and following her studies in various northern abbeys he firstly appointed her as second abbess at Hartlepool Abbey then as the founding Abbess of Whitby.
By 664 the Abbess and the abbey were held in such esteem that it was chosen by Oswiu, now King of Northumbria, to host a Synod to determine, among other things, the date of Easter which was celebrated on different days in the Roman and Celtic traditions.
The Synod was attended by churchmen from far and wide and after the positions of the Roman and Celtic traditions were put forward, the king accepted that the Roman Church, said to be founded by St Peter, should now be adopted throughout his kingdom. A turning point for the church. The Celtic monks returned to Lindisfarne, unable to accept this decision then to Iona, taking with them some relics of Aidan. Hilda did accept it and continued as Abbess of Whitby until her death on 17 November 680 ,
