Dear Friends in Christ, When Karen reminded me about my letter for the July / August magazine, I felt like writing back “No letter this month: too busy with funerals!” But here I am, writing it! It has indeed, once again been a very sad time here at S. Stephen’s. We have lost four long standing regular members of our congregation. This takes its emotional toll of course, but alongside that there is an enormous amount of practical work to do. Liturgies do not write themselves nor do funeral homilies which I, like most priests, take a great deal of trouble over. Once again there have been added difficulties with a couple of funerals because the ‘Last Wishes’ have not been clearly written down.
Dear Friends, June sees the Feast of St Peter & St Paul. This feast has been in the last few decades at least, the time for the ordination of deacons and priests. This Petertide sees the 30th anniversary of my Ordination as a Priest. Naturally this has led me to ponder about what I did, what I vowed myself to, all those years ago. On May 10th I along with Dot, Helen and our two Ians went to the Guildhall in Preston for a combined launch of Vision 2026 in our diocese and the Admission of Churchwardens. Well, the worship was at the other end of the liturgical scale from us – to say the least. I didn’t enjoy it one little bit. But that doesn’t matter at all really. Worship is not about what I ‘