All Saints Margaret Street.

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow we begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. If you come to All Saints on any Thursday, you will find the Thursday Candle burning, as in many churches and religious houses as a focus for unity.

St. Paul begins his first letter to the church in Corinth, which we begin reading this Sunday, and are also reading through at weekday Evening Prayer, in positive terms. He adapts the conventional greetings which opened letters of the period, to establish a bond between himself and those he addresses.

He speaks of their common call from God: his to be an apostle and theirs to be saints. He speaks of the gifts of God they have received in abundance – gifts of knowledge and speech.

So it might come as a surprise to a first-time reader to find immediately after the passage, Paul getting stuck into the Corinthians for their various failings: factionalism, immorality, class divisions reflected in their Eucharist and so on.

But Paul begins with their all and their gifts, as he would with ours, because his intention is not simply to condemn but to recall them to their relationship with God.

They have abused the gifts God has given them, they have fractured the union to which he called them, but because these are gifts of God, not of our own making, they endure. They are the primary truth and basis of our life a Christians to which we can return.

His opening speaks not only of gifts past and present, but also looks to the future, the full realisation of these gifts. Our hope, our only hope, is based not on our own abilities but on the faithfulness of God.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Alan Moses

Prebendary Alan Moses
Vicar of All Saints Margaret Street
Area Dean of Westminster & St Marylebone

PRAYER DIARY:
Please pray for those who have asked for our prayers: Jean Brackston, Rachel Clayton, Rosie Davis, Ursula Edwards, Charles Forker, Joan Foster, Isabella Fotheringham, Denise Inge, Mason Jacobsen, Jill, Craig Laughton, Katherine Lee, Joshua Levy, Christine Loffty, Kerry Manuel, Andrew O’Connor, Stephen Short, Erica Telfer, Colin Titmus. 

For the recently departed: Maria Villaverde, Molly Money, Nick Luff (former Assistant Organist at All Saints’Church), Robert Tennant, Elizabeth McLellan, Tim Penrose.

At the anniversary of their death (during the coming week): Arnold Lawson, Kate Gorge, Josephine Whittley, Harris Charlton, William Clark, Hannah Berry, John Snoswell, Gwyneth Bishop, Virginia Smith, Amony Lay, Annie Waggett, Maggie Dibley, Derek Allen (Priest), Ernest (Jim) Swanton, Edith Alice Laing, Kenneth Christie.

WORSHIP AT ALL SAINTS THIS SUNDAY:

SUNDAY 19 JANUARY 2014 – Second Sunday of Epiphany – Music and Preachers:
HIGH MASS, 11am
Prebendary Alan Moses
Orgelsolomesse – Mozart
When Jesus was born/Say, where is he born?/There shall a star – Felix Mendelsshohn

Choral Evensong & Benediction, 6pm
Fr Julian Browning
Palestrina (à 8)
O magnum mysterium – Poulenc

NOTICES & NEWS – THIS WEEK

Saturday 18 January – the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins.

Sunday 19 January – Roast Pork Lunch is available after Mass and tickets will be on sale in the Shop in the Parish Room for £5.

Thursday 23 January, 10.30 – 12.30, All Saints’ Parish Room – SINGING FOR THE BRAIN run by The Alzheimer’s Society. Please see leaflets on the table in Church. If anyone is interested in joining this session (3^rd of 12) please contact: Samerah Malik of The Alzheimer’s Society on 07891 888539.

WORSHIP NEXT SUNDAY 26 JANUARY – Third Sunday of Epiphany
Preachers & Music
HIGH MASS, 11am
Fr Julian Browning 
Jugendmesse – Haydn 
Es ist das Heil uns kommen her – Brahms

Choral Evensong & Benediction, 6pm
Prebendary Alan Moses
The First Service – Morley
Tribus miraculis – Marenzio 

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Thursday 30 January at 2.30pm – the Funeral Mass for Nicholas Luff, former Assistant Organist of All Saints, will take place.

Sunday 26 January 2014 – 7.15pm (after Evensong & Benediction) – ORGAN RECITAL – Charles Andrews, Associate Director of Music All Saints. This recital, the first in the 2014 series at All Saints, is dedicated to the memory of Nicholas Luff, former Assistant Organist of All Saints.
The programme is:
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern BWV 739 – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern op. 65 – S. Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
Jesu, meine Freude op. 87 – S. Karg-Elert
i. Introduzione (‘Inferno’)
ii. Canzone
iii. Fuga con Corale
Voluntary retiring collection (£3 donation suggested) to support the Choir & Music at All Saints. All Saints Licensed Club/Bar open after the recital. For more organ recitals, please visit www.organrecitals.com.

Saturday 1 February 2014 – 3pm – CHORAL EVENSONG & BENEDICTION, St Cyprian’s Church, Clarence Gate, Glentworth Street, NW1 6AX. Leighton Magdalene Service and Ireland’s Greater love hath no man.  With the St Cyprian’s Singers directed by Julian Collings.

Sunday 2 February – PROCESSION & HIGH MASS 11am, Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas). Preacher: The Vicar, Prebendary Alan Moses, Mass Setting: Missa super ‘Sancta Maria’—Händl and Nunc Dimittis à 8—Wood.

Sunday 2 February – THIS IS OUR FAITH – Please could Group members meet the Vicar in Church after High Mass.

ALL SAINTS RESTORATION APPEAL Lighting & Electrical Renewal Update

We are delighted to announce that we now have £161,000 (64% of required funds) for this important project.  The balance for which we still need your help is: £89,000.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed donations large and small; we are extremely grateful. We hope that works will commence after Easter in 2014.

If you have still to contribute, please make cheques payable to:
All Saints Margaret Street PCC Restoration Account and send to:
Restoration Appeal, All Saints Church Parish Office, 7 Margaret Street, London W1W 8JG. 

If you are a UK tax payer and have signed/will sign a Gift Aid declaration with us, your donation to the Appeal is increased by 25%. Please indicate that you wish your donation to be Gift Aided and ensure we have your full name (with initial/s), address and postcode. If unsure if you have signed a Gift Aid declaration form, please pick one up from the table in church, fill in and return to: Mrs Dee Prior, Parish Administrator.

WEEKLY PARISH NEWSLETTER 
If you would like to encourage others to receive this weekly email, please forward this email on to them, or people you would like to invite to services. If you know of others who would like to receive this correspondence, or for whom you would like prayers offered at All Saints, please ask them to email the Parish Administrator Mrs Dee Prior at: astsmgtst@aol.com.

If you would like any pastoral assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the Vicar, Prebendary Alan Moses: alanmoses111@gmail.com.