All Saints Margaret Street.

Dear friends,

This Sunday will be an exciting opportunity to celebrate our entry into the holy season of Lent and to welcome some significant guests to our parish.

At the 11.00 am High Mass, Bishop Jonathan will be our celebrant and preacher.  He will be spending the whole day at All Saints’ to see more of our parish’s life, and in order to welcome a series of important ecumenical guests in the evening.

In the evening at 6.00pm, we will be joined at Evensong and Benediction by the Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg, who will also be accompanied by the Bishop of London.

The Bishop of Berlin is on his first official visit to London since becoming bishop and hopes to strengthen the bonds of friendship between our diocese and the church in Berlin-Brandenburg. Bishop Jonathan has recently been made the Chair of the Council for Christian Unity. This is the body which directs the Church of England’s ecumenical interaction with other churches. It will be particularly good to have him with us now he is exercising this new and significant role as we welcome our German guests.

Our diocese’s relationship with the Church of Berlin-Brandenburg is testimony to the power of reconciliation and forgiveness. I hope that by welcoming the Bishop and his party of clergy from Berlin, we can point to the unity of the European family, and to the bond of faith that we share in Christ. This will be a powerful message at a time when conflict and war occupy so much our thoughts and prayers.

Bishop Stäblein is an impressive theological thinker and pastor. He comes originally from Hanover. After doctoral work in Göttingen he worked in the Hanover church’s seminary in Loccum. He moved to Berlin to take a position up referred to as “Probst.” This role of “provost” meant he had a leading role in directing the Berlin Church’s theological response in the areas of ecumenical relations, public service, and Christian apologetics. He was elected the Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg in 2019.

The story of the Berlin church has itself, at times, been one of division and persecution. There were many dark periods during the last century when political violence, partition and disruption seemed to threaten the life of the German Church. Yet, in God’s providence we are now able to celebrate the triumph of unity, justice and freedom over the forces of division and despair both in the history of the city of Berlin, and the reconciliation seen between our two countries.

By praying together with our German brothers and sisters we show that love and solidarity are ultimately more powerful impulses than mistrust and suspicion. This is a potent message for difficult times in the continent of Europe.

Christ prayed that all his followers might be one. On Sunday evening, I hope our liturgy will be a sign and foretaste of the unity to which we are called and a prompt to do all we can to pursue the reconciliation of all Christians. It will reveal that we share a fundamental unity in Christ by virtue of our common baptism, which no degree of human division can blot out or remove.

Christ reveals to us that in the face of division and despair, his love will always triumph in drawing the scattered nations of the world into one family. I urge as many of you as are able to attend our liturgies on Sunday to pray for peace and unity.

Let us give thanks for the closeness we now share with our German brothers and sisters, and let us commit ourselves to seeking peace in the Ukraine, and freedom from violence for all the peoples of Europe.

Fr Peter

Sunday 6th March– First Sunday of lent

11.00 am High Mass 
Celebrant and Preacher: The Bishop of Fulham

5.15 pm Low Mass

6.00 pm Evensong and Benediction
In the presence of the Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Fulham.

Followed by an ecumenical reception in church.

Stations of the Cross

Stations of the Cross will take place tonight and most Fridays in Lent at 7.00 pm, after the 6.15 pm Mass.

Please note the only two exceptions: there will be no Stations on Friday 25th March as it is the Annunciation and there will be a High Mass; there will also be no Stations on Friday 8th April as our Lent Lecture will take place that night.

All Saints’ Lent Appeal 2022

Donations to this year’s Lent Appeal will be divided between:

• American Church Soup Kitchen in Tottenham Court Road – towards the costs of their mental health worker. The Soup Kitchen is a resource for the homeless, elderly, lonely and vulnerable in London. They provide free meals, clothing, toiletries and a sense of belonging to nearly 150 people each day and an on-site mental health drop-in centre to help address their guests’ mental health needs.
• Bishop of London’s Lent Appeal – Cultivating Compassionate Communities: raising awareness around issues of mental health and well-being for adults and young people by supporting 3 charities: Renew Wellbeing, Restored UK, Be Headstrong (part of Youthscape). The aim of the Bishop of London’s Lent Appeal is to equip churches to create safe spaces for those in their parish and promoting holistic wellbeing for all staff and church members.
• USPG – the Anglican mission agency that partners churches and communities worldwide in God’s mission to enliven faith, strengthen relationships, unlock potential and champion justice.

The Appeal closes on Sunday 1st May.

How to Donate
Please give generously online by visiting asms.uk/Lent and following the link to the donation page. Or you can send a cheque to the Parish Office, made payable to: “Parochial Church All Saints (Lent Appeal)”. If you qualify for Gift Aid, please write ‘Gift Aid’ on the back of the cheque.

Lent Boxes will not be issued this year.

Lent Lecture 2022

Our Lent Lecture takes place on Friday 8th April at 7.00 pm and focuses on the thought of St Augustine of Hippo. Our speaker will be the Revd Dr Dominic Keech, Vicar of St Nicholas’, Brighton.

His lecture will be entitled, “The Infinite Vision: Augustine and the formation of the Western mind.” His talk will be an introduction to the life and thought of the great fourth century North African theologian, exploring his influence on Western Christianity’s understanding of the human person in time and eternity, and probing his continuing presence in contemporary crises of self and society.

A recording of the lecture will be available after the event, but the lecture will not be live-streamed.

News from our online worshippers

This week we hear from Kate Charles, a crime writer who lives in Shropshire. If you are part of our online worshipping community and would like to write something for the parish weekly email, please be in touch with Fr Peter.

As a committed singer in a parish church choir, my opportunities for worshipping in other churches have been quite limited for a number of years, so the first lockdown was a strange experience for me.

Once various cathedrals and parish churches began to get the hang of streaming services (and were able to move out of the precentor or vicar’s front room!), I rejoiced in the chance to try something different every Sunday. I spread my favours very widely, often based on what was on offer musically. It was great for a while, until eventually I began to feel that something was missing.

And then All Saints began streaming its services, and I realised that what what I was missing was not only consistency, but something deeper: a feeling of belonging, of being where God wanted me to be – a sacred place which spoke to my heart and soul on a profound level, and in which I could truly worship.

It goes beyond the obvious joys of the splendid building, the beautiful music and the reverent liturgy to the excellent preaching; each service leaves me feeling spiritually fed, mentally stimulated, and above all blessed to be a part of this living community of faith.

Please, please don’t stop streaming. It is an important ministry which has become an essential part of my life – and I know that I am not alone in that.

Kate Charles

Links for Sunday

The link for the Propers for Lent 1 is at the end of this email.

Click here for the YouTube live stream for High Mass. The celebrant and preacher will be the Bishop of Fulham.

Evensong and Benediction, in the presence of the Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Fulham is at 6pm. The music includes Tomkins Second Service, and Gibbons O Lord in thy wrath. Click here for the YouTube live stream. The link for the order of service is at the end of this email.

Flowers

We are looking for volunteers to help with the flowers in church. If you have a particular talent for flower arranging and would like to help from time to time or on a regular basis, please contact Shawn on 07988 287 663 or shawnwilbe@outlook.com.

If you would like to make a donation for flowers, please contact Shawn or speak to Chris Self.

Walsingham Devotion

Tomorrow week our monthly Walsingham Devotion, in the form of the Rosary with intercessions, will be offered at 1130 before the noon Mass.

Prayer list

Prisoners and captives

Nazanin Zhagari-Ratcliffe, Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, Nasrin Sotoudeh
Maira Shabhaz
Rohingya Christians in Pakistan, Karen Christians in Burma, and Tigrayan Christians in Ethiopia

The sick

Fr Harry Hodgetts, Elizabeth Lyon, James Shrimpton, David Robin, Stuart Bell, Anne-Marie Chartier, Bernard Holmes, Thelma Spill, Simeon Sanders

Those known to us recently departed

John Vine Pr

Anniversaries of death

6th – Alice Sutton
7th – Phyllis Wickner, Brigid Beattie-Moriarty
8th – George Gorse, Hope Harris, John Cook
9th – Arthur Smallwood
10th – Alice Styan, Dorothy Gregory, Dennis Cooper Pr
11th – Charles Mills, Rosie Bullock, Peter Harding Pr, Clark Vaugham
12th – William Allen Whitworth Pr (third vicar of All Saints), Emily Woodard, Peter Brealey, Rosemary Lloyd, Barry Blacklock

Calendar and Intentions

March 2022

The Calendar and Intentions will now be published monthly on the website. You can view March’s here.

Supporting All Saints

Parish Giving Scheme

You can set up a regular donation to All Saints here.

We use the Parish Giving Scheme, which allows contributions to be anonymous and deals with Gift Aid, saving our office a lot of time. You can read about how the scheme works here.

Donations for general church purposes

To give by BACS please use the following details, advising the Administrator to collect Gift Aid:

PCC All Saints (Charity no. 1132895)
Sort Code 60-09-15
A/C 04559452

Parish Legacy Policy

We are always delighted to hear from anyone who wants to support us with a donation. Our PCC Legacy Policy encourages people to leave bequests specifically to one of our two related charities to be used for purposes of lasting value (rather than day to day costs):

All Saints Choir & Music Trust (Charity # 802994)

or The All Saints Foundation (Charity # 273390).