Weekly Email – Advent 4
Documents
Dear friends,
I am pleased to announce that the link for online membership applications for our new Friends of All Saints Margaret Street is now live. You can join our new scheme online and pay your 2022 membership fee by subscribing here. The link allows you to set up a direct debit, or pay by credit card if you are subscribing from abroad. It also does away with the need for paper application forms, which will no longer be used.
Our PCC made the decision several weeks ago to renew our Friends scheme. In future, membership of the Friends will also be the only way to receive a physical copy of our church’s magazine which will come out twice a year. The Friends will also, in part, therefore, work as a sort of subscription scheme for the Parish Paper.
Dom Bernard Clements OSB, our sixth vicar, started the Friends of All Saints in the 1930s. Its purpose is to help a wider congregation to stay in touch with the parish and to support and encourage our life and mission by prayer, companionship and giving. Friends in their turn can draw strength from the church’s daily round of sacraments and prayer, and feel they have a spiritual home at the heart of London.
The Friends of All Saints encompasses a wide range of people. This includes, of course, many regular parishioners of All Saints. However, there are also those who are committed to the life of the church in their home parishes but worship at All Saints on special occasions or during the working week. Friends may be former regular worshippers who have moved away, or clergy who value their link with All Saints as an inspiration in their own ministry. Many Friends also live overseas and keep connected to the liturgical life of our parish through online worship.
Our new friends scheme
From January 2022 onwards, our new Friends scheme will include several new tiers of commitment and membership.
The first tier of the new scheme is described as the “Friends” of All Saints Margaret Street. Membership of this tier costs £25 per year. The Friends of All Saints’, Margaret Street will receive the Parish Paper twice a year, they will be remembered at the altar each month during the 12 noon daily Mass, and are invited to attend a celebration of the life of the Friends on our Dedication Sunday, which in 2022 falls on Sunday 28th May.
There is now also a second tier of membership called the “Benefactors” of All Saints. Membership of this tier will be available to anyone who wishes to donate regularly at least £10 a month, or at least £120 a year to the Friends of All Saints. Like the “Friends,” they will receive the Parish Paper, be regularly prayed for by name at the 12 noon daily Mass and will be invited to the Dedication Sunday Friends festival. In addition, however, they will be personally invited to a special lunch or dinner organised each year to thank them for their support.
Our parish is so grateful for the support we have received from the Friends over so many years. The experience of COVID has shown how important it is to keep in touch with our wider family of supporters and has drawn many new people to know and love All Saints even though they do not live in London.
If you have any problems or questions concerning the online link, please be in touch with our parish office.
We look forward to the Friends being a renewed way in which we can stay in touch, support each other, and keep each other in prayer.
Fr Peter
Congratulations to Fr Julian
Fr Julian Browning will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood on Sunday. He will be the celebrant and preacher at the High Mass and there will be a special reception after the Mass to celebrate this wonderful mile stone.
Our whole parish joins in congratulating him, wishing him many more years of ministry, and in thanking him for all we have received through the faithful priestly service he has exercised in our parish.
Many congratulations, Father Julian! Ad multos annos!
It was a solemn privilege to remember Fr David Paton on Tuesday night and to offer a High Mass of Requiem for him. We were touched to be joined online by many friends and parishioners of Fr David’s who joined us from across the whole of Provence. A video of the Requiem can be seen here.
Dürer Exhibition at National Gallery
Friday 14th January 2022, 5.15pm
We are organising a parish trip to visit “Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist” at the National Gallery on Friday 14th January.
It is the first major UK exhibition of German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer in nearly 20 years. Through paintings, drawings, prints, and letters, this exhibition follows Dürer’s travels across Europe, bringing to life the artist himself, and the people and places he visited.
Charting his journeys to the Alps, Italy, Venice and the Netherlands, the exhibition will explore how Dürer’s travels sparked an exchange of ideas with Netherlandish and Italian Renaissance artists, fuelled his curiosity and creativity, and increased his fame and influence across Europe.
‘Dürer’s Journeys’ will bring together loans from museums and private collections across the world, including the artist’s striking ‘Madonna and Child’ (c. 1496/1499) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, never before seen in the UK.
We will meet at the National Gallery for a talk from Dr Susan Foister, deputy director of the gallery, at 5.15pm. After viewing the exhibition there is the opportunity to have dinner together at Le Beaujolais restaurant in Litchfield Street.
Tickets are on a strictly ‘first come, first served’ basis. The exhibition tickets cost £20. A three-course dinner at Le Beaujolais will be £37 (without wine – each person will be able to pay for their own wine on the night), so if you wish to stay on for dinner, the total is £57. If you are a member of the National Gallery, the cost is £37 – please send your membership number to office@asms.uk so we can include you in the group.
To buy your ticket – either with dinner or without – visit this page and select one of the three price options. If you are unable to make a payment electronically by card, the parish office will be able to receive a cheque.
Christmas Services 2021
Monday 20 December 6pm
NINE LESSONS & CAROLS by CANDLELIGHT
Both followed by mince pies & mulled wine
Friday 24 December
11pm MIDNIGHT MASS
Haydn Missa Sancti Nicolai
Celebrant: The Bishop of Fulham; Preacher: Fr Peter Anthony
Saturday 25 December
11am CHRISTMAS DAY HIGH MASS
Mozart Missa Brevis in D K194
Celebrant and Preacher: Fr Michael Bowie
Sunday 26 December
11am ST STEPHEN HIGH MASS
Mass in E minor – W. Lloyd Webber
Celebrant and Preacher: Fr Julian Browning
Thursday 6 January 2022
6pm EPIPHANY HIGH MASS
Sunday 9 January
6pm EPIPHANY CAROL SERVICE AND BENEDICTION
Links for Sunday
The link for the Propers for Advent 4 is at the end of this email.
And click here for the YouTube live stream.
Evensong and Benediction at 6pm on Sunday. This week the music includes Gibbons short service, and Bruckner Virga Jesse.
Flowers
The flowers this week are given by Fr Julian Browning.
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.
Prayer list
Prisoners and captives
Nazanin Zhagari-Ratcliffe, Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, Nasrin Sotoudeh
Maira Shabhaz
Rohingya Christians in Pakistan, Karen Christians in Burma, Tigrayan Christians in Ethiopia
The sick
Fr Harry Hodgetts, Martin Berka, Sue Yesnick, Elizabeth Lyon, Ross Dixon, Bernard Holmes, Jack de Gruiter, Anne-Marie Chartier, Carol Harrison, Ruth Wilson, Sara Vise, Joyce and David Cox, James Shrimpton, Rosemary Harris
Those known to us recently departed
Craig Williams, Lorna Smith, Kathleen McMorran, Arjan Melwani, Michael McParland
Anniversaries of death
19th – Ena Knight
20th – Lily King, Jack Monk, Elaine Bullock
21st – Charles Hillier, Adam Reddington, Harry Nuttall
22nd – Elizabeth Ross, Anthony Greek, Richard Routledge, Helen Turner
23rd – Harold Pobjoy Pr, Anne Scott, Michael Jervis
24th – Cynthia Tucker, Miriam Smith, Augustus Thompson, Paul De Fortis Pr, Doreen Forde
25th –
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 GiftAid, 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).