Weekly Email – First Sunday of Lent
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Dear friends,
It is with huge gratitude that I write to let you know the latest results of our music sponsorship campaign. You may recall that we set ourselves the challenge at the start of the year of raising an extra £15,000 for the 2025 music budget.
Within merely a matter of weeks of the beginning of that effort, I can report we have raised an astonishing £14,312! This is a wonderful achievement and means we are now incredibly close to realising our target. We now need a last £700 to ensure that our budget is safe for the coming year.
If anyone felt able to make a gift to All Saints’ to help us reach our target, I would be hugely grateful. You can sponsor the cost of music on any given date. It might be in memory of a departed loved one or friend, or in thanksgiving for some particular answer to prayer, or on the occasion of an anniversary or birthday. Any sum, small or large will make huge difference to helping us balance our budget for the coming year.
The annual cost of music at All Saints’ is around £120,000 per year. Our Choir and Music Trust contributes to this with the income from its investments. This only comes, however, to around £60,000 per year, which covers around half of the total budget. This means we have to find a further £60,000 per annum from our parish annual income to pay for our wonderful choir and musicians. The music at a High Mass or Evensong costs around £1,000 for each service, and so is a significant outgoing each week. If we succeed in hitting our target of raising £15,000, this will make a really big difference to the way in which our parish is able to balance its annual budget, in which costs are constantly rising.
I want to say an enormous thank you to everyone who has contributed so far to this effort. Your donations have contributed to us being able to continue the incredibly rich musical tradition that undergirds the liturgical life of our parish. You have supported the offering of prayer and praise at All Saints’, and enriched the worship of others through your generosity. Our whole parish family is incredibly grateful.
Fr Peter
Our Young Adults Group enjoyed a Shrove Tuesday pancake party at Fr Alan’s house. Many thanks to Fr Alan for his terrific hospitality, and to Simon Rainey for providing the champagne!
Guest preacher
We look forward to welcoming Fr Thomas Plant as our preacher at the 11.00 am High Mass on Sunday 9th March. He is currently Chaplain at Rikkyo University, Tokyo. He will be joining us with a group of his students who will be visiting England from Japan and are learning more about the Anglican liturgical and musical tradition. Fr Thomas will soon be moving back to England to be the new Vicar of St Margaret of Antioch, Iver Heath.
Parishioners enjoy a drink in our parish bar after Evensong on Sunday.
Lent Walk
Our next parish walk will be a circular route of around 9 miles in the environs of Leigh-on-Sea and Hadleigh Castle and will take place on Saturday 15th March and include a Low Mass and the opportunity to eat together in Leigh after the walk. We aim to catch the 10am train from Fenchurch St Station, and to be back in London by 6pm. Please let Fr Alan (assistantpriest@asms.uk) know if you plan to join us.
Fr Alan slaved for hours over a hot stove on Tuesday cooking up dozens of delicious pancakes for our Young Adults Group Shrove Tuesday party. Many thanks, Fr Alan!
Zoom Theology
Our next Zoom Theology seminar will take place on Saturday, 22nd March, 2025, at 3pm GMT (11am New York time), and is entitled, “An Anglo-Catholic Tale of Two Cities.” It will be hosted jointly with our sister parish in New York, St Mary the Virgin Times Square.
Fr Peter and Fr Sammy, the churches’ respective incumbents, will speak about characters from the colourful histories of our two parishes. What can these histories tell us about the future of Anglo-Catholic parishes like All Saints’ and St Mary’s, and what do our parishes’ witness and traditions have to contribute to the life of the Church in our two cities?
You can find out more about our Zoom Theology programme here.
Stations of the Cross
During Lent, the Stations of the Cross will take place at 12.30 pm on Wednesdays and at 7.00 pm on Fridays. This begins on Friday 7th March. The service takes around half an hour.
Parishioners enjoy a time of fellowship during coffee hour in our courtyard after the High Mass last Sunday.
Sponsored knit for Alzheimer’s Research
Kitty Thompson writes: “Through the medium of knitting, I am raising money for Alzheimer’s Research UK – a cause very close to the Thompson family heart. You can find out more and donate here. I am new to the world of knitting (it is my New Year’s resolution for 2025 to learn) but I will gladly gift a knitted creation to anyone who donates…”
Kitty’s knitting needles have been speeding away non-stop over the past few weeks! Can you help her raise money for Alzheimer’s research?
Holy Hour
Do remember that there is a Holy Hour of silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament every week on Wednesdays from 5.30 pm until the evening Low Mass at 6.30 pm. Lent is a good opportunity to make time for quiet time with the Lord, and the Holy Hour is a great way of taking time out to be in Christ’s eucharistic presence.
We are so grateful to Daniel Formston who has acted as MC for the first time over the past two Sundays. He has coordinated the liturgy and presided over our servers with calm, prayerfulness and praise-worthy attention to detail. Many congratulations to him as he takes on this new role and our heartfelt thanks.
Attendance last week
Flowers
Parishioners enjoy a drink in our parish bar after Evensong last Sunday.
For your Prayers
The Friends of All Saints’ Margaret Street:
9th – Mark Allan, Martin Amherst-Lock, Robert Austen, Richard Ayling, James Babington Smith, Ruth Baker
10th – Stephen Baldwin, Stephen Barber, Jonathan Beck, Dr William Benefield, William Bonnell
11th – John Bristow, Paul Brough, Michael Brown, David Blunden, Fr. Michael Bowie, Dr Graham Burns
12th – Derek Bussey, Katherine Butler, Maureen Cambrey, David Caplowe, Adrian Carlton-Oatley, Timothy Cassady, Norman and Zulette Catir, Kate Charles, Stuart Chillingworth, Sir Robert Chote, Sandy Christian
13th – Roger Clark, Catharine Clarke, David and Mavis Cleggett, Graham Colville
14th – Karolyn Cooper, William Cooper Bailey, Peter Coulson, Steven Cox, Dr Yvonne Craig, Juliet Cridland
15th – Ryan Danker, Kirill Dashkovskiy, Christopher Davies, Peter Dennis, Laura Denton, Joshua Dolphin
The sick:
David Craig, Janet Crispin, Suzanne Goodstien, Eckhart Grimm, Tony Hawkins, Fr Harry Hodgetts, Elizabeth Lyon, James Rodger.
The recently departed:
Magdalena Grimm, Michael Brotherton, priest.
The faithful departed:
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
13th – Elizabeth Middlemist-Downer
14th – Annie Slater, Basil Whitworth Pr, Ann Sculley
15th – Sydney Heales, Vera Martin, Peggy Shepherd, Joan Miller James Robertson Pr
Parishioners enjoy a cup of coffee and a time for chat and a catch up, after our High Mass on Sunday morning.
Services this week
Saturday 8th March – Saturday after Ash Wednesday
12pm Low Mass
6.00 pm Confessions
6.30 pm Vigil Mass of Sunday
Sunday 9th March – FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT
8.30 am Low Mass
11 am High Mass
5.15 pm Low Mass
6.00 pm Evensong and Benediction
Monday 10th March – Lent Feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass
Tuesday 11th March – Lent Feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass
Wednesday 12th March – Lent Feria
12 noon Low Mass
12.30 pm Stations of the Cross
5.30 Holy Hour
6.30 pm Low Mass
Thursday 13th March – Lent Feria
12 noon Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass
Friday 14th March – Lent Feria
12pm Low Mass
6.30 pm Low Mass
7pm Stations of the Cross
Saturday 15th March – Monthly Requiem
12pm Low Mass of Requiem
6.00 pm Confessions
6.30 pm Vigil Mass of Sunday
Sunday 16th March – SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT
8.30 am Low Mass
11 am High Mass
5.15 pm Low Mass
6.00 pm Evensong and Benediction