Weekly Email – Pentecost
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With any luck, by the time you read this, I will have been inducted as your new vicar. What a joy and a privilege it is to have been called by God to serve as the next incumbent of All Saints. I ask for your prayers as I take on this new role. I have been so impressed and touched by the welcome I have received so far. All Saints has a rich history and a glorious heritage which God has used to achieve so much in the life of our diocese and church. I am convinced that he mas many more blessings in store for us as we move ahead together in this next chapter of our parish’s life.
I think there is a beautiful theological serendipity in the fact that my ministry as your new vicar should begin at the point in the liturgical year when our hearts are yearning for the gift of God’s Holy Spirit bestowed upon the church at Pentecost. Without the gift of God’s Spirit, nothing we do can succeed, and nothing we undertake can have God present in it.
At the heart of any priest’s ministry and at the heart of any parish lies the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, animating all that is done in Christ’s name, and drawing those who are his Body ever closer to him. I pray that God will bestow on our parish a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit as we begin to plot out the contours of a new vision for where we feel God is calling us to be over the next few years and how he is calling us to reach out to the world he created in love.
When I celebrate the Parish Mass this Sunday for the very first time as your vicar, I will be keeping you all in my prayers at the altar and committing myself to serving you all as faithfully as I am able. I ask you to join with me on Pentecost morning in praying for our parish so that God might renew us and strengthen us in his service through the gift and power of the Holy Spirit.
Fr Peter
Guest preachers over the coming year
One of the things which I have heard spoken about many times over the past few months is the reputation which All Saints has as a place of excellent preaching and teaching. I very much want to ensure that charism is deepened, expanded and rejuvenated as we emerge from COVID and see our parish’s liturgical life restored to the kind of patterns we knew before the pandemic.
It strikes me one way of refreshing the ministry of preaching in our parish is to renew the tradition of inviting visiting preachers to offer the homily at the High Mass. Hearing the perspectives of others and their interpretation of the scriptures is a good way of widening our horizons and allowing God to challenge and stimulate our minds as we hear God’s word.
A parish like All Saints’ is also capable of attracting some exemplary names in the world of theological teaching and writing, and I am very pleased indeed that Archbishop Rowan Williams has kindly renewed his offer to preach Holy Week for us next year. What a homiletic and liturgical treat that week will be for us all.
I am also aware that inviting preachers from a range of theological traditions and backgrounds is an important way of valuing the spectrum of opinions represented in our congregation. I want to ensure all theological integrities feel included and represented in this important ministry. Inviting preachers from neighbouring churches can also be a way of making and sustaining connections between parishes, so I hope hearing a wider range of clergy local to us in Westminster preach will also be a good thing.
The list of the preachers I have invited below for the next twelve months offers an interesting opportunity for us to learn and grow as we seek to help God’s word take root in our lives. These are all people I know to be excellent speakers and thoughtful teachers of the Christian faith. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.
Fr Peter
Thursday 3rd June 2021 The Rt Revd Jonathan Baker
Corpus Christi The Bishop of Fulham
Sunday 17th October 2021 The Revd Charlotte Bradley
20th Sunday after Trinity Streetlight UK Charity
Sunday 31st November The Revd Justin Hutcherson
Eve of All Saints’ Day Vicar, St James’, Clacton-on-Sea
Monday 1st November 2021 The Revd Philip Barnes
All Saints’ Day Vicar, St Stephen’s, Gloucester Road
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 The Revd Canon Andrew Zihni
All Souls’ Day Canon Precentor, Southwark Cathedral
Sunday 12th December 2021 The Revd Tom Sander
Third Sunday of Advent Rector, St Giles-in-the Fields
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 The Revd Canon Jeremy Haselock
Candlemas Assistant priest, St Bartholomew’s, Smithfields
Sunday 27th February 2022 The Revd Marjorie Brown
Sunday next before Lent Vicar, St Mary’s, Primrose Hill
Holy Week 2022 The Most Revd & Rt Hon Rowan Williams
Former Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge
Sunday 15th May 2022 The Revd Carol Barret Ford
5th Sunday of Easter Vicar, St Martin’s, Gospel Oak
Monday 15th August 2022 The Revd Graeme Rowlands
Assumption of the BVM Vicar, St Silas’, Kentish Town
Links for Sunday
The link for the Propers for Pentecost is at the top of this email.
And click here for the YouTube live stream.
Flowers
The flowers for Sunday have been given by Janice, Julia and Daniel Fielden in loving remembrance of and thanksgiving for their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, Fred and Doris Porter.
If you would like to make a donation for flowers, please contact Shawn on 07988 287 663 or shawnwilbe@outlook.com or speak to Chris Self.
Prayer list
Prisoners and captives
Nazanin Zhagari-Ratcliffe, Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Maira Shabhaz.
Rohingya Christians in Pakistan and Karen Christians in Burma
The sick
David Fettke, Joan Cooper, Vallery Tchukov, Sara Vice, Katherine Lee, Lorna Smith, Beth Klausing, Hilary Porter, Bruce Ross-Smith, Benjamin Woolf, James Shrimpton, Tony Rodger, Rachel Pereira, Fr Michael Gudgeon, Chris and Carole Radley, Fr Harry Hodgetts, Rosemary Orr, Andrew Roger, Martin Berka, Barbara Schiefer, Sybil Priestnall, Joan Anna SLG, Phil Gibbs, Poppy Harris, Sheila Wood, Jennifer Spreckley, Sue Yesnick, Elizabeth Lyon, Rosina Sargon Eskrya, Fr Charles Cloughen, Malcolm Brown, Fr Pip Bevan, Tim Knight, Alixe Bainbridge-Spring
Those known to us recently departed
Diane Roberts, Sheila Whittle Pr, Claire Dittmar, Philip Oswald, John Mather, Beverley Ward, Melanie Toogood Pr
Anniversaries of death
23rd – Basil Kiernander, Charles Cruse
24th – Francis Irving, Rita Hodgetts, Mary Woodward, Nora Nettey
25th – Frederick Seales, John Davies, Yvonne Harland
26th – Clare Jackson, Percy Aspinall
27th – Elsie Davies, Betty Scott, Ivan Sutton, Joy Cooch
28th – Constance Crozier
29th – Agnes Barry, Brenda Lusha, Dominic Borg
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).