This page is an anticipation of the months ahead, a reflection on a selection of things the Rector will be involved in.
Dear friends,
February is suitably short since it is often the coldest month of the year, and once we get to March we start to feel that winter is loosening its grip. After so much really cold weather recently, time will tell if we are going to have a prolonged as well as severe winter. So what to look forward to in February?
Candlemass: right at the beginning of the month comes Candlemass - 2nd February. Its real title is the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. (It's called Candlemass because traditionally all the candles for the church in the ensuing year would be blessed on that day). Nowadays it marks the end of the Christmas season and the liturgy begins to encourage us to start planning for Lent, Holy Week and Easter. For me it is also when I start planning my observance of Lent - what additional prayer time etc to build into my routines - whether I am going to read a holy book and if so, which one etc.
Marriage Preparation: I usually do these sessions in February for the whole year, and I am doing it this way in 2009. These two sessions are normally great fun and I look forward to them again this year. If they all come, there will be ten couples, some first marriage and some second. Mostly they are rather nervous, not sure even what to call me (I tell them I was baptised 'Graham' before I was ordained Revd Newton). Many come quite worried that I might find them wanting and refuse to marry them. They quickly discover that they will be mostly discussing with each other, not airing their views in public, and anyway that no one is there to judge them, only to encourage productive use of two evenings in preparation for their weddings and married life.
Ash Wednesday: (25th February) Some readers may be surprised to read that this, from the church's perspective, has nothing to do with giving up smoking! It marks the beginning of Lent, that season of devotional and spiritual preparation for Easter. It is called 'Ash Wednesday' because we come into Lent sorry for our unreadiness for Easter and aware of our need for healing in our souls. As a token of our awareness of all this, we allow our foreheads to be marked with the sign of the cross, as they were marked at our baptism, but on this occasion with the ashes of last year's palm crosses rather than the Oil of Chrism. I commend attendance at this service on this day as an excellent way to begin Lent and - using old fashioned terminology - it is a Day of Obligation.
Best wishes Graham Newton