Updated:
29th January 2010
We are a very lively parish in the liberal catholic tradition but made up of people of many different styles. We aim to be a place of spiritual, intellectual and emotional refreshment.
We seek to give people the chance to learn and grow in their faith through challenging sermons and a variety of education courses.
We are an inclusive church that will give a warm welcome to everyone. We are a Christian family made up of all sorts and that's the way we like it. I hope you will get the chance to visit us soon and find out for yourself.
Where is God this week? Is he in the sky with a game console deciding who will be crushed to death? Is he like the Mad Dr Strangelove wide eyed with derision at the prospect of his power? Is our Father simpering in a corner wondering why he ever bothered to create a world in the first place. Or perhaps he’s arguing with theologians and atheists about why his handiwork had to be capable of such random devastation. Or maybe he’s asleep, indifferent to the stench and the screams?
But we get on with it, wherever he is this invisible man? We find the strength from somewhere to donate the cash to pay the professionals to push through the rubble, clear up the corpses and shoot the looters.
With no where else to look but pictures of death I look at a crib in the corner, almost forgotten since the tinsel was put away. I see a tiny baby. His arm is chipped perhaps a roof collapsed once; but his eyes tell me that God is crying like a child. He wrenches my heart; will not let me ignore him even if the sky is falling down.
In the rubble and the broken lives and the pain of wounds untreated, God is suffering, paying the price demanded for the freedom creation needs to sustain my flimsy existence.
And he does not sleep. He is the heart beat of the rescuer, he is the hands that claw in the dirt to find the lost. He is the essence of human will that restores to new life the lives that are now just blood and bone. He is the builder of bricks and concrete, steel and glass that will be the new world that comes.
And God’s wisdom? Well, she is baking cakes and pouring water, feeding with consolation and hope of resurrection the mouths in the faces of despair. ‘She’ as justice demands that these torn apart people are given a better deck of cards with which to play ‘The danger of being alive’ game‘.
In the silence and the dark of the space between fallen things God says nothing. Let there be silence as well as light. In the silence I hear her hold her children and wipe away their tears. As he builds they plan a future.
Revd. Chris Eyden
St Mary's Church
January 18th 2010
Sunday
10.00am: Main Family Eucharist Service
with Sunday School groups for children aged 3 to 13 years
6.00pm: Caritas
A Eucharistic service, the emphasis on prayerfulness and quiet reflection
Mon - Thurs
4.00pm: Evening Prayer
Wednesday
12.30pm: Lunchtime Communion
- Update on the appointment of a New Team Rector
Chris Eyden has written an open letter to the Parish on the progress...
Click here for more - St Mary's in The Times
We've been mentioned in The Times newspaper and you can read all about it online...
Click here for more - This Week's Sermon
This weeks sermon has now available to view in the Downloads section of the website...
Click here for more - Newpin for Lent
There is an exciting new initiative to help Newpin over lent...
Click here for more - Parish Lent Faith Forum
We have 4 new forums coming in February and March...
Click here for more