Notices — 12 April — Easter Day

NOTICES:

The flowers in the church for East­er are in memory of Eunice Dahler from Jo Raj (Gor­don) and family.

 Play Group @ Enmore – has been sus­pen­ded until the cur­rent health crisis is under con­trol. For inform­a­tion phone Ian: Mob 0427 250 390.

Con­firm­a­tion – Booked in for Sunday 23^rd August (but wait­ing to be advised).  Bp Michael Stead will be here for con­firm­a­tion. Any­one who is not con­firmed is invited to go through the pro­cess of pre­par­a­tion with Fr Jeff. Please speak to Fr Jeff about this.

Food for our little friends — Don’t for­get to keep your cooked food scraps, fruit peel­ings, tea leaves and cof­fee grounds for the par­ish worm farms. (No cit­rus, dairy or meat). You can still drop this off out­side the office — dur­ing office hours.  If you would like some worm cast­ings for your garden you can leave a buck­et or bag at the rect­ory with your details. Our little fer­til­izer factor­ies have been doing a won­der­ful job and the fruit of their labours is now available.

 Any notices for the ser­vice book­let will need to be sub­mit­ted to the Par­ish Office email by Tues­day even­ing at the latest. This is so we can post out the weekly ser­vice book­let earlier.

Anniversar­ies of the Depar­ted: Andrew Micke; Agnes For­res­t­er; Franco Cevcek; May Gleave; Ben­jamin Potts; Eileen Kerr; Mary Port­er; Arthur Boyd & James Unwin.

Read­ings for Next Sunday — Second Sunday of East­er: First Read­ing: Acts 2.14a, 22–32; Psalm: 16;  Second Read­ing: 1 Peter 1.1–12; Gos­pel: John 20.19–31

Read­ings for the com­ing week: Even­ing Pray­er 

Sunday	Exodus 12.1–14	Psalm 113	Romans 6.3–14
Monday	Exodus 12.1–20	Psalm 110	1 Peter 1.1–9
Tues­day	Exodus 12.21–36	Psalm 113	1 Peter 1.10–17
Wed­nes­day	Exodus 12.37–51	Psalm 115	1 Peter 1.18–2.3
Thursday	Exodus 13.1–16	Psalm 117	1 Peter 2.4–10
Fri­day	Exodus 13.17–14.14	Psalm 118.19–29	1 Peter 2.11–17
Sat­urday	Exodus 14.15–30	Psalm 136.1, 13–26	1 Peter 2.18–25

 Weekly Inter­ces­sions for our Com­munity:  Sunday: Diana Jef­fer­ies; Eddy Kit­tir­at, Mint, Atom & Arty; John Lo; Monday: Joseph, Esth­er, Joyti & Joshlyn Kumar; Fabi­an LoS­chiavo; Tues­day: Geoff Lind­say & Mandy Tib­bey; Lea MacNeil & Don­ald Thomas; Wed­nes­day: Evelyn Maack; Jen­nifer McGov­ern; John M.; Fran Mor­ris; Thursday: Jo Middleton; Ian Myl­chreest; Ron­ald Naidu; Pau­line Newell; Fri­day: Anthea, Ron, Ron­an, Veron­ica & Rohan Nath; Math­i­as Oduro; and Sat­urday: We pray for all health work­ers deal­ing with our cur­rent Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic, par­tic­u­larly Raboom Takham & the nurs­ing staff at St Vincent’s Hos­pit­al. That they may receive the resources and sup­port needed at this time.

Pray­ers for the sick: Kristen Har­ley; Steph­en Thur­ley; Kev­in Tib­bey; Glen; Kiki Chun; Br Noel Jeffs (SSF); Edna Cham­bers; Br Michael Sam­inath­am (SSF); Sam George; Mary Middleton; Louise Middleton; Bar­bara Reyne; Vic­tor­ia Keighery; Fr John Bunyan; John; Louise Trott; and Christina Rees (CBE).

Long Term Pas­tor­al Pray­er list: Andrew Reddy; Jen­nifer B.; Rose­mary Brad­ford; Shir­ley, Bar­bara & Jade Allen; Beth Arm­strong; Ann Jeffs; Rhi­an­non Henry-Edwards; Marissa; Jude, Isla, Meg & Al Don­nell; Lyn Car­ring­ton; Ruth Cham­pi­on; Gary & Kar­en Stein­er-Hill; Ken­neth Bar­ongo; Pau­line Newell; Bar­bara Beec­roft; Sr Eliza­beth (SSC); Loch­lan Lones­bor­ough; Ann Con­nolly; the Per­kins Fam­ily; Fr Peter Carls­son; Day­alan Sam­inath­an; Grace & Han­nah Ashton; Vic­tor Any­ar­isi; Baby Anaisha, & her par­ents Anu & Digvi­jay; Robert & Lyn­dall; Kit & Ben; Hiro Itadini; and Br Wil­li­am (SSF).

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… All of us, now, face a com­mon threat, COVID-19. The ques­tion is, how do we find hope in these dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances? Hope comes both from what we can do and who we are.

We know that everything pos­sible is being done to ensure that we can meet the chal­lenge, in the NHS and across soci­ety. The struggle will bring with it many prac­tic­al dif­fi­culties, from the clos­ing of sports grounds to meet­ing the needs of those in isol­a­tion. It may mean some very hard decisions have to be taken about who is treated, as in Italy where they have had to decide not to treat some patients.

We must not be sus­pi­cious or indulge in con­spir­acy the­or­ies. Those who are lead­ing our coun­try are seek­ing the best advice and can be trus­ted to do all they can. NHS staff and sci­ent­ists our Gov­ern­ment can call upon are amongst the best any­where in the world. They have no agenda oth­er than the well­being of all.

We are cap­able of bear­ing the truth. Hon­esty strengthens our hopes. We need to listen to the sci­ence. Through listen­ing we already know how to reduce the risk: wash­ing our hands metic­u­lously; self-isol­at­ing even if we are not ill but have come into con­tact with the vir­us; res­ist­ing the tempta­tion to go to a doctor’s sur­gery where we might infect oth­ers; res­ist­ing the tempta­tion, too, to pan­ic buy.

Above all we must look after one anoth­er, know­ing that in an uncer­tain world with a new vir­us we are best pro­tec­ted with hon­esty, com­pas­sion and care.

Remem­ber the example of the Good Samar­it­an, the story in the Bible, which speaks about the need to care for the oth­er and ensure we notice those who are in dis­tress even if they are those who are often invis­ible to us.   We can find hope and cour­age in the goodly and whole­some spir­it that is in so many ways com­mon to all human beings, wheth­er they are people of Faith or None. We must dis­tin­guish between a healthy fear — the begin­ning of wis­dom, which prompts us to fol­low advice, and to care for those at risk — and unhealthy fear which is driv­en by pride, lead­ing us to act, selfishly, doing harm to ourselves and oth­ers.  With the gift of truth and hope, we can care for one anoth­er lov­ingly, using words if not touch because of self-isol­a­tion. We can accept advice without grumbling, out of con­cerns for oth­ers, even if we do not see ourselves as being at risk.

We can go out of our way to be attent­ive to neigh­bours and to those who are vul­ner­able. We can shop for one anoth­er. We can help at a food bank. We can 

volun­teer in com­munity ser­vice. We can sup­port those who struggle to feed their chil­dren when there are no free school lunches.

Finally, there is one more thing that every­one can do. Some­thing we would expect from two Arch­bish­ops. We make no apo­logy for say­ing “Pray!” Even if you scarcely can ima­gine how, pray! Pray for your­self, for those you love, for friends and neighbours.

Three thou­sand years ago a young King, of shep­herd back­ground, called Dav­id, wrote a song. It was a hit at his time and has remained so ever since. That is quite a suc­cess, even the greatest of our stars of today would feel that three thou­sand years at the top was quite an achieve­ment. It’s the Shep­herd song, “The Lord’s my Shepherd”.

We sing it in our com­mon wor­ship, at wed­dings and at funer­als. It starts with hope but speaks of dark­ness as well as life. The sing­er begins with joy: God, the divine Shep­herd-King, leads his people to nour­ish­ment and safety but in the song the scene quickly darkens.

The path along which he goes becomes a val­ley of the shad­ow of death. But the shepherd’s ‘rod’ and ‘staff’, imple­ments that prod and guide the sheep, provides the com­fort that comes from divine guidance.

Find Psalm 23 and read it aloud. The Shepherd’s song is about real life, not an ideal­ised pic­ture. It speaks of suf­fer­ing and facing enemies.

Wheth­er we are con­fid­ent and brave, or doubt-filled and fear­ful, God is the source of love and hope. Why not say the Lord’s pray­er – “Our Fath­er who art in heav­en ….” when you wash your hands. It takes more than the recom­men­ded 20 seconds.

Pray for heal­ing for those who are sick with COVID-19; and that God will heal us from the fear which will pre­vent us from work­ing together.

May the wis­dom of God lead the doc­tors, nurses and research­ers, that they may know God’s pro­tec­tion; and that God will guide the lead­ers of the nations into the ways of justice and peace. And that the love of Christ will sur­round us and take away our anxi­ety and give us His peace. May He hear us and heal us.

With the hope that you will find, then act. Where someone is ill, encour­age them. Where someone dies, remem­ber that, as the found­a­tion of our faith for over two thou­sand years, we have believed that God shared the pains and fears of our lives in Jesus Christ, that He faced death, but over­came it. And He is with the bereaved. Where is our hope? It is in the end in the love and faith­ful­ness of a God whom we may have for­got­ten, but whose action and char­ac­ter is expressed in mil­lions of acts of love by every per­son in this coun­try. This is the God who we see in Jesus Christ, who called him­self the Good Shep­herd. Acts of love are the nor­mal reac­tion to those in need. They are a reflec­tion of the God who is our Shepherd