Fr. Yenda's Monthly Letters 2006

My Dear People of St. Mary’s,

January!! The new Year!! It’s all happening —we have had the Christmass dinner, the 2 weeks of turkey sandwiches, and we are probably now beginning to need to look at the sell-by date on all the food in the fridge each time we look for something to eat from the ever present Christmass stocks!

The children will all be busy playing with new toys, and if we are really lucky there may still ( at this time in January at least) be some which have not yet been broken! The only real excitement now is for the children to go back to school with all their new pens!

But don’t worry — it’s not quite as dismal as all that. Because we now have to look forward to that wonderful time of Epiphany. The Epiphany ceremonies, which this year we keep on Sunday January 8th. are amongst the most lovely , I think in the whole year.

The Crib has by this time altered — the Three Kings have made their journey and are in there offering their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, yet there are other ceremonies as well which are rather important.

The first is the Blessing Of Chalk. It is customary that chalk is blessed on the feast of the Epiphany and then people chalk either the initials or the names of the Three Kings (Kaspar, Malchior and Balthazar — depending on how you choose to spell them!) on the porch or above the door of their houses to signify that theirs is a Christian house.

Interestingly enough on the continent, this is more common than it is here, but it is a rather nice custom.

The other important ceremony on the Feast of the Epiphany, is the Proclamation Of The Date Of Easter — because Easter moves around the calendar each year, it does mean that certain dates are always different…. and of course before we had things like telephones, photocopiers, Royal Mail and the like, it was important that people knew when each of the important feast days were — hence on the Feast of the Epiphany, the priest will announce all the moveable feasts for the year (and yes, it is quite permissible to sit in church on that day with a diary and a pen!)

It is, in fact a very good way to start the New Year. We mark the coming of the Three Kings, and we mark the fact that Our Lord was given these wonderfully exotic and yet natural gifts as a celebration of who He was and what He was. The fact that all this happens at the start of the New Year is rather appropriate, because it signifies to us that great hope of the year to come.

So, as with Christmass, I very much hope that you have a really good and joyful New Year — as with all annual celebrations it is good to celebrate them! It is also rather nice that this year New Year’s Day is a Sunday! It is good to be in Church any year to start the New Year with an act of worship, but this year it is even more poignant with it being on a Sunday.

As January draws to a close, we will be thinking that ‘it is all over’ in a funny kind of way, Christmass and New Year is all done and dusted for another year — and in a sense it is! But the important thing is to remember that there is so much that can happen in 2006, and so much to look forward to.

I wish you a very Happy New Year, and many

blessings through out 2006.

It being my great joy and privilege to serve as your Parish Priest,

Fr. Yenda.,

My Dear People of St. Mary’s,

Every month when it comes time to write the parish letter, I have to try and think of something interesting! How do other vicars manage, I always ask myself! Well I do remember a vicar telephoning me once about a parish magazine from a colleague of his that had just landed through his letter box.

"have you read Fr. So and so’s article this month?!"

"no, not yet…why…?"

"well I suggest you don’t, his letter has just been lifted (word for word!) from last week’s Telegraph!!"

Well, suffice to say that there is little chance of me doing that… although I do try not to write these letters after a train journey, for fear that I should myself may be tempted to copy something from the Daily Mirror!

Anyway, February is here – the shortest month of the year, and also one of the most interesting if your birthday happens to fall at the end of it! I know a priest in Bradford who, couple of years ago, was in his 70th year – it was great fun for his parish, because they had a big birthday party for him – not for his 70th, but rather for his 18th!! Whether he only keeps his birthday on leap years or has a do every year, I don’t know! But it was rather fun to see him in his magazine referring to himself as a ‘Teenager!’

February is also the ‘official’ end of Christmass too, with the Feast of Candlemass – also known as the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The 3rd of February is the Feast of St Blaise. St Blaise is a particularly interesting saint, because he is the patron saint of throats.

It is custom that two of the candles blessed at Candlemass are tied together and are used on St Blaise’s day to actually bless the throats of the congregation. It is a particularly good custom, and I think that with all the colds, flu and even just the bitter weather that is upon us, it is a custom that wouldn’t do any of us any harm!

Also this year, we have an exceptionally early Easter. As early as it can possibly be from what I understand. Ash Wednesday is on March 1st (there you go, a March advert in the February magazine…perhaps it is about time I got organised, I hear you cry!!)

The time between Christmass and Lent this year is very little – and in fact if we were to follow the Prayer Book custom of using purple for Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, it would be even shorter! So the amount of time we have before Lent is in fact this year short, and so we have to make sure that we enjoy what we have!

There is perhaps a gentle kind of joy in February too – the weather (which this January has been especially bitter) should with any luck become a little more mild once we enter February.

It remains, as ever, my greatest joy and privilege to serve as your Parish Priest,

With all good wishes,

Fr. Yenda.,

April 2006

My Dear People of St. Mary’s,

As April approaches I am tempted to have a little picture of a man with a brolly at the top of this page to illustrate the anticipation of April showers!! There again given the temperatures we have had recently a picture of a snowman would be a little more appropriate!

As Easter approaches there is always that notion that the weather will improve – I remember my Gran always changed from her navy turban hat (the winter outfit for church!) to the fawn beret that marked Easter and the ensuring summer months!

As Easter approaches I want this month to take a look at the services that we have leading up to the great festival. It is a wonderful time of the church year, and as always, the more we know what is happening, the more we get out of the services when we attend them.

On Palm Sunday we remember Our Lord making His way through Jerusalem and en route to His trial. All through Lent we have been using the colour purple, and on Palm Sunday we change to red. This gives us the colour which marks the anticipation of Our Lord’s suffering on Good Friday.

In many churches from Monday to Wednesday of Holy Week, purple returns, but I always continue the use of red – after all we have in a sense moved on from where we were the week before!

Monday through to Wednesday of Holy Week are a kind of preparation for what happens at the end of the week. The Eucharist is said in church both morning and evening on these days to ensure that all those who wish to be in church are able to do so.

Maundy Thursday is one of the most meaningful days in the Church calendar. It is the day on which Our Lord instituted the Eucharist; sitting with His disciples and taking bread and wine and instructing us to offer them in time immemorial.

At the end of the service on Maundy Thursday, the Blessed Sacrament is taken to the Altar of Repose, where it rests until midnight, with people choosing to spend time watching in prayer with Our Lord as He awaits his crucifixion – just as if in the garden of Gethsemane.

Good Friday is of course the day on which we remember Our Lord’s death – and it is the only day of the year when the Eucharist is not celebrated…and the Holy Communion we receive on Good Friday is ‘presanctified’ having been consecrated at the service on Maundy Thursday. Good Friday also gives us the opportunity to venerate the Cross and identify with our Lord’s suffering in that way too.

The First of the Easter Services takes place on Holy Saturday which is the night before Easter Sunday. The new candle is lit from the new Easter fire, and brought into church with great rejoicing. Candles are lit, bells are rung amidst the congregation and the Eucharist is offered for the first time since Maundy Thursday, with great celebration to mark the Resurrection.

Holy Week is a really marvellous time in the church year – and as always I hope to encourage people to attend church over the course of that week – a week which is a wonderful and moving experience for us all.

Last year I was amazingly encouraged by the numbers of people attending church, and of course this year I very much hope that we shall see new faces over this wonderful time too. Making that first step through the church doors is not easy…I remember doing it when I was about nine or ten. Very often such times as Holy Week or Festivals is a good time to think about making that first step over the church threshold. But once you have made it over that threshold, the riches and indeed the joys are manifold…after all, take a look at the people leaving St Mary’s on a Sunday…and I bet there are a good few happy faces amongst them.

So as Easter approaches, I wish you a very joyful, holy and blessed Easter, and of course, all the chocolate you should wish for!

It being my very great joy and privilege to serve as your Parish Priest,

With all good wishes,

Fr. Yenda.,

May 2006

My dear people of St Mary’s.

My sister happens to be one of those people who has a job that suits her character, and her build and appearance to an absolute T!  She is the archetypal bubbly barmaid, and not only does she love the work she does, but, I am pretty certain, she is also very good at it!

One of her greatest gifts is that she is able to laugh at jokes and little things that happen even more heartily than most of the rest of us, but she can also tell the jokes and incidents again better than pretty much anyone else I know.

For instance, she told me recently that there was to be a party at the club where she works.  Nothing interesting there, you might think…it then transpired that the party was for a First Birthday.  Wonderful, again, nothing interesting there.  Until.  She added that the party would be from 7 or 8 pm, and go on till around 11pm…hence the party would take place when all the children were in bed!

…and yes, my sister did ask what use such a celebration would be to the child whose birthday it is!!

 So many aspects of life nowadays have changed in one way or another.  For instance, years ago the mother stayed home and looked after the children, and the dad went out to work.  Now it is normally the case that both partners have to work – and whatever the pros and cons of this, it has to be realised that if both partners didn’t work, it would be almost impossible for them to make ends meet. 

Then there are, of course, the number of couples who live together now without actually having married first.  My word, didn’t we used to look at that over the rim of our spectacles in years gone by!  Thank goodness we no longer have that kind of attitude anymore. 

One aspect of the wider national and international church which always makes me a little uncomfortable, is that there are always sections of it which want to fight against how society actually is now.  That is fair enough to a point, but the church does need to ask itself

how it relates to society generally, and how it can grow and flourish in a society which is now very different to what it once was.  The church which only welcomes a small or particular section of society, will be rather disappointed by the number of people it will ever see!    

I often say now that church is a competitive industry…after all, just think of all the other activities that are open to us now on a Sunday.  Part of church growth must surely be that we are here to embrace everyone in society, and to care for everyone regardless of how they may earn their living, who they may live with, or even where they may choose to drink!   

It never fails to inspire me that the great love of God is poured out upon all of us…quite unconditionally, and even if most of the time we don’t realise it!  We all know that God’s love is warm and embracing of all of us…and my word, how grateful I for one am for that.

It remains my very great joy and enormous privilege to serve as your Parish Priest,

With all good wishes as ever,

Fr Yenda

June 2006

I recently went over to the town of Letchworth (beware of the speed cameras there!!) to visit my mother and on this occasion I decided to take my two dogs with me.

So very often have I driven around the estate where she lives, but this was the first time in probably years that I have actually taken a stroll with the dogs around the estate where I used to live when I was young.

What was interesting was to see the different houses, flats and maisonettes I had once lived in and see what they looked like now – albeit from the outside. Seeing these places brought back many memories which were at times as vivid as if they were yesterday.

There is, of course, something quite wonderful about nostalgia – but when we look back we often see things through rose-tinted spectacles, and we have to encourage ourselves to look at the past in a kind of realistic way, rather than how we would have liked things to have been.

How nice it would have been to have looked back on my adolescent years (yes even potential Vicars have them!) and see some kind of golden character who was never any bother…alas this was not the case, and how well I remembered my Gran chasing me in the kitchen (without the aid of a rolling pin in case you were wondering!) as I was raiding the biscuit barrel for the fourth time on one particular day!

By the time this letter goes to print, we shall all be glued to our TV screens watching the seventh edition of the Big Brother series. I seem to have watched most of the series and always find them fascinating as well as amusing.

But why??

Well, as I was walking around the estate in Letchworth ,seeing the places where I used to live, I could not, alas, see inside the homes to see how they had changed…each of them had pretty effective net curtains!

Big Brother, on the other hand, does not have that advantage – and the whole country gets the chance to look through a set of net curtains and see people living day to day life. There will be characters we warm to and characters we wont – and often the whole country may take a dislike to some of them…remember ‘Nasty Nick’ Bateman from a few years back.

By now, of course, we have probably all decided which characters we do and don’t like, and we might even have a good idea as to who might actually win.

Nostalgia is, of course a useful and comforting thing, but very often it isn’t all its ‘cracked up to be’. What we often need rather than nostalgia, is stability in our lives. Stability is something which I have sought to establish in the worshipping life at St Mary’s, in that the services always follow the same pattern and order day in, day out, year in, year out. This means that despite all the transient comings and goings of modern life, all the dashing around and all the many changes that we encounter, when we come to church we know that the worship will be stable and be as we have come to know and understand it.

I have always felt this to be important; and as the lives we now lead do have less stability than once they had, the worshipping life of the church has perhaps even greater value. now in its stability than it ever has had before.

It remains my very great joy and enormous privilege to serve as your Parish Priest,

All the best,

Fr Yenda

July 2006

My Dear People of St. Mary’s, ,

During the late 1980s I lived for a short time in Cornwall, and for a few months I used to go to the beautiful church of St Materiana in Tintagel. I remember that the vicar used always to have some kind of interesting point in his magazine letters, and when it came to the summer months, he used to tell his people to be nice to the ‘emmets’!

‘Emmets’ are the Cornish word (dare I say colloquialism) for tourists, and very often there was a feeling amongst them that it would be much better if all the emmets came to the boarder of Devon and Cornwall, and just threw their wallets over!

I had reason to remember this when I found myself being an ‘emmet’ when I spent a week in Cornwall recently – and what a week it was! Having not been there for years, I did over 1400 miles (including a wrong turning on the M25!) and saw some wonderful churches and also some relatives I haven’t seen for around 17 years – actually including my dad who lives in Camborne. (I think that my father being Cornish actually makes me only ‘half an emmet’!

Among the churches I visited, I went to St Stephen Launceston where my grandparents were married, and where Fr Gendall who I have written about in a previous magazine was the vicar. I met some people who knew him, and also listened to a tape of Fr Gendall conducting their wedding in 1958.

Perhaps the most interesting church is that of St Hilary in the small village of the same name near Marazion near Penzance. It is a very attractive church, and one that I used to attend from time to time during my time in Cornwall. St Hilary had a very interesting history, and this centred round a wonderful priest called Fr Bernard Walke.

Fr Walke was at St Hilary for 20 years (and in fact his memoirs were published under the title of Twenty Years at St Hilary.) Fr Walke conducted all his services in the traditional Anglo Catholic style, and with the aid of his wife who was a marvellous artist, the church was duly decorated with paintings as well as with many statues, candles and the altars duly decorated with stone reredos. The church became quite famous as Fr Walke used to have his Christmass plays broadcast on the radio.

Alas a very great tragedy was to befall St Hilary. A protestant organisation in the area set about putting paid to the rich beauty of St Hilary church, and to cut a long story short, they broke into the church on August 8^th 1932 and with axes and all manner of weaponry, they went on the rampage once inside the church and smashed the interior of the church to smithereens.

The fascinating thing now is to see how the people and subsequent rectors at St Hilary have risen to the challenge that there is at this little Cornish church. Up until the 1970s it was pretty much left in the sad and pitiful state it had been rendered to, but then the Friends of St Hilary were formed, and the church has been restored to its former glory…and where once people who visited were struck by the uncomfortable atmosphere, now people once again flock to a church which they love and which is once again warm and welcoming.

The other interesting thing is, in fact, the way the Church in our country has itself changed since on a massive scale. Fr Walke for example did the complete services for Holy Week including the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, and also the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday – these are now part and parcel of the worshipping life of the majority of churches. Furthermore, the fact that Fr Walke used vestments was also something which caused complaint – now to find a church where vestments aren’t worn is very much the exception. Ultimately, as time has gone on, the Church has adapted, and what once clergy and people had to fight for at often great length, now we almost take them for granted.

It is amazing to think back that at the start of the last century, our own beautiful church was so derelict that it was unsuitable for liturgical use, and after massive work from the people at the time, look what we have now – a church of amazing beauty which is loved and cared for by its people and by those who come and visit.

We learn so much from history, and in fact we are so much the richer for our histories – both good and bad, for they make us the people and communities we are. Perhaps most of all our church buildings are of such great importance to us because they do hold so much of our history – both individual and collective. At this point in Sundon’s history, it is my great joy to be the responsible custodian of St Mary’s – and not a day passes without I am amazed at what a great joy this is, and with the support that I have from those closely connected with the church, it really is a joy to care for our church at this time in its history.

It remains my very great joy and enormous privilege to serve as your Parish Priest,

With all good wishes as ever,

Fr Yenda

It remains my very great joy and enormous privilege to serve as your Parish Priest,

All the best,

Fr Yenda

September seems to be a popular month for birthdays – both my brothers have their birthdays in this month, and several other people I know of…I did trace one of my brother’s birthdays (September 21st) back to around Christmass time, so the holidays might be a cause for the number of people born around that time!

It occurred to me in fact that when my grandfather died back in 1983, on September 2nd it was slightly ironic that my then step-father had his birthday on that very day.  The next year, my gran wondered whether or not it was appropriate to actually send him a card on that day given it was the anniversary of her husband’s death.

One of the difficulties very often when people suffer bereavement is knowing how to respond – what to say; and that is often the case from both points of view both of the bereaved person and their relatives and friends.  How should they behave, how should we behave.  What should be said and so forth.  Perhaps one of the difficult aspects of bereavement is that the bereaved person very often needs to ‘make the first move’ which is difficult in any situation really – and often more difficult at such a traumatic time as a bereavement.  

There have always been those funny little English customs of how we behave in certain situations – although in modern society much of this has been lost – often for the better – people can now be more relaxed with people in situations which were once more formal, and as a result there is less opportunity for social faux pas and embarrassment.

I often think in the case of bereavement, that there is that need to try to react to people in as ordinary a way as possible – that is easy for me to say I guess, after all I interact with lots of bereaved people in the course of my working life.  People often tell me that they think it must be a most depressing part of a parson’s daily routine, but in fact nothing could be further from the truth. 

In funeral visits I have the privilege of meeting some remarkable and most interesting people – and the thing that surprises most people is in fact that very often laughter is as much a part of the process as are tears. 

Strange as it might sound, if we think about it, when we suffer bereavement the foremost thing in our minds is that focus on the person who has died – more often than not that person has been special to us, and there will be aspects of the person’s life which fill us with joy – that is all part and parcel of our missing them.  As bereaved families reminisce about their loved ones, without fail some thing will come to light that brings a smile to the face and often a chuckle; something which captures that person so well that all the precious memories come flooding back, and amidst the sadness there is that realisation of a celebration of that person and what they meant to those around them.

It remains my continual joy and very great privilege to serve as your parish priest

Fr Yenda

I write just after having returned from a few days away in Belgium. There was a time when I used to go to Brussels every year (sometimes twice) and yet I hadn’t been for about three years.

It might seem strange to make trips to Belgium which is so near to France, Germany and other countries which may sound much more interesting. Perhaps – but Brussels has become rather familiar and there is a kind of comforting feeling about that which is familiar.

For instance, I always seem to stay in the same guest house, I often visit the same shops, and I am beginning to know which bakers to walk half a mile to! (although too much pastry hasn’t done me that much good, so it is back to the good old wok for a few weeks post holiday!!)

Another thing I like to do on my trips to Belgium, is to take one or two trips to different towns or cities and get a feel of life in other parts of the country – after all, a visitor to the UK doesn’t really get much of a feel for British life by lugging their heavy shopping bags up and down Oxford Street!

One interesting thing about Belgium is that there are of course two languages in use there. In Brussels the French and Flemish languages appear on every notice, every metro station and every tin of beans. Fortunately I managed to get my CSE grade 1 in French at the third attempt at school, so Brussels is linguistically manageable!

But what happens in the Flemish speaking parts…well there is a kind of understanding in those parts that visitors are not likely to know Flemish, so there is generally a good understanding of English.

I also noticed that the people tend to be rather characteristic of their languages – for example where they speak French, there is a greater feeling of French ethos, and where they speak Flemish in some of the places at least it is almost like being in Amsterdam – and in the Flemish parts the streets are often spotless too!

Getting away from it all, as they say, is always important and I think in recent years has become more so, given that people generally have such hectic and busy lives. As I have said before, the excessive cost of housing means that in many cases both the partners in a couple have to work – often both having to work far more hours than is healthy for either their well being or their relationships.

School holidays are of course the standard time for people to go away if they have children…but of course we all know what happens for those six weeks of the year. The prices soar sky high and so people who are already financially strained and who need to take their family away are further prohibited from the holiday they don’t just want – but which they actually need.

The day has got to come, in my view at least, when prohibitive holiday prices during school holidays need to be seriously looked at. If people are prevented from having a family holiday each year in the summer, then I am convinced that the stress and ever increasing demands on working people’s family life will, in the end, begin to suffer.

As always it is my enormous privilege to serve as you Parish Priest,

With all good wishes,

Fr Yenda

My dear people of St Mary’s.

Quick as a flash so it seems we have reached November, and only two months from the end of the year.  As always the time has flown by, and it won’t be long before we are looking towards Advent and the start of the new liturgical year.

November of course is the month of All Souls, and the time when we remember our dear departed loved ones and pray for them as they live in glory with God.

I am so very often touched when I visit people for funerals to be privileged to learn so much about someone from their families and loved ones at a time which is for them so very difficult.  Yet one of the joys is actually seeing people remember the good times and those little things which made their departed loved one so special to them.  Not only is it a time of sadness, but it is also a time of thanksgiving for all that their departed loved one has meant to them, and has contributed to their own lives.

It is very fitting I think that we do have a month in the year when we remember the departed, and in church we have three services which mark not only our grief at the death of our loved ones, but where we also remember them with thanksgiving for all that they have meant to us.

Firstly on All Souls Day there is the Solemn Requiem at 8:00pm in the evening, where we read out the names of all the departed whom people have specifically asked to have read out.

Then on Remembrance Sunday the 9:30 Solemn Eucharist will be a Requiem for the repose of the souls of all those who gave their lives in times of war and conflict.  It always reminds us that even if we are too young to have experienced life during the war years, we still remember all those who did make that ultimate sacrifice for the world in which we all now live.

Then on Remembrance Sunday at 3:00pm we have the annual service of remembrance which again this year will take the form of a Solemn Evensong for the Departed with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.  We remember especially all those who have been laid to rest in our churchyard over the course of the past year, and we rejoice again at all that their lives have meant to those who were close to them and loved them.  The service concludes with the giving of Benediction when we receive the blessing of Our Lord Jesus Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar.

It may seem as though I am talking rather a lot about rejoicing, and about happy times – and is that not a bit strange when we are talking about death and dying?! Well, not really, because if we look again at those wonderful words from the missal which we use at all requiems, ‘Lord for your faithful people life is changed not ended – when the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death, we gain an ever lasting dwelling place in heaven…’ – it reminds us that in death life very much continues, and although different to the life we have now, still it is life, and our departed loved ones love us still – and we, naturally, continue to love them also.

It remains my very great joy and privilege to serve as your parish priest

With all good wishes

Fr Yenda

December 2006

My dear people of St Mary’s,

As some of you know I have for many years had a great love of old French cars – from the time I was a youth (back in the days when the nearest you got to being a ‘hoodie’ was to have one of those enormous parker coats!), I always loved to look inside the old 2CVs and was always very keen to have one when I grew up!

As it happened, over the years I have had four of these wonderful little machines, and although they are not built for the grand prix, they do serve their purpose very well, it has to be said.

Understandably, I think, I was initially somewhat unimpressed when a… ‘character’… (you realise here that I could easily have thought of a far stronger word!) decided to attempt to open the door of the aforementioned car, and not having the key to hand, decided that a crowbar would have to suffice!

Naturally, the individual who used his crowbar to try and get into my car that night hadn’t really intended to do me any measure of service or kindness – but in a round about way, he had. Now, at this point you can put your handkerchief back in your pocket or handbag, and not worry about wiping away any tears, because it really isn’t quite as bad as it might at first sound.

This character, had in fact merely brought forward a decision that was already in the making. Because as it happened, I was beginning to come to the mind that perhaps this wonderful little car might by now have seen better days, and might be best passed on to another 2CV enthusiast perhaps via the wonders of eBay or the exchange and mart. Thanks, (I use the word advisedly) to the character with the crowbar who might actually have done me something of a service – even though I very much doubt that when he went to all that trouble to open my car door without the aid of the key, helping me hadn’d been the first priority on his mind!

So, to cut the story short, the decision had really been made for me, and I didn’t even have to go to the problem of selling the car…it was written off in a couple of days, and the end of an era was waved goodbye to.

I was fortunate. I suffered no enormous loss really, I was not attacked, I merely had a bit of inconvenience. My word how lucky I was, and there will be many people reading this who wish they were only half as lucky!

Because we now live in an age where crime is such a worry that it not only inconveniences us, but disrupts many of our lives to such a degree that we wonder what is going to happen next. Just think how many people now will not go out at night. No physical reason, they can walk well enough, see well enough, and are quite able. They stay in and are frightened to venture out because they no longer feel safe on the streets.

Every day in our country there are reports of people being attacked, often in broad daylight, and all to often in their homes. People’s belongings – belongings they have worked for – being taken from them, and people being robbed of more than just that – they are robbed of their confidence and as a result very often their independence.

Being that this magazine is the one which is circulated in time for Christmass, you might wonder why I am not writing about something more cheerful…good will to all men and all that – even the character who introduced the crowbar to my old car!

The point is that in the world we live in, with all its foibles and with all its difficulties and all its problems, we have that wonderful knowledge that at Christmass Our Lord took human flesh at the Incarnation and lived among us – here on earth – here on this earth. Living amongst us, living as we live, experiencing what we do, understanding what we know, and sharing with us all the ups and downs of that life which He took on.

Christmass is a joyful season – of course it is, and we rejoice in the singing once again of the Christmass carols, we rejoice in the worship which is offered in our church, and we of course share with our families and those close to us in all the celebrations, presents, and of course the food!

But for all of it, the heart remains that Our Lord took human flesh and was part of the lives that we ourselves live. And the love that He shows to us through that encompasses all that our lives involve. How do we experience that good will to all men, even those who do us harm of some kind? How do we manage that?!

Well, no special advice there, I don’t manage it any better than anyone else, and will not pretend to! But if we think about the love that Christ has for us, and the fact that this love was shown by His being born amongst us, we know that in Him, all things are indeed possible.

I wish you a very joyful and blessed Christmass, and many blessings for the year ahead.

It remains my very great joy and privilege to serve you as your

Parish Priest,

Fr. Yenda