Well, it’s all over – Holy Week with its daily communions leading up to the great drama of the Triduum (which leaves out, as someone was complaining on Facebook, Easter Eve and the excitement of the New Fire and lighting of the Paschal Candle. Whatever you think of starting the Easter celebrations early it all went off most successfully.) And on Easter Day the church was aglow with light and flowers. “We are an Easter people and hallelujah is our song” (Pope John Paul II). We certainly were on Easter Day!
The week after Easter (the “octave” of Easter) is distinguished by having no commemorative days, no saints’ days, nothing. It’s a week for silence, for absorbing the mystery. Christmas is followed by a succession of holy days but not Easter, the empty octave points up its importance.
It’s not an emptiness that can last for long, of course. Life in a busy parish pushes inexorably on to the next thing, whatever it may be. And in fact we barely had the week before the Hampstead Players were putting on their “Celebrating Stephen” evening.
A quick skim through the diary pages will show you all the usual events – Lunchtime concert, Lunchtime Literary Hour, Knit and Natter (possibly Clatter and Natter this month as we’re planning to wash the Holy Hamster toys) , the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (the AGM of the parish) on 18th (this is your chance to vote for officers and have a say in how the PCC and Churchwardens discharge their duties over the year).
We have two visiting preachers this month – Monseigneur Phelim Rowlands from St Mary’s Holly Place and Father Matthew Woodward from a little further away – The Transfiguration Episcopal Church, San Mateo, California. And an evening with Mozart on 23rd – details further on in this issue.
40 Hot Water Bottles for Christmas
Last Christmas the Social Action group organised some 30 Christmas hampers for AgeUK Camden and this year we’ve been asked for even more – 40 if we can manage it. And they’ve suggested we put in small hot water bottles with covers. These are intended as handwarmers and measure about 14cm x 26 cm (circumference filled is 30cm x 56cm and they have a neck as wide as a full-size hwb). Anyone interested in helping please get in touch.
Spring Fair
Looking further ahead we have the Spring Fair on 21st May. I’m not sure we have organisers yet (Would you like to volunteer? Contact the parish office without delay!) But assuredly it will happen, somehow it always does.
There isn’t a lot else happening in May and perhaps that’s as well because, as we’re all only too well aware, we say goodbye to Father Stephen on Sunday 1st May, and that’s going to take some getting used to. We’ll need to be kind to each other, and especially to the staff, in the weeks following his retirement, while we let it sink in.
April
Judy East