October to me always means Dedication – my favourite Festival of the year – the day on which we Rededicate ourselves and our work as a church to the glory of God. The Collect for Dedication Sunday
Almighty God,
to whose glory we celebrate the dedication of this house of prayer:
we praise you for the many blessings you have given to those who worship you here;
and we pray that all who seek you in this place may find you,
and, being filled with the Holy Spirit,
may become a living temple acceptable to you;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
After the service we will be invited to a Volunteers’ Fair where everyone can see what jobs need doing around the church, talk to the co-ordinators of the various teams – Cleaning, Catering, Sidesmen, Servers and so on – and hopefully sign up to do something. Because a church doesn’t run itself, it is our church in every sense – we raise the money to keep it going and we do the work – or it falls.
“A Church for all
And a job for each
Each man to his work.”
As T S Eliot puts it in The Rock. So please read Andrew Penny’s article and come to the Volunteers Market on 4th October. [And if you can’t come see the end pages of this magazine for a list of groups and their co-ordinators, because whilst it would be nice to think it was A job for each, without enough volunteers it quickly becomes half a dozen jobs for a few.]
People ask about Dedication – why don’t we have it on a Saint’s Day? St John the ……. Ah! St John …… is precisely what the original document has – ‘St John’ and then a space, never filled in, for the rest – – the Baptist? – – the Evangelist? We don’t know for certain, although in 1911 the Bishop of London declared it to be the Evangelist [off the top of his head as far as I know]. HPC remaining unconvinced they stuck with celebrating the actual date of the dedication of the building – 7th October 1747. It is better, after all, than trying to have a patronal festival 2 days after Christmas [John the Evangelist, 27th December], though in one previous vicar’s term we celebrated it on June 24th, he having opted for John the Baptist.
But October isn’t only about dedication. Later in the month we have 2 concerts: on 24th October we shall be remembering Barbara Sidwell and the enormous amount she contributed to HPC during her life, with a Piano Recital given by Evelyne Berezovsky and on 31st October we shall be celebrating the life of John Keats – you can read more about that further on in this issue.
Don’t forget the clocks go back an hour on 24th October – which means that from 25th Evensong will revert to its winter time of 4.30pm.
November begins with the All Souls Service of Thanksgiving for the Departed on Sunday 1st at 4.30pm. This is a special Choral Evensong at which we remember those we have loved who have died recently or in years past. Names can be handed in to the clergy or the parish office to be read out during the service and a candle of remembrance is lit. The service will be followed by tea in the Crypt.
And if I’m not the first to mention Christmas I still apologise for doing so so many weeks in advance BUT please don’t forget the Christmas Market to be held in the Crypt on 21st November – details on page 20.
I want to say ‘Our newly refurbished Crypt’ every time I mention it because it is SO amazing. If you haven’t looked yet – do. It’s a tribute to the Building Development Team who put in so many hours on planning and supervising and checking and making sure everything was just right, as well as to all those who gave so generously to make it possible. It’s hard to believe such a transformation can have been made and we all hope and intend it to stay clean and TIDY – forever! Something we can all cooperate in.
October
Judy East