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Letter
from the Chaplain ‘Hatch, Match and Dispatch’ This
year at St Michael’s has been marked not by ‘Four weddings and a
Funeral’ but by a record number of weddings (only one in our church in
2004 but ten this year between 20 June and 1st October): three funerals
and one baptism – cf ‘The Registers’. This means that despite our
rather hidden location, well off the beaten track, St Michael’s is
becoming much better known in the locality. More importantly, what are
called in clerical jargon the ‘Occasional Offices’ offer an unrivalled
and very precious opportunity for your priest to make pastoral contact
with people at a very sensitive moment in their lives and to help them
along their spiritual journey. At
a baptism or at a marriage the moment is one of joy, but also of great
responsibility; in both rites solemn and binding promises are made. At a
funeral the moment is one of great sadness – I think here particularly
of William Mather-Brown, who died aged 41, drowned while rescuing his 2
children who had fallen into the river Var;
it can also be a
God-given chance to proclaim the Easter gospel. However, the opportunity
and the challenge presented by these pastoral services are not addressed
to the clergy alone; both the church building and the quality of the
common life of the christian community have their witness to play. Some
of those who come to an ‘occasional’ office come back to join in our
common life and worship. If our community is to grow both in numbers and
in depth of commitment, that is up to us all, priests and laypeople alike.
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep”
(Romans12,15).
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