A very warm welcome to Emmanuel Church Ilfracombe

Forthcoming services and events at Emmanuel -

Please read Revd Barbara's monthly "From the Manse" message below :-

From the Manse - February

For me the only good thing that can be said about February is that it’s a short month! (Although it has an extra day this year) My grandmother used to say  “February –fill dyke /Either with black or white” to indicate the weather – snow or rain. Along with November this is a dreary month…

But slap bang in the muddle of it comes Valentine’s Day – what has become a sentimental slushy excuse for chocolates, flowers and cards to rise to astronomical prices; when romance takes centre stage, and love is in the air. St Valentine was a priest in Rome in the time of Claudius II. He helped Christians under persecution – they were martyred in great numbers by order of the Emperor. He also helped Christian couples to marry. When Claudius heard he sent for Valentine and tried by all means to get him to renounce God and his faith, but failed. He was imprisoned, and Claudius took a liking to him. His fatal mistake was to try to convert the Emperor! Valentine was then beaten with clubs and beheaded on 14th February. He was buried near to Ponte Mole, and the gate into the city near the church built over his tomb was named after him for many years.
Saints are not supposed to rest in peace; they're expected to keep busy: to perform miracles, to intercede. Being in jail or dead is no excuse for non-performance of the supernatural. One legend says, while awaiting his execution, Valentinus restored the sight of his jailer's blind daughter. Another legend says, on the eve of his death, he penned a farewell note to the jailer's daughter, signing it, "From your Valentine." He is the Patron Saint of bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, young people.
Although St Valentine’s Day sometimes seems a bit over the top, it is a timely reminder in a dull month of the centrality of love in human life. We have one word for love, but the Greeks have four – agape – true love; eros – passionate love; philia – brotherly (or sisterly) love and storge – affection. It is well known that those who are unloved do not flourish. (Remember the Romanian orphanages?)
The love of God for us is the deepest exression we encounter. From the time of the Creation the Bible tells us of the ways in which God expressed that love – and we have just celebrated the love which gave us God in human form; we are on the road that leads to the loving sacrifice of life itself for the redemption of the world. God loves us – totally, absolutely, without strings; all he asks is our love in return.
I challenge you on St Valentine’s Day, to spend half an hour with your Bible. Read again that familiar treatise on love that St Paul wrote in his first Letter to the Corinthians (Chapter 13) Read it over and over; reflect on the qualities of love; then praise God for his love for us – and for the places where you find love in your life.
And the dull month will pass, and we will be looking for signs of Spring before you know it!
 

With love and prayers
Barbara
 

From the Manse - December / January

Dear Friends,

 I always find this letter a little difficult to write. Do I focus on Advent and the preparation for Christmas, or on the New year and the clean slate? Over the years I have done both, and it sometimes seems that I can get it right for December but not for January – or be relevant for January and premature for December. So I’ll have a go at a different tack altogether!

 One of my favourite “Christmas / Epiphany” pieces is this, by an American writer, Howard Thurman.

“When the song of the angels is stilled

when the star in the sky has gone

when the kings and the princes are home

when the shepherds are back with their flocks

the work of Christmas begins;

to find the lost, to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people

to make music in the heart.

 It seems to me that this short piece of writing sums up both what our approach should be as we prepare for the coming of Jesus, and what we should be focussing about in the New Year. It always reminds me a little of both Isaiah 61: 1-2 and Matthew 25: 31 – 46. (If they don’t ring a bell, why not look them up?) Sometimes we get so hung up on that single day, and the celebrations within and around it that we forget to contemplate why God came to us at all. We forget that Jesus came because human beings had forgotten to find the lost, heal the broken, feed the hungry, release those in bondage, to rebuild the nations and seek peace. Against the laws of Moses the people of God had compromised their faith to live alongside Rome; some of them had become greedy and self centred, looking only to themselves and their own welfare. So God came, going to the humblest place he could, being born and living as one of us, preparing to preach a Gospel of love and equality and redemption to those who would listen.

 So as we hear the age old stories that we know and love so much, we also need to hear God’s voice behind them, as he used ordinary people like me and you to reveal him to a world that had grown careless.

 Then, when the excesses of Christmas are over – the eating and drinking and visiting and present giving, we need to find a place for that gift that God has given to us. A bit like the hideous vase that Aunty sent, the socks with the reindeers on that your grandchild picked so lovingly, the aftershave or perfume that smells disgusting, what can you do with a present you are not sure about? Do we pack Christmas up with the tinsel and baubles and put it away for another year? Or do we keep it out, and work with it, striving to find a way of doing “the work of Christmas”

 As I said earlier in the year, if we put Jesus away with the decorations we will never allow him to be more than a baby in a manger; his message, his purpose, is thwarted if we never allow him to grow up. So that is the message for the New Year – let your faith grow up and grow out. Allow it to look for ways of fulfilling the Gospel message of peace and goodwill. There is always something that we can do, that God is pointing out to us.

 We need to feel the reason for the season – and after that season is over, we need to go out and work with and for the gift God has given us.

 John and I wish you a good Christmas, and a faithful and happy New Year.

 God bless,

Barbara

From the Manse - November

Dear Friends,

Winter, it seems, is drawing in. As I write this I realise that there are only eleven weeks to Christmas, and that the year is slipping away. John and I have just spent a very enjoyable (if somewhat damp and chilly!) week on Mull in Scotland, and have visited Iona three times. On the first of those we went to the Island Harvest service in the Abbey, with all the children taking part and taking communion. They had prepared for them especially, with a short explanation of what communion is about, and with juice instead of the (real) wine that was passed around the adults. (There was also gluten free bread and non alcoholic wine for those that wanted them)

Many churches spend a long time discussing who should and should not receive communion. For some denominations it is only the confirmed who can partake; for others everyone who is in good standing in any church may come. Some denominations receive sitting, others kneeling or standing. A common viewpoint about children having communion is that “They shouldn’t until they can understand it” (My belief is that if we wait until we “understand” communion then some of us will never have it, because it is, for all of us, a mystery that is at the heart of our faith – how the common-place bread and wine can be transformed into the Spirit of God within us.)

The explanation for the children of Iona suffices also for us. The minister presiding said to them “We remember that Jesus was born in a stable and visited by Kings and shepherds at Christmas; we remember that he made friends and told stories and helped those who were ill; we remember that he died on the cross and then became alive again at Easter; we remember that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit into the world at Pentecost. Whenever we come to church we are remembering something about Jesus and about God.

In the communion we remember something very special that Jesus did with his friends. He sat down and had a meal with them. They ate dinner together, just as you and I have friends for tea. But at the end of this particular meal he broke up the left over bread and passed it round to them and told them every time they ate bread to remember him, and the same with the juice out of the grapes that we call wine. So every time we do this in church we are remembering Jesus in a very special way, a way that his friends have been doing for two thousand years. We remember how much God loves us, that Jesus died because he loves us, and that the Holy Spirit is in the world to remind us to love each other. We remember – and that makes us happy; and when we are happy then we also have to thank God for making us happy, and that is what this bit of the service is all about.”

I don’t think I have ever heard a better explanation! The Iona prayer of consecration says
“And as the bread and wine which we now eat and drink
are changed into us,
may we also be changed into you,
bone of your bone,
flesh of your flesh,
loving and caring for the world.”

Yes, please! Explaining the mystery of how communion gives us grace we can leave to scholars and to theologians. The grace of bread and wine is ours, however old or young we are, whatever we can or cannot understand because it is of and from God.

With love and prayers

Barbara