Ordinations and Curacy across the Lordsbridge Team

From Revd David Newton, Team Vicar in the Lordsbridge Team:

Last weekend ordinations took place across the country. From the Lordsbridge Team of Churches 3 people were ordained deacon. Amy Bland was ordained in Blackburn, Adam Roebuck (who had been on placement with Haslingfield and Comberton) was meant to be ordained in York (delayed to this coming week due to Contact Tracing Isolation), and Chris Westgarth was ordained in Ely!

The connecting power of a ‘thank you’

Growing up in my family we were expected to start the painful work of writing thank you letters the day after Boxing Day.  In my husband’s family thank you’s were, and are, always expressed in person or on the phone. 

A pattern of dying and new life

Perhaps it is because I have reached, dare I say it, mid-life.  Or perhaps it is because of the year or so that we have just had and our still fragile hope for being now beyond it.  Either way, I find that I have been pondering whether the underlying pattern of life is experienced more as a series of losses only or as series of deaths and associated re-births.  In more positive and complacent phases of life, I have focused on the gifts-received side of life.  But this year, loss of various kinds is more front and centre for all of us. 

Call us onward into your purposes and growth

Some of you will have already heard, one way or another, that from the autumn, I am to be the new Warden of Launde Abbey and will therefore be leaving the Lordsbridge Team in September.  Diocese of Ely | Departure Announcement: The Revd Canon Alison Margaret Myers (elydiocese.org)

Trinity, the ‘missio dei’ and the 5 marks of our mission (should we choose to accept it)

Play this tune

Depending on your era, some of you may remember the tune from a TV series in the late 1960s or early 70s, others more recognise it more recently from the Tom Cruise films – another one is due out soon, I understand.

Of course it is the theme of ‘Mission Impossible’- stories about secret agents given a, so called, impossible mission full of dangerous risks to rescue the world, or some part of it.  That tune goes with the phrase used at the start of every story ‘this is your mission, should you choose to accept it’.

A season for the ‘life that gives life’

In the seasons of the Christian year, last Sunday was the Feast of Pentecost and I was surprised to find that last Monday was noted in my Google calendar as Whit Monday.  Whitsun is an older name for Pentecost and until 1972 what is now the Spring Bank holiday fixed at the end of May was instead a holiday taken on Whit Monday. 

Praying the psalms for the days of ‘Thy Kingdom Come’

Revd Priscilla Slusar, Rural Dean and ‘Lordsbridge Support Minister’, writes:

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have designated the time between Ascension Day and Pentecost as a time for focused prayer.  This programme of prayer is called Thy Kingdom Come; it starts on Thursday 13^th May and finishes on Sunday 23^rd May.

The Church of England has provided a variety of resources to support our prayers at this time, and we have prepared some additional ideas in the Lordsbridge Team.  There will be a daily podcast on the website using the Psalms as the basis for prayer and reflection.  Although the psalms are ancient Hebrew poetry, they have great resonance today.  They speak out of and into genuine experience.  They remind us that human concerns and emotions do not change over time.  The psalmist expresses joy and wonder, but also feelings of anger and frustration.  When life is difficult the psalmist may feel that God is not listening – there are times in life when we may feel the same!

As we move out of lockdown and look forward to a more hopeful future we can offer prayers of thanks and praise to God.  But we are also aware that many people have faced considerable distress over the last year and in some areas of the world, like India, that suffering is continuing.  Let us use this period of focused prayer to present all our concerns and emotions to God and trust in God to hear and support us.  I hope that this period of prayer will enrich your life and your relationship with God.

The Lordsbridge Pilgrimage Walk 2021

This walk will be on Friday 21 May. Bishop Dagmar (Bishop of Huntingdon) will be joining the group. The Pilgrimage will start at Coton at 7.30am. Please feel free to join later or leave at any time. It is important that you let John Harding know if you are planning to start at Coton (so they don’t leave without you). Email him at johnharding44@gmail.com or let John and Clare Crang know.  Lunch will be a thirty minute break at Caldecote – please bring your own provisions.

Reflections for Easter Day 2021

A loss of confidence

How are you feeling as you read or listen to this?  Can you name what it is you are feeling?  Tired?  Or perhaps you’d say exhausted?  Anxious?  Worried?  Angry?  Flat?  Peaceful?  Joyful?  Hopeful?  Perhaps a little bit of one thing and echoes of something else? 

Blessings for change

The first part of this prayer popped up on my social media feed again today.  Often attributed as a Franciscan prayer it is in fact, as far as I can discover, written by Benedictine Sister Ruth Fox nearly 40 years ago.  For those given to praying it seems an appropriate kind of prayer for these weeks in which we emerge blinking into the post-lockdown light, recognising both that all the old problems are still with us along with the new ones we have collected in the last year and that, if this last year has taught us anything, it is that by the grace of God we have within us the power to effect change.