We begin Good Friday with a gathering at the Wayside Cross on Shawford Down, followed by a Walk of Witness to All Saints’, Compton, where we will hold a Good Friday service followed by coffee and hot cross buns. At 12 noon, there is a service at St. Matthew’s Otterbourne, followed by a sung vigil from 1 pm to 3 pm. A reading of the Passion will take place at All Saints’, Hursley at 3pm.

On Easter Sunday we celebrate with joy the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. A Daybreak Service will be held at the Wayside Cross on Shawford Down, followed (as tradition happily dictates!) by bacon sandwiches. Later in the morning, Easter Day services with Family Communion will be held across our three churches at the usual times. There will also be a Sung Evensong for Easter Day at St. Matthew’s, Otterbourne at 6 pm.

Whether you come along for a quiet moment of reflection, a traditional service or simply to enjoy community events in a beautiful setting, you will be made very welcome.

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During Lent, the services in both churches will be followed by a light lunch and bible study as we look at Pilgrimage.

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Ashings will also take place at All Saints’ church, Hursley at 6 pm on 18th February to mark the beginning of Lent.

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The subject is Paradise Lost by John Milton. Before you think I’ve gone mad or hopelessly descended into intellectual irrelevance let me tell you that we have the aid of a very helpful BBC abridgement with Sir Ian McKellen taking the part of Milton and Timothy Russel-Beal the part of Satan; this makes the whole work much more approachable. 
Milton lived through times of revolution, civil war and dreadful cruelty, he used this epic poem, often called the greatest in the English language, to meditate and work through his feelings and thoughts on the presence of evil in the world and weakness of humanity. Irrelevant it certainly isn’t.
The course takes place in person on Thursday mornings at 10.30am in the Otterbourne church room. I will consider beginning an evening zoom course if there is enough demand, do let me know if you would like to join such a course and when in the week you might be free. Please email me or give me a call to request the reference to the course pack if you would like to attend, there is half an hour’s homework to do before Thursday!

With all good wishes for a blessed Lent

William,

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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

Accredited to Broadway Church of Christ.

This video was created for a sermon on Love. The audio was created by Max McLean. Video was taken from Motion Array.

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‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ is a favourite psalm often turned to in times of trouble.  A recent discovery is that in 2020 the Bible Society commissioned the Garden Designer Sarah Eberie to create a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show on the theme of Psalm 23.  The garden is intended to be rebuilt at Winchester’s new hospice. Hampshire-based Eberle’s design is for a healing place — “a sanctuary of respite and retreat, engaging people with nature and spirituality rather than being a garden of healing plants”.  These two videos can offer great comfort, hope and encouragement.

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‘He grew up before him like a tender shoot,    and like a root out of dry ground.He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind,    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.Like one from whom people hide their faces    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain    and bore our suffering,yet we considered him punished by God,    stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions,    he was crushed for our iniquities;the punishment that brought us peace was on him,    and by his wounds we are healed.”

O sacred head, sore wounded • Performed by The Gesualdo Six, directed by Owain Park Tune: Herzlich tut mich verlangen • Melody by Hans Leo Hassler, harmonised by J.S. Bach • Words by Paul Gerhardt, translated by Robert Seymour Bridges • NEH 90 LENT SESSIONS:

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“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,[a] here is your son,”  and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her 
into his home.”

Around the time the work was finished, there was a complaint against Michelangelo because of the way he depicted the Virgin. She appears rather young – so young, in fact, that she could scarcely be the mother of a thirty-three-year-old son.

http://www.italianrenaissance.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Michelangelo-pieta.jpg

Accredited to italianrenaissance.org

VOCES8 sings the ‘Magnificat Primi Toni’ by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in the VOCES8 Centre in London.

TEXT and TRANSLATION:

1. Magnificat, anima mea, Dominum My soul doth magnify the Lord

2. et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo, salutari meo. and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

3. Quia respexit humilitatem ancillæ suæ: ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes. For he hath regarded: the lowliness of his handmaiden: for behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

4. Quia fecit mihi magna, qui potens est, et sanctum nomen eius, For he that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is his Name,

5. et misericordia eius a progenie in progenies timentibus eum. and his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all generations.

6. Fecit potentiam in brachio suo, dispersit superbos mente cordis sui. He hath showed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

7. Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles; He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek;

8. esurientes implevit bonis et divites dimisit inanes. he hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

9. Suscepit Israel puerum suum recordatus misericordiæ suæ, He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel,

10. sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham et semini eius in sæcula. as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.

11. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:

12. sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen. as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

from Little Gidding
TS Eliot

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