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Week Commencing: 10th September 2017
13th Sunday after Trinity – Proper XVIII
Exton Harvest Festival Today (17.9.17) at 3.30 pm
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From the Rector
Ordinary Time: Autumn
A Sense of the Season
All of our days are numbered. Now that Christ has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, we count down the days until he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.
The Church calls this time of year ‘Ordinary Time’, an odd name in some ways. We can think of it as ‘ordinal time’; ordinal. denoting a certain position in a sequence of numbers, i.e. numbered Sundays after Trinity at this time of year. These are the days in which we lay out the scriptures and prayers to bide our time until Christ returns.
Although the Church makes no official distinction between the days of Ordinary Time from Pentecost until Advent, we experience the subtle shift in our lives from the relaxed days of summer to the increasingly busy days of autumn.
For some of us, the shift comes with the end-of-summer holiday or the beginning of school or university. Others see work activities shift: from tending to harvesting; from changing shop’s stock from summer goods to new seasonal lines in keeping with the changes in the weather.
The church’s calendar contains some subtle shifts, too. On 14th September, we celebrate the Holy Cross, and the changes in the natural world around us points us to the mystery of suffering and redemption.
At the end of September, we invoke the holy archangels at Michaelmas, to guard us in the encroaching twilight.
If we listen closely to the scriptures in October, we begin to hear talk of the last days and the final things. These thoughts reach their culmination at the beginning of November with the great festivals of saints and souls – All Saints’ Day (our patronal festival at Droxford) and All Souls’ Day when we commemorate the departed.
We spend November remembering the dead, not least those who have given their lives in the service of their country on Remembrance Sunday. In so doing, we prepare for the End Times and celebrate Christ, the first fruit of the new creation, the firstborn from the dead.
The season is punctuated with the Feast Days of the Evangelists Matthew and Luke and the apostles Simon and Jude, and Andrew.
These are extraordinary opportunities opened up for us in autumn’s (not so) Ordinary Time.
Scarecrow invasion of Droxford?
What’s this a new rector? Spending his time reading the FT at that!
See the Rev’d Woody and all the other straw-filled residents around the village and in the church porch and bring a smile to your face – Mr A Walker in the scare, sorry the Square, might be able to show you on his map where to go.
Be warned , he may be A Walker, but he’s not much of a talker!
The rector in the pink slippers hasn’t got very good financial advice for anyone either, for that matter!
Many thanks to Debbie for the Rev’d Woody and for her fantastic hard work in this project!
Harvest Thanksgivings
Exton:
3.30 pm, 17th Sept 17 – Harvest Evensong followed by tea
Meonstoke:
10.30 am, 1st Oct 17 – Family Communion with a talk from Tearfund (http://www.tearfund.org) followed by delicious treats
Droxford:
7th Oct 17 – Droxford Village Harvest Supper in Droxford Village Hall
10.30 am, 8th Oct 17 – Family Communion followed by delicious treats
Harvest Thanksgiving, although quite a modern addition to the church calendar (1862), is firmly part of our local way of life. Its origins
are usually traced to the adaptation in 1843 of Lammas Day by the Rev’d R. S. Hawker, a parish priest in Cornwall. He chose the first Sunday in October as a Christian response to coincide with the traditional ‘harvest home’ celebration, and it is around this time of year we give thanks for the harvest too.
Since 1862, many local traditions for the celebration have developed, but almost all maintain the tradition of bringing to church gifts of fresh produce and other foodstuffs.
Then shall the earth bring forth her increase, and God, our own God, will bless us. Ps 67.6 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is gracious, for his steadfast love endures for ever. Ps 107.1
Other Events in the Diary:
13Sep17
7pm Festal Eucharist – Holy Cross St Andrew’s, Meonstoke
17Sep17
3.30 pm Harvest Festival Ss Peter & Paul, Exton Evensong followed by tea.
6.30 pm Songs of Praise St Andrew’s, Meonstoke
18Sep17
7.30 pm PCC (preceded by HC) St Andrew’s, Meonstoke
19Sep17
7.30 pm PCC (preceded by prayers) Ss Peter & Paul, Exton
24Sep17
10.30 am Holy Communion Ss Peter & Paul, Exton
President and Preacher, the Ven Gavin Collins, Archdeacon
26Sep17
7.00 pm PCC (preceded by HC) St Mary & All Saints, Droxford
27Sep17
7.00 pm Archdeaconry Consultation St John the Evangelist, Fareham
28Sep17
7.00 pm Soiree on the Bridge St Andrew’s, Meonstoke
1Oct17
10.30 Harvest Festival St Andrew’s, Meonstoke preacher from Tear Fund
14.40 ‘The FOMS PROMS The Meon Hall (£5)
7Oct17
Droxford Village Harvest Supper Droxford Village Hall
8Oct17
10.30 Harvest Festival St Mary & All Saints, Droxford
