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Week Commencing: 15th October 2017
18th Sunday after Trinity – Proper XXIII
Droxford Informal Service
Flight: Avian – Angelic – Aviation
10.00 am 15th October 2017
(Coffee at 09.45)
Click Here for the THIS WEEK’S PEW SHEET
Click Here for previous Pew Sheet
Click Here and Join us in Prayer
ST ANDREW’S CHURCHYARD CLEAR-UP SATURDAY
OCTOBER 21st from 10.00 am Until TIDY!
The Churchwardens and PCC will be very grateful for any help
Please bring your own garden tools, saws, wheelbarrows, tree loppers, strimmers, etc.
Refreshments Provided
An Inspiring Treat in November:
21Nov17 1900 A dramatised recital of St Mark’s Gospel by Gerald Osborne at the Church of Our Lady Queen of Apostles, Bishops Waltham SO32 1DN
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 raising so much for the Recreation Ground!
HARVEST THANK YOU
THANK YOU so much to all the people that have given fresh produce at our Harvest Festivals, which will be passed to The Hope Centre (Two Saints) for the homeless in Portsmouth and to those who have donated tinned and dried food, which will be passed on to the Meon Valley Food Bank.
THANK YOU so much to all those who have prepared and decorated the churches for Harvest – the flowers and decorations have again been wonderful – truly inspiring us rejoice in God’s Creation.
THANK YOU so much to all those who have prepared and served food and refreshments after the Harvest Festivals – a powerful message from the Gospels is sharing the gifts of God’s Creation.
Thank you for the Harvest Supper at Droxford – a lovely village event.
Events in the Diary:
16Oct17 19.30 Meonstoke & Corhampton PCC St Andrew’s, Meonstoke preceded by Holy Communion
17Oct17 Exton PCC – POSTPONED
24Oct17 19.00 Droxford PCC St Mary & All Saints, Droxford preceded by Holy Communion
29Oct17 10.30 Droxford Patronal Festival (All Saints) – Festal Eucharist President & Preacher: The Rev’d Canon Anthony Hulbert
Christening of Eden Martineau (part of the Patronal Festival Service) – everyone is welcome
Hackney and Bishop’s Waltham Deaneries Link
For many years the Deanery has collected food and clothes for a variety of church needs in Hackney to be taken up in December. Earlier this year our friends in Hackney told us that they now have built up their local contacts including food collections in their local Waitrose and several Schools so that they no longer need distance support. They have asked us to convey their warm thanks for our help over the years. Because of this there will be no collection of food and clothes for Hackney this Autumn. We shall still be grateful for any gifts of money which can be made payable to Bishop’s Waltham Deanery and will support our seven partners including the Winter Night Shelter. We will hope to meet our partners again during a Walk of Prayer probably in August next year. Norman Chatfield.
Meon Valley Food Bank – PLEASE HELP
Thank You for all your kind donations. MVFB has now been able to help 1106 people which would not be possible without your faithful support.
The items needed for the coming week are tinned meat meals, UHT long-life milk, tinned spaghetti, custard and breakfast bars. Thank you.
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.
