Thank you to all those who worked so hard to make all our churches so beautiful and welcoming for Easter
Christian Aid Week ~ 12-19 May 2019
Please see the current Pew Sheet for details of how you can support this important charity’s essential work
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together with any ferial, festal or seasonal services are listed below:
The week commencing:
21st April – Easter Sunday
8.00 am ~ Exton ~ Holy Communion (BCP)
10.30 am ~ Droxford~ Family Service with Holy Communion
10.30 am ~ Meonstoke ~ Family Service with Holy Communion
Easter Tuesday 23Apr19 ~ 8.30 am ~ Exton~ Morning Prayer
Easter Wednesday 24Apr19 ~ 8.30 am ~ Meonstoke ~Morning Prayer
Easter Thursday 25Apr19 ~ 10 am ~ Droxford ~ Holy Communion
28th April 2019 – 2nd Sunday of Easter
(1st Sunday after Easter)
8.00 am ~ Corhampton ~ Holy Communion (BCP)
9:30 am~ Meonstoke~ … Unwrapped
10.30 am~ Exton~ Holy Communion (CW)
With short talk by Nick Ridge about his experiences with a church in Malawi.
Mon 29Apr19 St George
09:00 Droxford ~ Said Holy Communion (CW)
Tues 30Apr19 St Mark
8.30 am ~ Exton ~ Morning Prayer (BCP)
9.00 am~ Said Holy Communion (BCP)
Wed 1May19 Ss Philip and James
8.30 am~ Meonstoke Morning Prayer (CW)
followed by Said Holy Communion (CW)
5.00 pm~ Droxford~ Evening Prayer red book p.297:
Thurs 2May19 St Athanasius
10 am ~ Droxford~ Said Holy Communion
5th May 2019 Third Sunday of Easter
(Second Sunday after Easter)
08:00 ~ Droxford ~ Said Holy Communion (BCP)
10:30 ~ Meonstoke ~ Holy Communion (CW)
18:30 ~ Exton ~ Evening Prayer with Hymns (BCP)
Tuesday 7th May 2019
08:30 ~ Exton ~ Morning Prayer
Wednesday 8th May 2019
08:30 ~ Meonstoke ~ Morning Prayer
17:00 ~ Droxford ~ Evening Prayer
Thursday 9th May 2019
10:00 Said Holy Communion (CW)
12th May 2019 Fourth Sunday of Easter
(Third Sunday after Easter)
08:00 ~ Meonstoke ~ Said Holy Communion (BCP)
10:30 ~ Droxford ~ Holy Communion (CW)
13:00 CHRISTIAN AID WALK
18:30 ~ DROXFORD ~ Evensong (BCP)
Tuesday 14th May 2019
08:30 ~ Exton ~ Morning Prayer
09:00 ~ Exton ~ Said Holy Communion (BCP) ~ Matthias
Wednesday 15th May 2019
08:30 ~ Meonstoke ~ Morning Prayer
17:00 ~ Droxford ~ Evening Prayer
Thursday 16th May 2019
10:00 Said Holy Communion (CW)
19th May 2019
19th May 2019 Fifth Sunday of Easter
(Fourth Sunday after Easter)
08:00 ~ Exton ~ Said Holy Communion (BCP)
09:45 ~ Droxford ~ Informal Service
10:30 ~ Corhampton ~ Mattins
Tuesday 21st May 2019
08:30 ~ Exton ~ Morning Prayer
Wednesday 22nd May 2019
08:30 ~ Meonstoke ~ Morning Prayer
17:00 ~ Droxford ~ Evening Prayer
Thursday 23rd May 2019
10:00 Said Holy Communion (CW)
26th May 2019 Sixth Sunday of Easter
(Fifth Sunday after Easter)
08:00 ~ Corhampton ~ Said Holy Communion (BCP)
10:30 ~ Exton ~ Family Eucharist ~ (Rogation Sunday)
12:00 Bring a Picnic to enjoy in the Churchyard and then
join us for a Rogation Day Walk to bless the fields
starting from Exton Church at 13:00
Tuesday 28th May 2019
08:30 ~ Exton ~ Morning Prayer
Wednesday 29th May 2019
08:30 ~ Meonstoke ~ Morning Prayer
17:00 ~ Droxford ~ Evening Prayer
Thursday, 30th May 2019
Ascension Day
10:00 ~ Droxford ~ Said Holy Communion (CW) ~ Ascension Day
19:00 ~ Meonstoke ~ Festal Sung Eucharist for Ascension Day
Friday 31st May 2019
The Visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth
09:00 ~ Droxford ~ Said Holy Communion (CW) ~ The Visit of BVM
Pilgrimage to Our Mother Church
The Cathedral Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Portsmouth
On 30th March, the eve of Mothering Sunday, the Rector and Curate led a short pilgrimage along the shore in historic and modern Portsmouth to our cathedral in time for Choral Evensong where we were welcomed by the Precentor and the Benefice was included in the Dean’s prayers.
Returning to the Mother Church is as countless others have done down the centuries around Lady Day and this tradition forms part of the origin of Mothering Sunday.
PLEASE PRAY for peace and healing in Sri Lanka and in Northern Ireland.
Christian Aid Prayer for those still suffering
as a result of Cyclone Idai
A prayer for all communities affected.
light in the darkness,
hope even in a living hell,
God be with our sisters and brothers
in Mozambique, in Malawi, in Zimbabwe.
Behind the numbing numbers are the names of loved ones.
Behind the staggering statistics are life stories still to be told.
God, help us be with our sisters and brothers – gather us close so we open our spirits and share. Your world is our global neighbourhood. Help us forge the rain-driven path together, for only together can we weather the storms. Amen.
Congratulations
to all those engaged to be married in the Benefice in 2019,
including Ellen and Robert to married in April.
Rest in Peace
Dennis Heath RIP – Funeral in Portchester Crematorium on Tuesday 16th April at 10.15 am
Roger Brown RIP – late husband of Margaret, formerly of Exton.
Ian Higgens RIP, passed away very peacefully in the early hours of 28th February. He is re-united with his beloved brother Nigel. Ian’s funeral was held on Wednesday, 13th March at 2.30pm in Droxford Church.
Michael Collins RIP. Michael’s funeral was held on Friday, 29th March at 11:00am in Droxford Church. Please pray for Ros, Suzie, Emma, Xanthe and Mauve and all those who miss Michael so much.
Admiral Sir Simon Cassels KCB CBE RIP passed away early on 6th March. Please pray for the repose of his soul and for Jill and their family. His Service of Thanksgiving was held in Exton Church on Friday, 5th April at 2.30 pm.
GDPR
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Well Done and Thank You
Thank you to all those who contributed to, helped organise or attended our recent events:
- For the excellent ‘Messiah from Scratch’
- For all those who prepared our Lenten Lunches, all who attended and all who gave to the Bishop’s Lent Appeal.
- For all those who have mothered us and all those we mother.
- For all those who made bunches of flowers for our Mothering Sunday Service.
- For those who came on our Pilgrimage to our Mother Church – the Cathedral Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Portsmouth.
- For those who will host or run a Lent Course and for those who are organising Lent Lunches.
- For all those who help at or come to Messy Church and thanks to Meonstoke School for hosting us and making us so welcome.
- For many contributions to the services of thanksgiving for Simon Cassels, David Henley and Edith Carver.
- For all those who attended all our recent funerals and a special thank you for the flowers and the wonderful music.
- For all the help at the wonderfully lively ‘Messy Church’, especially to Mother Samantha and all the volunteers.
From the Rector
I recently came across a letter written in Germany just before Easter 1944. Almost exactly one year later, as the allies approached Flossenberg concentration camp, the author of the letter, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was hanged there by the Nazis. His Letters and Papers from Prison have been an inspiration to many who have sought to make any sense out of persecution and needless suffering. An outspoken opponent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Bonhoeffer joined the Confessing Church, who sought to be the authentic voice of the gospel in Germany and to oppose attempts to force anti- Semitism on Church and society. Leaving Berlin in protest, he spent two years (1933–5) as pastor of German-speaking congregations in London and he met Bishop George Bell of Chichester. Bonhoeffer returned to Germany from America when war broke out in 1939, explaining, ‘I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.’ He became involved with the anti-Nazi underground movement and, in 1942, attempted to put them in touch with the British government via Bishop Bell. The authorities imprisoned him at Tegel prison in Berlin in April 1943. It was from Tegel that he wrote many letters to his friends, family and to his fiancée. It was one such letter that I came across, containing these words about death and resurrection: poignant to us now and pertinent to the season in which we find ourselves now. It contained these words written as war raged:
Easter? We’re giving more attention nowadays to dying than to death itself. We are much more concerned with getting over the act of dying than with being victorious over death. Socrates mastered the art of dying; but Christ overcame death as the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15.27). There is a real difference between these two things. The one is something humans can do, the other means resurrection. It is not ars moriendi, the art of dying, but the resurrection of Christ to invigorate and cleanse the world to-day. Here is the answer to ‘Give me somewhere to stand and I shall move the earth’ (Archimedes). What a tremendous difference it would make if a few people really believed and acted upon that. To live in the light of the resurrection — that is the meaning of Easter. Do you not also find that so few people seem to know what light it is they live by? This perturbatio animorum (agitation of souls) is exceedingly common. It is an unconscious waiting for the word of deliverance, though the time is hardly ripe yet for it to be heard. But the time will come, and perhaps this Easter is one of the last chances we shall have to prepare ourselves for our future task.
In prison he was deprived of many of the joys of Easter, including Easter music and being with others. However, the Nazis could not deprive him of thought and prayer. He remarked that the music of the inward ear can often surpass that which we hear physically. He concluded that there is something purer about it, and in a way, music acquires thereby a ‘new body’! So, it is when we truly accept the Easter story inwardly that the resurrection promise starts to become pure reality. The involvement of many of Bonhoeffer’s contacts in the July 1944 plot to kill Hitler may well have sealed his fate. After several moves, he was taken finally to Flossenberg Camp, where he died resolute in faith and sure in Easter-hope.
