Newsletter March 2020

PRAYER FOCUS

• For the dying and those who mourn, and for those worn down in body mind or spirit.
• For those standing for Council and Wardens.
• For all those who minister in God’s name.

Services March 2010

Ploërmel

7th 3rd of Lent  11-00    H C order 1

4th 4th of Lent  11-00    Prayer & Praise for Mothering Sunday, followed by shared lunch.                              

21st   5th of Lent   11-00     H C order 1

28th Palm Sunday   11-00     Liturgy of the Palms followed by Chaplaincy AGM and By Bring  And share lunch.

(NB: BST BEGINS CLOCKS GO FORWARD)                      

Rostrenen

14th 4th of Lent  10-30   H C Order 1 Mothering Sunday

28th NO SERVICE DUE TO AGM BEING HELD AT PLOERMEL

(NB: BST BEGINS CLOCKS GO FORWARD)

Huelgoat

14th 4th of Lent 16-30    HC Order 1

For further information about any of these services please get in touch with The Rev’d Hazel Door, Churchwarden or the local contacts.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY/FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Christ Church Brittany - Annual General Meeting 2010

The 2010 Annual General Meeting will be held on Sunday 28^th March 2010, immediately following the service.

Elections will take place at the AGM for the following:

• Two Churchwardens – A Churchwarden’s term of office is for 1 year only. The election of the Churchwardens takes place before the commencement of the AGM and only if there are more than two Churchwardens nominated will a vote be necessary. The nominee, proposer and seconder, must all be members of the Electoral Roll and nominations must be received no later than the day before the meeting.
• Elected Council members - Elected Members terms of office are for 1 year only and existing elected members must therefore apply for re-election. The number of members to be elected depends on the size of the Electoral Roll and on present numbers 12 members can be elected. Nominations can be accepted up to the start of the meeting. The nominee, proposer and seconder, must all be members of the electoral roll, and nominations must be received before the meeting. If twelve or less are nominated no voting will take place.
• Independent Examiner – We will wish to elect an independent examiner, whose term of office lasts for one year and who audits the accounts and financial statements. The Independent Examiner is not a member of Council.
• Sidespersons – The Council would again like to appoint a number of Sidespersons to be elected at the AGM. Sidespersons will not be members of the Church Council. Anyone interested please contact Hazel or the Wardens.

If you are not on the Roll and you would like to be so; please ask Don Dykes or the Warden for the appropriate form. The criteria for applying to be on the Roll are as follows:

1. You are aged over 16 years and have been baptized.

2. You have signed an application form.

3. You are a member of the Church of England or of any church in communion with the Church of England and you have attended public worship in the parish during the six months prior to application for enrolment.

Social Evenings – Ploërmel

The social evenings will now be held on the 1^st and 3^rd Friday of the month, so the next one is on 5^th March commencing at 7.30pm. For further information please telephone John & Helen Edge 02 97 74 97 96.

Home Group and Fellowship Meetings – March 2010

St Vran

The meetings during March will be held on the 11^th and 25^th and will commence with a shared lunch. Everyone is welcome and for further information please contact Joyce and Alex Fraser on 02 96 56 13 22 or e-mail alex.fraser@wanadoo.fr.

Redon Area

For information on the next meeting to be held in the Redon area or to hear about the Group in general please contact Joy Morin on 02 99 71 12 30 or Maureen Wilson on 02 99 08 21 94.

Rostrenen

The Rostrenen Home Group will be meeting weekly during Lent and we shall be following the York Course. For further information please call Robin and Laura Hillman on 02 97 51 74 26.

Malestroit

Meetings take place regularly and start at 12 noon with a Bring and Share Lunch.  The date of the next meeting is Tuesday 2^nd March 2010 and will be held at the home of Colin and Gloria Chilcott, Queuvre, Brehan 56580.

Bannalec

A meeting for Christian fellowship takes place regularly at the home of David and Rebecca Pugh’s. Usually held of an evening commencing at 5.00pm and for further information please contact Rebecca or David on 02 98 35 46 59.

OTHER NEWS AND MATTERS

Charitable Giving

You may well recall that in order to comply with French Law in respect of charitable giving it was necessary for Christ Church to set up a separate Association Caritative. Called Les Maines Ouvertes, following a suggestion from Bishop Geoffrey, this has all been finalised and put in place and now allows Christ Church to make donations to charities etc without transgressing French Law. The next stage however, is to ensure there are funds in the Les Maines Ouvertes bank account, enabling charitable giving to take place and Council has decided to try and achieve this by using the plate collection (i.e. excluding the envelope scheme) taken at Ploërmel on the second Sunday of every month. In addition any monies left in the large charity collection water bottles will be deposited in the Les Maines Ouvertes account as will of course any monies raised at fund raising events organised specifically for this purpose. This year the Council have decided that Christ Church will support three charities, namely: Shelterbox, Toybox and Médecins Sans Frontières. Presentations on these charities have already taken place and over the next three months further details will be given in the monthly Newsletter on each charity in turn. In addition information and links to the websites of these charities will be included soon on the Christ Church website.

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2010

Introduction: The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which is held every year between January 18^th and 25^th, was well supported by members of Christ Church this year. To commemorate the centenary of the Edinburgh Mission Conference of 1910, this year’s service was prepared by the churches of Scotland. We were invited to reflect on the whole of Chapter 24 of Luke’s gospel and especially the words of Christ before his ascension: ‘You are witnesses of these things’ (Luke 24:48). The order of service is deliberately kept simple to allow for variation depending on local circumstances and denominational preferences so that no two services were the same.

Ploërmel: On Thursday January 21^st, Christ Church hosted the annual gathering at Ploërmel with the parishioners of St Armel and Brothers from the Community. In the chapel Hazel and Père Joubaud led us in a time of worship and prayer alternating French and English. After the final hymn, ‘Thine be the glory’ or ‘A toi la gloire’, an ecumenical favourite, we gathered downstairs for coffee and cakes and a time of sharing news since the last time we had met. After a number of years many faces are familiar and it always seems a shame that we do not meet more often during the year.

Lanester: A little after the official end of the week, on Wednesday January 27^th, Robin and I represented the Anglicans at a service at Notre Dame du Pont in Lanester, a town we know better for its large Géant shopping complex than for its churches. We were invited by Père Marcel Rivallain, the ecumenical representative for the Diocese of Vannes and the service was put together by the ecumenical group of Lorient. We were greeted at the door by Jean Le Teuff from the Eglise Réformée, whom we meet every year at Carnac. Père Lambert, late of Carnac and Ploërmel, now at Larmor-Plage, was also there so we felt among friends. A large choir and a packed congregation in a modern church made for a lively service with some inspired singing accompanied by guitar, ukulele and organ. A talk was given on behalf of a charity which supports work in Haïti: this was made more poignant by the fact that Lorient was the original home of the family of Frère Dominique Baron, one of the two Ploërmel Brothers who lost their lives in the earthquake. A collection was taken for the work of restoration.

This year’s Carnac ecumenical gathering is to be on Tuesday August 3^rd at 11 am so please put the date in your diaries and let us know if you would like to help organise the event as it is our turn to do so this year.                                    Laura Hillman

Callac: This is the second year that we in Callac have held a service in the Parish Church to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The participating churches are the Protestant Evangelical Church of Callac, the Catholics and the Anglicans. The date of this year’s service, Monday, 18^th January, was agreed during the final stages of preparation for our first united Carol Service. Because the bilingual service we put together last year worked so well, and because the weather made meeting together difficult, we agreed to use last year’s format, based on the World Council of Churches suggestions.

We met in the large vestry cum chapel at the east end of the church for a service entitled Christian Unity – A Celebration.  After a prayer for unity and a reading from Ezekiel 37, we sang “The Church’s one foundation”. Then the reading from John 17, Jesus’ Prayer, was followed by extempore prayer for Christian unity.  We all said the Lord’s Prayer together and then sang “Un Seul Seigneur”. The Benediction was pronounced by all three clergy together to finish. Abbé Hubert Forget then kindly invited us all back into the presbytery for Galettes des Rois and a cup of tea.                                                                 David Clark                                                                                                                    

Quimper Cathedral: Saint Corentin, the first bishop of Quimper, and one of the seven ancient saints of Brittany, was active in the fifth century. The Cathedral in Quimper that bears his name, built a thousand years later, is massively impressive, and with spires exceeding 80m in height, the tallest in Brittany. At the time when the Cathedral was being built, Brittany was fighting to keep its independence from France, the Reformation lay in the future, and America remained unknown to Europeans.  The world has changed unimaginably in the five and a half centuries since then.  The Cathedral itself survived a spell as a “Temple of Reason” during the Revolution, and the destruction of many of its statues and religious ornaments. In that ancient holy place, marking the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, clergy and people from the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, and at least one Anglican family, came together last month in a service of Vespers, a service that would have been recognised in form and content by St Corentin himself.  Prayers, readings, canticles and hymns, an address and a blessing - the heritage of the universal church - joined us in worship together. The Cathedral is just a building, of course, and being old does not make it holy, but I am comforted and encouraged that it has seen the world and the church convulsed by war and division over centuries of human history, and yet continues to stand as a place where worship is daily offered to God. Even in Brittany, more religious than much of France, the Roman Catholic Church has lost its dominant position in society. Many still want the rites of the church at their death, but fewer will have attended church faithfully during their lives.  Numbers going forward to the priesthood or the religious life continue to fall, and other Churches fare little better. Yet in that weakness, there is the opportunity for new life.  Ecumenism – the recognition that “where two or three are gathered together” in Christ’s name, he is present, and the desire for visible unity amongst all those who take that name upon themselves – is alive in a way unknown in earlier generations. There is much more to do, and there are real and important differences and disagreements between the churches, but hearing M. le Pasteur Stücker of the Église Reformée preach whilst flanked by an Orthodox and Roman Catholic priest, gave me hope that we may yet fulfil Christ’s prayer that we may be one.       Rev Lionel Stock

Rennes: In the heart of Rennes, hidden away behind the Clinic St Yves in rue Adolphe Leray, is the monastery of Sainte Claire. So well hidden is it that we walked past its gate twice. Two orders of sisters live on this site, the Augustinians and the Order of St Claire.  We were among 60 people gathered in the chapel for an ecumenical service to celebrate the week of prayer for Christian unity. At the start of the service, we were formally welcomed along with a representative of the Église Reformée. The service followed the international format, which for 2010 had been prepared by the Church of Scotland and commended by the World Council of Churches. The text was taken from Chapter 24 of the gospel of St Luke, verse 48”You are witnesses of these things”. The whole chapter, rather lengthy was read, as a dramatisation by three people. The Diocesan Ecumenical officer of Rennes, Père Eugene Bérel, led the time of prayer and preached on the text. As always at many of these functions we thought we were the only English speakers there, until we adjourned for the refreshments, when to our joy and hers, we encountered the Mistress of the Novices. She originated from Philadelphia and thoroughly enjoyed using her English, only when we moved off to meet other folk did she stop talking. It was a lovely illustration of unity that an English woman priest and an American Catholic nun met at a service in the city of the Parliament of Brittany to celebrate Jesus Christ.                                                                            Rev Hazel Door

Morlaix: Mary, Wendy Bishop and I attended the service in Morlaix for the week of prayer for Christian Unity at St Mathias. There were about 100 -110 people in the congregation from the Catholic, Baptist and   Reform Churches as well as ourselves. The service was very nicely arranged and it was pleasing to see that they involved about 8 or more children in the service, and who participated in reading various items. The music was provided by a small band and some very able singers. The service was concluded and we were then provided with hot wine and biscuits. A very pleasant time was had and we renewed acquaintances with some very old friends from the Morlaix Lions club who were members of the local churches there also. Wendy Bishop has kindly volunteered to be our representative for future such joint meetings.       Keith Beswetherick
 

Carême – Fasting – Lent – Lengthen.

Mercredi des cendres this year is on the 17^th February and begins the period of Carême – Fasting for forty days Monday to Saturday. In the Book of Common Prayer 1662, you will see that there is a page (in mine lvi) entitled A Table of the Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence to be observed in the year, and the total can amount to 124 Fast or Abstinence Days in the year.  In Northern Europe this regular period of fasting coincided with the lengthening of daylight as Spring approaches. In Southern Europe this is not so obvious, for the length of daylight varies less the closer you are to the Equator, where it is equal (Equator) with the night.  Thus in England this period of Fasting became known as Lent from Lengthen, the days are lengthening! Lent is the preparation for Easter, the major Christian Festival. Easter is commemorated every Sunday, and thus Sundays are never Fast Days. The Jews kept Fasts usually Tuesday and Thursday, and the Christians changed this to Wednesday and Friday (Didache). Originally the Fast before Easter was just two days but by the 4^th Century forty days had become common, Festal Epistle of Athanasius.

 Forty is a Penitential number in the Jewish Tradition, Forty years in the wilderness Deuteronomy 8.2, Joshua 5.6, Forty Days on the Mount Deuteronomy 10.10, Jesus in the wilderness Matthew 4.2, et al. I think that it needs to be pointed out that numbers in the Jewish and Christian Traditions are often symbolic, and that counting in England down to the 19^th Century was done by Tally Sticks because of the difficulty in counting large numbers, especially before the adoption of the Arabic system of numerals. So when you hear a number in the Jewish and Christian Tradition think of what it symbolises, rather than that some body did exact counting.

 The manner of Fasting varies from country to country but usually means a reduction of food and drink and the donation of the money saved to Charity. Obesity is the curse of the reliable and abundant food supply that we have enjoyed since the improvements in farming methods and transport a century or so ago. Lent is a time to improve our health physically and spiritually. In the Gospel Jesus always puts Prayer and Fasting together, and in Lent we should do that, so not only give up some food and drink but also take up saying the Morning and Evening Prayer at home following the example of Jesus and his disciples.

 The Muslims copied the Jews and the Christians in this matter as in many other matters. Their Fasting Month of Ramadhan will begin about the 7^th of August this year and will last about thirty days, the actual length of the Lunar Month is 28 and a half days. When I can, I keep a day fasting from all food and drink from dawn to dusk with my devout chosen Muslim son, Naveed, and we complete the breaking of the fast by going to Mosque for the Evening Rakats where fruits and water are served in manner similar to our Holy Communion. Naveed does the Rakats and I sit to the side at the back praying for Muslims, Christians and Jews everywhere. We have always been treated in a most gracious manner at the various mosques we have attended. If you go to Mosque, remember to wash your hands and feet before you go, remove your shoes at the entrance and just sit at the back taking it all in. Don’t be disturbed by not knowing what the Koreish Arabic means, the Muslims present probably do not know either. The main prayer or rakat that they use is conceptually similar to the Our Father.

The Reverend Peter M. Hawkins

An Invocation for Lent

Into the dark world

a snowdrop comes,

a blessing of hope and peace

carrying within it a green heart:

symbol of God's renewing love.

Come to inhabit our darkness, Lord Christ,

for dark and light are alike to you.

May nature's white candles of hope

remind us of your birth

and lighten our journey

through Lent and beyond.                                      

Kate Mcllhagga

A Prayer for Lent

Christ of compassion, through your Gospel we discover that measuring what we are or what we are not leads nowhere. What matters is the humble trusting of faith. By it we are led to glimpse the innocence of God and to understand that "all God can do is give his love."

And finally…

Lent begins on February the 17th, on Ash Wednesday.  Many people give up something for Lent. That is a matter for each individual, though I would urge that whatever is given up, does cause real hardship.   Hardship??? Well for example, I could give up chocolate for Lent really easily: you see I actually eat very little, though what I do eat I enjoy. So it would not really test me at all, it would be an easy option.   Wherever each of us is on our Christian journey; we face challenges.  Only as an individual, can we determine the discipline needed to meet that form of challenge.  Instead of (or as well as), giving something up for Lent why not take on the discipline of a time of daily worship and prayer.

If you attend church worship every week, do you consider that “job done” until the following Sunday?   Remember the verse in the hymn King of Glory, King of Peace, written by George Herbert in 1633? 

Seven whole days, not one in seven, I will praise thee;
in my heart, though not in heaven, I can raise thee.
Small it is, in this poor sort to enroll thee: e’en eternity’s too short to extol thee.

We are called to worship not just every day, but every moment of our days. In thought word and deed we are called to witness and to worship.    A small beginning can be made through daily prayer. A pattern for prayer can be quite simple.  One of the most used prayers is called the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  

We are all called to pray without ceasing, 1 Thess 5:17. The real question is, how?

The Jesus Prayer provides one good way to pray constantly. In fact, the Jesus Prayer is probably the most widespread spiritual prayer.  Our task is to draw nearer to God. It has been said that it is impossible to draw near to God by any means other than increasing prayer. Meet the challenge for Lent and you will be amazed how it changes you.   The Jesus Prayer is for everyone. We use the Jesus Prayer to do God's will, not our own bidding. We are all sinners and need to pray, always. We are called to keep the Commandments, to be living members of His Body on earth.

Why not try saying the Jesus Prayer first thing in the morning, perhaps for 10 or 15 minutes.  If that is not possible, make a time before noon, or in the evening. This might be called "formal" use of the prayer. The second form of the Jesus Prayer is the "free" use of the prayer. This means at any and all other times of the day, or night. Why not during semi-automatic tasks such as driving, doing dishes, walking, being unable to sleep, etc?   If you find yourself alone in a quiet moment, pray the Jesus Prayer out loud. Try the challenge, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Blessings    Hazel

Christ Church Newsletter Contributions: for the April 2010 issue, please e-mail your contributions to Chris Wilson at wilson.christopher@orange.fr, the deadline is Monday 22^nd March 2010.

[Home] [About Us] [Worship Centres] [Events] [Who's Who] [Newsletters] [July 2010] [June 2010] [May 2010] [April 2010] [March 2010] [Photos] [Links] [Contact Us]