Dear friends

This is my first Friday e-mail message as vicar of St Martin’s, and at the risk of repeating myself for some readers, I’d like to say thank you to all who have welcomed Paula and I at my licensing—it was truly a great and celebratory occasion.

The welcome has continued, and I very much enjoyed my first Sunday on All Saints’ Sunday. When you arrive at any church community there are so many things to wrap your head around all at once, but I do feel as if I’m getting there. I particularly appreciated Phil’s service for All Souls, the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, and not just because I didn’t have to lead it! If you haven’t been, it’s a truly powerful and moving experience to remember those we have loved and lost. There were tears and smiles and everything in between, just as there should be in church.

The power of moments like that when we come into the house of God to be peaceful, to light a candle, and to reflect, was well demonstrated today (as I write this on Wednesday). Year six children from Knowle Park came to church to hear about how the theme of light appears in the Bible and Christian thought. Some of the children were invited to come up and light candles as they reflected on someone who was special to them—perhaps someone who had died but not necessarily. Some quiet music played, and the children were all silent as some of them came up to light a candle and place it on the votive stand. Afterwards Phil asked them how it felt: one child said ‘special’; another impressed us all by saying that it could be summed up in one word: ‘holy’.

No one had put that word into that child’s head. He had simply come and sat in church, heard some music and witnessed a candle being lit, and I think you can say that he felt the Holy Spirit moving in that place.

So, as you come to church this weekend to remember the fallen of the world wars and wars since, don’t forget how privileged you are to call St Martin’s your spiritual home, and to have a chance each time you come for worship to feel the breath of the Spirit in your lives, just as did that little child.

With joy and blessings

Sam