Christmas was such a special time for me as a child and is still very special to me. One of the family traditions I remember was being allowed, when I was about nine years old, to go to Midnight Mass. This was a real treat as my mum was very firm about bedtimes! I enjoyed the carols and candles and the reading from St John’s Gospel and afterwards, when we returned home, my sister and brother and I were allowed to open one present each before we went to bed. Another Christmas memory was of opening my stocking at the foot of the bed early one Christmas morning and being very excited on discovering a cuddly toy squirrel. Ever since, I have been a fan of squirrels and I love watching the black squirrels in St Peter’s Churchyard.At Christmas our very busy family all came together and found time just to be with each other. As we sing the carol “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” at Advent we remember that God came to be with us by sending Jesus and in this season we make take the time to be with others and to thank God for Jesus.Do join us for Evensong at All Saints, Haslingfield on the first Sunday of Advent at 5.30pm and for our Carol Service on Sunday 21st December at 6.30pm here at St Peter’s Barton with children and adult choirs. On Christmas Day there will a Family Communion at 10am. (Please note that there will be no service at Barton on Sunday 28th December).We shall celebrate the Feast of Epiphany on Sunday 4th January, the nearest Sunday to 6th January, which is the 12th day of Christmas. This feast commemorates the coming of the wise men to pay homage to Jesus with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. In the bible account, in Matthew’s gospel, the Holy Family were in a house by this time because the wise men’s journey to find Jesus was a very long one. Physical journeys as well as spiritual ones can often take rather longer than planned!The season of Epiphany finishes on 1st February with the Feast of Candlemas when Jesus parents took him to the Temple to give God thanks for their new baby. If you would like a Thanksgiving Service or a Christening for your child or would like to be baptised or confirmed yourself in 2026 or married at St Peter’s please do get in touch for a chat.With blessings for a joyful and peaceful Christmas,Claire
Forest Church will happen on Sunday 5th October at 3pm in St Peter's Church. Please come and join us for this last meeting of the year! We would love you to come with your family to join in the activities and to consider what you would like from Forest Church next year.
GenR8 is a Christian charity which works alongside churches and schools offering resources for prayer spaces in schools, including Barton School.A team from GenR8 used St Peter's Church on Friday 7th February. The church was filled with interactive prayer spaces and throughout the day, children and staff from the school visited the church in groups. It was lovely to see the classes coming into church. They were so engaged and, at the end of the school day, the children brought their parents in to see what had been going on. The church was packed and buzzing – what a joy!
This year Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) is on March 4th so, depending on when you get your copy of the Parish Magazine, you may or may not have celebrated it. If you have, I hope you had fun. If you haven’t, you might be inspired by the ways other countries celebrate this day.In Denmark, sweet buns with their middles hollowed out and filled with jam and cream are eaten.In France, Shrove Tuesday is called Mardi Gras.In Poland, competitions are held to find the most delicious doughnut.In Finland, pea soup and blinis are often eaten.In the Christian calendar, Shrove Tuesday is seen as a time to use up all the good food in the house before entering the season of Lent. This period is the time before Easter during which Christians reflect on the coming events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and how they relate to their lives today. Sometimes such reflection leads one to feel a desire to deepen one’s relationship with God, hence why it is called Shrove Tuesday, with ‘shrove’ derived from ‘shrive’ meaning ‘to confess’.We all have the need for renewal in our lives. The movement towards Spring is a time for feeling more connected to life as nature unfurls. Perhaps this stirs thoughts of a divine presence for you. For the writer Nick Hornby, it is music that prompts such thoughts. He wrote about this in his book, 31 Songs: “I try not to believe in God, of course, but sometimes things happen in music, in songs that bring me up short, make me do a double-take … All I can say is that I can hear things that aren’t there, see and feel things I can’t normally see and feel, and start to realise that, yes, there is such a thing as an immortal soul, or at the very least, a unifying human consciousness, that our lives are short but have meaning”.Hornby continues, “Beyond that, I’m not sure it changes very much really. I’m not going to listen to stuff like this too often, though, just in case”. Worth pondering as we welcome new life this Spring and Lenten season.Very best,Corin RedsellAssociate Minister at St Peter’s Church, Barton
