NEWS
We are sad to report the death of Penny Banks on the 3rd September. Her Cremation took place on the 25th September and was followed by a Wake in Barsham Church. Penny’s ashes were interred in Barsham Churchyard alongside those of her daughter and parents.
The Quinquennial Inspection of the church fabric was carried out on the 23rdSeptember by architect Ruth Blackman. We await her report.
More than 50 people witnessed the moving spectacle of the rood illuminated in a shaft of light from the setting sun at the Autumn Equinox.
Harvest Festival at Barsham on Sunday 28th September was celebrated in fine style. Glorious flower arrangements and striking displays of produce created a colourful backdrop for the day’s services. The choir graced Choral Evensong with the anthem With Wonder Lord we See your Works. At Harvest Supper in the village hall 46 guests enjoyed a sumptuous feast at charmingly decorated tables. It was a most congenial evening, and its success was down to the team who worked so hard to plan, prepare and serve the food and drinks, to decorate the tables, and to clear up afterwards. All thanks to them.
Amongst our guests at supper, we were pleased to welcome Roz Armstrong, who is attached to the benefice and Lightwave as Ordinand in Training.
Representatives of the PCCs of Bungay and Mettingham, Barsham with Shipmeadow and the Lightwave Core Team met for a Benefice Awayday on Saturday 11th October at All Hallows Ditchingham.
To express our appreciation and thanks for their dedication and service, the PCC entertained Barsham’s volunteer clergy at the annual ‘Clergy Lunch’ at White House Barn, Barsham on the 15th October.
After filling Love Boxes, please keep them at home until a date is given for bringing them to church. The Blessing of the Love Boxes will be on Sunday 26th October. A team of six wrapped a second batch of Love Boxes on the 2nd October and the next wrapping session will be at 2.30pm on Thursday 26th October: all help much appreciated.
Cheryl thanks the riders, striders and welcomers who contributed to the £1,475.00 raised at this year’s Ride and Stride event. This was a record result (£1000.00 in 2024; £1,016.00 in 2023; and £869.00 in 2022) following a fantastic effort by all at Barsham Church, sponsors and participants. Half of this sum comes to Barsham and we can also access SHCT grants in the future.
Congratulations to Neville Smith on his part in a BBC Radio Suffolk report, broadcast on the 19th September, about the Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s initiative to promote habitats across the county through Private Nature Reserves.
A team from Community Payback has tidied the parking area and church drive and installed new disabled parking signs.
The Revd Pam Bayliss sends thanks for the 181 items donated to the Beccles Food Bank in September, including 90 items at Harvest Festival.
FORWARD PLANNING
Remembrance Sunday, 9th November – Please arrive for 10.45am to allow time for the Reading of Names and the two-minutes silence at 11am.
Service of Remembrance at Barsham Village Hall, Tuesday 11thNovember, Revd Graham Naylor – The hall will be open from 10.15 for a 10.45am start. Parking on the village hall paddock. Refreshments available afterwards with optional donation. Everyone welcome.
Christmas Carol Service, Thursday 18th December at 6.30pm – Followed by refreshments including mince pies and mulled wine.
SNIPPETS – The Pelican in her Piety
If, like me, you have gazed up at the chancel arch and admired the winged ‘angel’ crowning the arch, look again more closely! I realised recently that this is not an angel at all, but a pelican. It sits on its nest surrounded by its young, plucking at its own breast to feed them (cover photo). This motif is known as the ‘Pelican in Her Piety’ and is well established in Christian art, appearing in stained glass, roof bosses, altar frontals, lecterns, carvings and so on. The motif appears on the 16th century processional cross carried by Malcolm at the start of our services, and the truncated body of a bird on the end of the medieval pew at the front of the nave is possibly the remains of a pelican, perhaps desecrated at the Reformation.
The image of the mother pelican feeding her young in an act of self-sacrifice has its roots in pre-Christian Roman legend and was taken up in early Christianity as an obvious analogy with Christ’s sacrifice. The Pelican in Her Piety had become a powerful image of Christ’s Passion by at least the 3rd century – St Augustine of Hippo referred to it in the late 4th century – and from the 12th century it was a staple feature of liturgical tradition. In the mid-13th century St Thomas Aquinas calls Christ ‘pie pelicane, Jesu Domine’ (the pious pelican, Lord Jesus), and in the early 14th century Dante described Christ as ‘our Pelican who shed His blood in order to give eternal life to the children of men’. When Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, founded Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1517, he included the pelican in its coat of arms. A century later, the King James Bible translated a prophesy of Jesus in Psalm 102 as ‘I am like a pelican in the wilderness’.
The act of the mother pelican saving her young by feeding them with her own blood became a metaphor for Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist, and in the Anglo-Catholic Revival of the 19th century the image was adopted as a reminder of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Thus, at Barsham the Revd RAJ Suckling had the image of the Pelican in Her Piety incorporated in the design of the plaster ceiling of the chancel, where it was symbolically located on the two plaster panels immediately above the altar.
NOVEMBER DIARY
Sunday 2nd November – All Saints. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Jonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 9th November – Third Sunday before Advent. Remembrance Sunday.10.45 for 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 16th November – Second Sunday before Advent. 11.15am Sung Eucharist (BCP), Barsham. Revd Desmond Banister.
Sunday 23rd November – Christ the King. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Graham Naylor.
Sunday 30th November – First Sunday of Advent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Philip Merry.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]