NEWS
Advent Candles have been lit on each of the Sundays in Advent, and a Service of Lessons and Carols for Christmas was held on Thursday 18th December. A peal of five bells welcomed a large congregation to the beautifully decorated church, and the service opened with Sarah’s charmingly rendered, candle-lit solo first verse of Once in Royal. The choir added much to the atmosphere with the anthem Stille, Stille, Stille and their glorious, soaring descants in the carols which, with the readings, told the familiar story of the Nativity. Afterwards the raffles were drawn for a fabulous Christmas cake and two hampers full of delights, and there was mingling and good cheer over refreshments of mulled wine, spiced apple juice and tasty bites. Many thanks to all those who contributed to the evening and to those who offered items for the hampers.
A group from the Diss U3A Round Tower Study Group visited the church on Tuesday 18th November.
The church brass received its annual shine thanks to the team of volunteers on 20thNovember. It would be a great help to have new volunteers for the church cleaning rota. If you can help, please let Bridget know.
The PCC extends its gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the busy life of Holy Trinity Barsham in 2025: in worship, music, administration, maintenance and decoration, in special events, fundraising and charitable giving. Particular thanks are extended to our licensed retired clergy.
The sales table organised by Jenny raised £85.00 bringing the cumulative total for 2025 to a record sum of £1,376.00. Well done and many thanks to those who have staffed the table, generously donated items for sale or supported by making purchases.
Many thanks as well to the Beccles Lions who kindly donated £652.00, representing the cost of transporting the Love Boxes to Moldova.
The Barsham PCC acknowledges with much gratitude a legacy of £1,000.00 from the estate of the late Mrs Penny Banks.
The Beccles Foodbank was delighted to receive our 251 items in November. A list of items currently most needed by the foodbank may be found on the chest at the back of the church.
SNIPPETS – New Year, New Hope
Traditionally, the New Year has been a time both to take stock and to look ahead. 175 years ago in his New Year poem, Ring Out, Wild Bells, Alfred, Lord Tennyson did exactly this, naming some of the social and political ills of his day and suggesting remedies. The poem has lost none of its relevance today!
Ring Out, Wild Bells
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
For us, there are new concerns, unimaginable in Tennyson’s time, amongst them the ongoing depletion of nature. Often driven by short-termism and vested interest, governments around the world are failing to give the nature crisis the priority it deserves. Yet there is hope. Hope lies not in government but in society. In the UK, at least, public awareness and understanding of the need for nature recovery is expanding fast, especially amongst the young, and there is a gathering momentum of meaningful nature-friendly activity undertaken by individuals in their yards and gardens, and by communities, businesses and organisations in their operations and on the land they control. At Barsham the nature-friendly management of the churchyard and the swift boxes in the belfry are a case in point. So too is the public support that has enabled the Suffolk Wildlife Trust to add 381 acres of Worlingham Marshes to its existing reserves in the area to create a protected landscape rich in natural habitat across much of the Lower Waveney Valley. Hope lies in the sum of all of society’s small actions being sufficient to tip the scales in nature’s favour.
A healthy natural world plays a vital role in climate control and provides the essential resources mankind needs for survival. It is also invigorating and healing for those who engage with it: there is a redemptive quality in the cyclical processes of the natural world – the seasons, the life cycle of plants – which are symbols of hope and renewal. With all this in mind, let the contemporary poet Matt Goodfellow ring in our New Year:
Poem for a New Year
Something’s moving in,
I hear the weather in the wind,
sense the tension of a sheep-field
and the pilgrimage of fins.
Something’s not the same,
I taste the sap and feel the grain,
hear the rolling of the rowan
ringing, singing in a change.
Something’s set to start,
there’s meadow-music in the dark
and the clouds that shroud the mountain
slowly, softly start to part.
JANUARY DIARY
4th January – 2nd Sunday of Christmas. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Jonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 11th January – First Sunday after the Epiphany. Baptism of Christ. 11amSung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 18th January – Second Sunday after the Epiphany. 11.15am Sung Eucharist (BCP), Barsham. Revd Desmond Banister.
Sunday 25th January – Third Sunday after the Epiphany. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Graham Naylor.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]