In this morning’s gospel we hear the marvellous story where Jesus enters the Temple in Jerusalem and overturns the tables of the money changers. People often think this story shows that Jesus was against those churches that have a small bookstall in the back, because he didn't agree with conducting commercial business in a place of worship. But this is not what the story is about.

Jesus' anger at the money changers and the people selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifice was not because they were trading in a religious building, but because the Jewish law required that people approach God by sacrificing an animal and, so as to keep the whole process pure, they were required to change their normal money into special Temple money which was then used to actually buy their animal for sacrifice.

Jesus was angry at a whole process which set up barriers between people and God, and indeed made it difficult for people without sufficient financial means to purchase an animal at all. Rather he wanted to show that anybody and everybody could approach God directly, and none of this pseudo-religious paraphernalia was required.

PIcture above: Extract from Expulsion of the Merchants from the Yemple. Artist A.N. Mironov. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

All Saints’ Day, is the day we remember all the saints and martyrs of the church, both known and unknown.

When I was a child, we worshipped each Sunday at St Albans Abbey, the church of the first British martyr. At the front of the nave above the altar was a stone rood screen, built by Abbot Thomas de la Mare, around the time of the Black Death (1349-51). It contained seven empty niches, where brightly coloured statues had once stood. But the statues were destroyed during the Reformation, and the niches left empty.

Today they are again filled with freshly coloured statues, commissioned by the Abbey from sculptor Rory Young. They depict seven martyrs, each carrying the martyr’s symbol of the palm branch. From left to right:

➡️Oscar Romero – Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, who stood up for the poor, assassinated during Mass in 1980

➡️St Alban Roe – imprisoned for a time in St Albans Abbey Gatehouse and hanged in London in 1642, having been found guilty of treason for being a Roman Catholic priest

➡️St Amphibalus – a Christian priest sheltered by St Alban, when Christianity was forbidden

➡️St Alban – The first British saint, beheaded in Roman Verulamium on the site of the Abbey in the third century AD

➡️George Tankerfield - burnt to death in 1555, in Romeland, an alley in St Albans, because as a Protestant, he refused the doctrine of transubstantiation

➡️St Elisabeth Romanova – a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and member of the Russian Royal Family and the Orthodox Church, becoming a nun and Abbess after her husband died. She was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918

➡️Dietrich Bonhoeffer– Lutheran pastor and theologian, sent to a Nazi concentration camp, and tried with neither witness nor defence. He was hung in April 1945.

These are the sort of people we remember on All Saints' Day. The Dean of the Cathedral writes that there are “martyrs in every age – probably more now than there have been for many years – and inspire us to be braver ourselves in standing up for what we believe.”

In the evening at 6pm there will be a Service of Remembrance for departed loved ones, with the Pueri Cantores choir, directed by Antonio del Pino

Click below to hear a hymn for All Saints Day.

On Remembrance Sunday we remember the sacrifice of those who defended our freedoms and protected our way of life, through two world wars and beyond. In particular, we remember the armed forces and their families, as well as the emergency services and those who have lost their lives as a result of conflict or terrorism.

We also remember those parts of the world which are being devastated by war even now, particularly Ukraine, Sudan and Israel/Palestine. Here life is being torn apart and people on all sides are losing those that they love.

The service will begin at 10:45am to enable us to be at the War Commission graves for as close as possible to 11:00 GMT.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them”.
(from ‘For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon)

Please note, there will also be a Remembrance Service at Mollina in the north of Malaga province, starting 11.45am on 9th November. Details here: https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/8488/service-and-events/events/977920/

In addition, on Saturday 8th November at 6pm, there will be a service of music and readings entitled, 'A Time for Remembering', performed by Massimiliano Alejao and Fr Louis Darrant