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06/06/2026

Sunday 7th June, The First Sunday after Trinity.
10.00 am Parish Sung Eucharist
https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Follow me

You might think that just as we touch down into a long period of Ordinary Time, there might be less disturbance as we fatten up ourselves for the lean times of Advent, just under six months away. But no.

The three readings today are rather disturbing: being caused to journey into the unknown; sticking to codes of rules and laws all the time does not guarantee success in the eyes of God; and God (in Jesus) is not particular about what groups of people He chooses as followers.

We are called to journey into the unknown: it tests our faith. It is our faith which trumps our good works, whether or not they conform to the club’s rules. God chooses those on the outside, the marginalised, to show what discipleship must be.

All in all, we are required to keep our options open by taking risk, when it may seem more sensible to play it safe. However, we are not called to be reckless and irresponsible. We are required to love. As we follow in Christ’s steps, we do this more perfectly. As a ‘church’, in the narrow sense as a particular body of people meeting in a particular building or in the widest sense, as the Body of Christ on earth we must remember we are not an association of the most holy, righteous and moral, but a gathering of those, some more broken than others, who need each other, at home and abroad, in worship and prayer, to make us whole.

Fr A

30/05/2026

Trinity Sunday, 31st May 2026,
Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer)
9.00 am (said)
10.00 am (sung)

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

“Come to me now, disguised as everything.”

This is the contemporary poet and Anglican priest Malcolm Guite talking of God, in his sonnet O Sapientia (latin for ‘wisdom’) which he wrote for Advent, which of course means ‘coming’; but that’s basically December, and we’re in Spring. Don’t worry, there is a link.
It’s the Son for Whom we wait at Advent. For 50 days we waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Today we consider God as three persons; three persons one God; everything and more: Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Guite takes inspiration for his sonnet The Trinity from another Anglican priest from 400 years earlier, George Herbert, and his sonnet The Windows, how they are formed and work, a metaphor for the way God forms us. We are made and marked, not by a percussive, or beating force, but by love which is linked poetically to heat which, carefully applied, alters the structure of a substance, glass in this case, so that it can be changed in form and appearance, and beautified without breaking. This is perhaps more true of metals, but you get the point.
A similar idea is Aesop’s fable of the sun and wind, who have a competition to see who is the quicker in causing someone to remove their cloak. Both elements have tremendous power, but it’s how they apply themselves which makes the critical difference: gentleness and kind persuasion are more effective than brute force and bluster. The effect of God’s gentle fire and wind, expressed through the Persons of the Holy Trinity is infinitely more profound upon us.
Fr A

25/05/2026

Manchester and Salford Whit Walk 2026
https://www.facebook.com/ManchesterSalfordWhitWalk?locale=en_GB

We were there, with our No1 banner resplendent in its new frame, a gift in memory of a grandfather the donor never met. The brass finials twinkled in the sun. The banner bearers did a wonderful job. The Rector caught up with some banter with the guest preacher, The Revd Kate Bottley, from about ten years before.
It was a fabulous morning of witness and worship. Thank you to all who joined us on a beatiful day, the heat eased by some breeze. God is good. Join us next year.

23/05/2026

Sunday 24th May, Pentecost
10.00 am Sung Eucharist.
https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire
For the last six weeks, from the Second Sunday of Easter, we’ve been hearing about the inspiration and action of the Holy Spirit on the lives of the Apostles, and how the was passed on to those the encountered in their teaching and healing. This week, the ‘reason’ is back-filled.
The Holy Spirit always was, just as Jesus always was. Because God the Father is gracious we are given the Birth of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit to inform us in space and time, yet these events are still deeply, deeply mysterious. Note, we have Trinity Sunday next week too.
For the first time in a long while, the news media have drawn attention to this also being the time for the Jewish Festival of Shavuot, which of course it was in Acts 2, when Jews came from all over the known world with their different languages, some of them gathering together in that upper room. Those outside, had they known why they were there, would have regarded them as a continuation of that pesky sect whose leader needed to be dispatched.
Isn’t it remarkable that from these small, covert beginnings the Word spread so far and wide, and so quickly. Let’s pick up that momentum again.
We don’t need to be in a Pentecostal church to be ‘Pentecostal’ or Spirit-filled. All who are open to the Word of God, the Good News, are spirit-filled too.
Fr A
Image: the orphrey from our Pentecost altar frontal

16/05/2026

The Seventh Sunday of Easter (The Sunday after the Ascension)
10.00 am Sung Eucharist.
https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

God is gone up

“Jesus’ friends lived through the pain of parting not once but twice: the farewell discourses in St John’s Gospel tell of how Jesus prepared them for his coming death, and for his ascension back to heaven. Here he prays aloud , for their benefit, in words that are full of mystery and poetry, hope and comfort, reassuring them that they are already being drawn into the very love of God, and the closer they come to God, the closer they become to each other. To be at one with God is to be at one with one another.”
(Sunday by Sunday The Royal School of Church Music)

All very helpful, and sound theology, which needs to be tempered, if I may say, with I Peter’s cautions about the tribulations we will face. The tone and vocabulary of John 17, today’s Gospel, is as if the Ascension has already take place, but it’s not even Holy Week! The point is, that if we love one another, as Jesus commands, then we are risen with Him, and it is not so much that we ascend with him – as we think we may ascend ‘to heaven’ when we die - but that we have Heaven on earth. Fr A

Image: "The Ascension" Salvador Dali

10/05/2026

We decided to mark Rogationtide by walking around the parish perimeter, as closely and as safely as possible. It's greener than you might think. We were all obsessed with the Canada Geese and their goslings on and around The Rochdale Canal. Not many crops to bless these days, but hey! Eight of us set off (Dan was behind the camera). Eight of us returned over 5 miles, two hours thirty minutes later. Thanks to Cath for devising the route, and her phone for tracking our time and movement!

09/05/2026

10th May, The Sixth Sunday of Easter

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Take comfort

To the right is an image of a stone altar, the kind to which Paul refers in his speech to the Athenians. I guess it leaves us nonplussed. It looks like a garden ornament. But note the kindness with which Paul addresses the people, despite their indifference to him. He doesn’t say “please don’t tell me you worship something like this: look at what we’ve got.” He excites curiosity.

We can understand the bewilderment of ‘the Athenians’ who may well have been baffled when faced with Paul’s model of God which had no physical manifestation since the Ascension (which we mark on Thursday).

Cut to the Gospel Jesus tells us that in addition to him (in John always think ‘Word made flesh’) he will send comfort, an advocate in the form of the Holy Spirit, also described as the Paraclete, an ‘advocate’ who can be alongside us. We need this judge in the often hostile court of public opinion. We saw how that panned out for Stephen last week. Be brave. Remember, we are not left comfortless.

Fr A

02/05/2026

The Fifth Sunday of Easter
10.00 am Sung Eucharist
https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

"Use the difficulty."
On Parkinson, a chat-show quite a few of you here will be too young to remember, great advice was shared by one of our greatest actors, Sir Michael Caine. It became a philosophy of His. It was advice he received from a play’s director after a prop ended up in the wrong place, blocking his entrance from the flaps.

"If it's a comedy fall over it if it's a drama pick it up and smash it."

As Shakespeare’s Jaques says in As You Like it 2.vii

" All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,"

Jaques then goes on to describe the seven ages of man.
Today, we encounter extreme difficulty in the reading from Acts leading to Stephen’s martyrdom; and other forms of stones, stumbling stones, in 1 Peter: then and a solution in John 14.
Another philosophy of Sir Michael is to avoid the difficulty if you can. It seems to me that with both philosophies, as disciples of Jesus, prayer is essential.
Fr A

25/04/2026

Sunday 26th April 2026
The Third Sunday after Easter (BCP
9.00 am Holy Communion (said)
10.00 am Holy Communion (sung)

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

Amen. We use it all the time. What does it mean?
The Lectionary we use, called The Revised Common Lectionary, may have spared us some awkwardness by slicing off v 18 from the reading from 1 Peter 2 today. (Sorry, purists, but we don’t use the Book of Common Prayer Lectionary even on our BCP Sundays, as it can interrupt continuity.) Add this to what you have printed for The Epistle:
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward
“Servants” is also intended to mean “slaves”. I don’t need to explain how difficult this is in 2026. It’s one thing to encourage some hardship for the sake of glory or eventual reward of some kind for all, but quite another to single out the group, as it were, ‘below-stairs’. In today’s understanding this ‘others’ them. For time this was written, that was normal. It should give us chills today.
Then we have St John in, shall we say, in poetic mode, where Jesus is both shepherd and gate. Remember the enigmatic way he spoke to Nicodemus in Chapter 3, and the woman at the well in Chapter 4. Look here at the way it’s introduced: “verily, verily” here; “truly, truly” in the version of the Bible we use on other Sundays. Both are translations of the word amen which we find used in the Old Testament and here in the New. Don’t we use amen as a word of agreement at the end of a prayer; or in agreement to what someone says in a debate? This should give us something to work on in the week, too. Fr A

Image: The Good Shepherd, by Duncan Grant
Blaise Chantry, Lincoln Cathedral

19/04/2026

10.00 am Sunday 19th April, The Third Sunday of Easter. Sung Eucharist.

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/15869/page/76853/view/

None so blind

Can’t see the wood for the trees? How often does that happen to us? Often we are so caught up in our cares and concerns, even misplaced sense of duty or guilt, or over-thinking and second-guessing that we can’t see what is right in front of us. Goodness knows what must have been going through the minds of these two disciples. Think of Mary Magdalene, who was in such fug after she saw the empty tomb she failed to see the risen Jesus. He called her by name, and the rest we know.

The Letter of Peter reminds us that our ransom was paid, we were bought back, by Jesus’ blood. It’s all OK. As ‘the redeemed’, the Spirit will show us what we need to see, when we need to see it, just as the Spirit provides us with all the things we need in the Spirit’s time.

We will face challenges and problems, and we might draw blanks from the bag of solutions. When that happens maybe it’s a good time to re-ask the questions, mindful that Jesus is calling us all the time. Try to suspend the ‘white noise’ in our heads, so that we can hear Him.

Fr A

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Manchester
M401LR

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