West Hendon Pre-school celebrate Christmas

It's wonderful to see so many parents from our community in church at St. John this morning for their Nativity celebration. Well done to Mariam our manager and Angie our dpt manager and all the staff for another stunning performance of the Christmas story.


The story tells of Maurice the donkey who has his stable invaded by a number of other animals who he shoos away. Then enters Mary and Joseph with their own donkey and a very bright star. Poor Maurice his privacy hopelessly invaded. But of course something miraculous happens in the sable and to Maurice when the Christ child is born and all the animals, and even Maurice inspire if himself get very excited and he learns that it is more fun to make room in his life for others than to be on his own.
The story ends with a word perfect rendition of Away in the manger.

Congratulations Micah Aaron!

We welcomed Micah Aaron into the Church with baptism at St John's on 25th November. We've just had some pictures through!

Congratulations to Micah, and to his parents, Sonia and Aaron!

Disagreements in the Church : Another thought on the Immaculate Conception

St Thomas Aquinas

Thinking this year about tomorrow's feast day, I'm looking back to last month's General Synod and the, often pretty bad tempered, disagreements in our church that preceded and followed it. There are a lot of issues that divide Christians, and divide Christians in the Church of England in particular. Questions about ordination are the most topical, but we also have high profile disagreements about sexuality and about more fundamental doctrine.

There's nothing new under the sun. You only need to pick up a New Testament to see that there were fierce divisions in the Church from the earliest days. Paul is writing to churches sometimes torn apart by factionalism. And in the Middle Ages, way before the divisions of the Reformation era, there were robust disagreements about the faith.

The Immaculate Conception provides a case in point. Arguably the greatest theologian in the Western Catholic tradition, the Dominican St Thomas Aquinas, denied the Immaculate Conception, as that doctrine is understood today - that Mary was preserved from Original Sin. Aquinas held that Mary was as holy as it was possible for a redeemed human being to be, but thought that this did not include freedom from Original Sin. The Franciscan Duns Scotus, on the other hand, argued that Mary was free from Original Sin precisely because of God's redeeming grace. What Jesus did for us by his life, death, and resurrection reaches 'back' in time and preserves Mary from Original Sin. She is not less redeemed by being free from Original Sin, said Scotus, but more redeemed.

The debate carried on, not least through these medieval theologian's respective religious orders. In the end Scotus' view carried the day. In no small part because of its appeal to and effect on the devotional lives of ordinary Christians, belief in the Immaculate Conception became commonplace amongst Catholics in the West (the Orthodox Church has a very different understanding of Original Sin, so the doctrine wouldn't make much sense to them - although they agree that Mary was uniquely holy). Eventually in 1854 Pope Pius IX declared "the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin".

These days this is the view of the Roman Catholic Church. It is also the view of many Anglo-Catholics (including me!). Christians who don't accept the doctrine at least have a clearer understanding what the doctrine is supposed to express - the depth of God's redeeming grace and its capacity to reach 'back' in time - and have been able to enter into fruitful dialogue on this basis. A good example of this can be seen in the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission report on Mary. We have all grown because centuries of debate enabled us to reach a clearer position.

We shouldn't get all pious about this and see this as some kind of harmonious 'development of doctrine' with never a harsh word said - saintly and brilliant though Aquinas and Scotus were as individuals. In the background was a good deal of one upmanship and power politics between religious orders. And historically, belief in and observance of the Immaculate Conception varied tremendously from region to region. Factionalism and regional divides - just like today's Anglican Communion. Yet through it all, God led Christians to a greater appreciation of God's truth. We shouldn't doubt that God can do the same today.

An Advent feast : The Immaculate Conception

Tomorrow is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when we celebrate God's grace active in Mary's life from the first moment of her existence. As the Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission puts it,

In view of her vocation to be the mother of the Holy One (Luke 1:35), we can affirm together that Christ’s redeeming work reached ‘ back’ in Mary to the depths of her being, and to her earliest beginnings.

It is very much an Advent feast day. Just as part of what we do in Advent is prepare to celebrate Christmas, so God prepared for the first Christmas in the life and experience of his People, which we read about in the Old Testament, and finally in the life of Mary. God's grace, working at the deepest level of her being, enabled her to say 'yes' to God, to say 'yes' to being the Mother of Jesus. In the anonymous, and no doubt to most eyes unremarkable, life of a Jewish peasant woman, the God of Israel prepared the way for the salvation of the world.

God's action in Mary's life is a supreme example of what Christians have historically called providence. Without in any way compromising our freedom or treating us like puppets, the God who surrounds all things works in our lives for the furtherance of his Kingdom. The way God is working in us might not be clear to us at the time, it certainly might not be clear where God is leading us - but the God who loves us and wants to restore all things is at work, and is calling us to co-operate with that work, to say 'yes' to his love.

God prepared the world for the first coming of Christ through the life of Mary. God prepares the world for the second coming of Christ through the life of the Church. We should look at our own lives, and ask where God might be at work, so that we can say a generous 'yes' to God. And we should look at the world - looking for the 'signs of the times', the places where God in Christ might be establishing his Kingdom of justice and peace, and again we should say 'yes' to God, 'yes' to God's future.



  

A modern take on a traditional hymn to Mary!
Thanks to Angharad for making me aware of this gem.

An Advent saint - Santa Claus!

Today is the feast of St Nicholas, 4th century bishop of Myra. He is the original Santa Claus - legend has it that he helped a poor family by delivering gold coins to them under cover of darkness. On one version of the legend, these coins were placed in stockings which had been hung out to dry - hence Christmas stockings and chocolate gold coins.

St Nicholas is the patron saint of children, and his feast day is a major event in some parts of the world. You can read about St Nicholas' Day customs here.

Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who chose your servant Nicholas
      to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of your grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Amen

Bishop Peter confirms in the parishes

Tuesday night bishop Peter was with ys as we celebrated the sacraments of baptism and confirmation at St. John's church for both parishes. Congratulations to Thomas, Leena,Lauren,Lisa & Mitra. We had a wonderful service and party after. Thanks to those who brought food and especially Audrey for washing up!

Advent Sunday

This week’s readings speak to a deep-seated longing within humanity for right and justice to triumph. They speak to our yearning for a final end to all cruelty and misery of our world. There is a clear bright ray of hope that runs through the lives of those who write.

Jeremiah was a prophet living around 500 years before the birth of Christ, the long awaited fulfilment of his hope and words of encouragement.

         Jeremiah had a difficult life, his prophecies and the message of warning and condemnation of Israel got him into hot water, he was imprisoned and left to die. He witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the taking of the ruling classes into exile in Babylon. He was a sensitive man and did not enjoy having to condemn the behaviour and false hope of those around him.

Jeremiah looked for a day when God would renew his covenant with his people and restore the fallen people of Israel and rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

It is to this hope that we turn in the season of Advent as we too prepare for the coming of Christ. 

We too prepare ourselves for God to once again renew his covenant with humanity as he takes on our humanity in the incarnation.

We too look, with hope,  to see the restoration of the fallen as we here in a few weeks time the cry of Mary that the worlds order be reversed and the rich are cast down and the lowly raised up.

All this leaves us with the simple question of what difference do we expect the coming of Christ to make in our lives this Christmas?

Hope is an essential part of our lives and faith. I was at a reunion seminar on Friday for those of us who earlier this year had travelled to Israel to study at Yad Vashem. The topic of hope and the Holocaust was one of the themes we touch on – can there be any hope in the light of an unprecedented desire by Nazi Germany to eradicate every Jew from the face of the earth in the 1930’s?

When the heart rendering stories of survival are told there is a fierce debate within the Jewish community as to whether or not to leave the reader or the listener with hope or not.

For myself I cannot live without hope, and I do not necessarily mean that kind of hope that is akin to wishful thinking, or the kind of hope that for some is revealed by scratching a lottery card, I mean the kind of hope that comes from faith in a God for whom nothing is impossible.

One can have hope without faith, but is it really possible to have faith without hope?

If faith is the seed to flowering hope then there is no wonder that along with the denial of faith and the dismissive attitude of many to faith, hope is also a causality.

There are so many hoping for change and transformation in their lives and the lives of those around us

Those whose privacy has been invaded by the press

The peoples of Afghanistan, Syria, the Congo and many other places of violence and blood shed

Even in our church there are those who campaign, pray and live in the hope of a church that can fully celebrate the calling of Men and Women to service within ordained ministry of the church

And the list goes on …..

Advent is a time to make room for God in a time when there is not just “no room for the stranger in the inn" but for many of us there is no room for God either in our modern lives.

Jesus reminds us to “Watch and pray. We must remain alert and awake, watchful for the signs of God working in the life of his world and in our own lives. For so often Advent is a missed opportunity, a season that passes in the countdown to Christmas as just the number of days left to shop in. It is so tempting to loose the opportunity offered us to spend some time with God, to make space in our lives for God.   

Jeremiah’s hope was for a world transformed by the love of God who would make a new covenant or promise with his people.

Jesus is that new covenant, the new promise for the world, for you and me. And he is asking us what it is that we hope for this Christmas?