Benefice
Newsletter
10 March 2021
The churches of my life have not been what you might call traditional. A tin tabernacle in Nottingham. A concrete monstrosity in Northampton. But now: two churches that look like churches. Churches key to the life and the history of the town.
In the past the economic welfare of Wellingborough depended on All Hallows. Our Market Charter was issued in 1201 to the Abbot ‘and monks serving God there’. Imagine. Everyone travelling in to the heart of the town around All Hallows. Bustling with life. Paying the monks for the privilege of selling your wares in the market place.
And All Saints?
At the heart of new Wellingborough. The railway arrives in Wellingborough in 1858 and less than ten years later the foundation stone is laid for a new church. A church serving God in all the bustle and jobs and excitement of new travel. Everyone travelling out this time.
You’re wondering where I’m going with this. It’s Mothering Sunday this week, Margaret.
I’m doing Mother Church.
For centuries, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, people would return to their mother church for a special service. This pilgrimage was apparently known as "going a-mothering", and became something of a holiday event, with domestic servants traditionally given the day off to visit their own families as well as their mother church.
No going a-mothering this year. But maybe we, the church, can go out a-mothering instead?
Jesus, looking at Jerusalem, longs to gather its inhabitants as ‘a hen gathers her chicks’. How might we do that in Wellingborough? How could we gather up the mourning, the unemployed, the frightened, even the celebrating?
Philip Larkin has a fabulous poem about Whitsun weddings. I imagine couples being married at All Saints and then the whole wedding party (drunkenly?) accompanying the couple to the railway station.
The noise. The excitement.
Can we do welcome? Comfort? Excitement? New and old?
Of course we can.
(One more date for you. 14th July 1627. The Queen of England came to Wellingborough to take the waters in Wellingborough. Imagine. She couldn’t come into All Hallows because she was a Roman Catholic.)
Join us on Zoom on Sunday 14 March at 10:00.
Follow this link, or use meeting ID 853 4934 0530 and passcode 122382.
If you have items for our April magazine, please send them to John (johnvmagazine@virginmedia.com) by Sunday 14 March.
Bishop Donald has released seven half-hour video talks on Hebrews, and will give a live summary on Zoom with a Q&A time afterwards. Register your interest in advance if you would like to attend either of these two meetings:
Saturday 13 March 10:30-12:00
Saturday 17 April 10:30-12:00
Those who suffer in body, mind or spirit, among them Sue P, Roger P, Richard H, Tim C, Kay G, Oliver D, Cedric G, Pam B.
The housebound: Ruth S, Margaret O, Diana B.
The Church: Iglesia Anglicana de Chile; the Porvoo Churches: Latvia, Lichfield and St David's.
If you would like to add a name to our prayer list, please first obtain the consent of the person you wish us to pray for. Then tell Rev Christine whom to pray for and the reason why.
Those whose anniversaries fall on this week: Iris Mary Boulden, Marjorie Manning, Joan Handley, Paul Sanders, Frank Barron, Grace Jenny Mandeville, Varbo Harry Cron Ager, Kate Edwards, Alan Dimmer, Frank Arthur Labram, Clara Maud Carter, Kathleen Johnson, John Dickenson, Joseph Cooke, Richard Adams, Jonathan Bates, Alastair Morby, John Rice, Paul Sanders, Ferdinand Buchta, Arthur Jakeman, Walter Wilkinson, Beryl Lowry, Stan Lovell, Ursula Steele, Leonard Gardner, Florence Tarry, Muriel Dagger.