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Strict covid safety measures are in place – please wear a mask, observe social distancing, sanitise hands on arrival
and sit on a green tick – thank you
The Government Covid restrictions regarding singing have been lifted and therefore the whole choir will be singing during the 09:30am service.
There will be congregational hymns outside at the end of the service (weather permitting).
Evening prayer on zoom at 6pm details below
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St Mary’s Church, Finedon
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On behalf of the whole parish of Finedon may I invite you most warmly to step over our virtual threshold. You will find within our contact details and details also of forthcoming services and events here at St Mary’s. We are, of course, the parish church not only for the those who worship here but for everyone in Finedon, and the social calendar is almost as busy as the ecclesiastical calendar. Whatever you seek – friendship, community, something to challenge and stretch you, something to give you comfort and peace, the love of Jesus Christ, or simply the satisfaction of curiosity – you are most welcome to step over our real threshold too and see what we have to offer.
Yours in Christ, Fr Richard.
The church of ST. MARY-THE VIRGIN consists of chancel, north and south transeptal chapels, clearstoried nave of four bays, north and south aisles, south porch, and west tower. The tower is surmounted by a lofty spire and the porch has an upper story. There is a modern vestry on the north side of the chancel.
Of the original 12th-century building nothing remains except the font, the church having been entirely rebuilt at the beginning of the 14th century. With the exception of the tower and spire it is all of one date, and is one of the finest examples in the county of a church of this period. The tower and spire were erected about fifty years later. The whole building is therefore substantially of one style and it preserves a unity in design which gives it particular distinction.
11th July 2021
the ramblings of Hubert James
I’ve just got back from the Farne Islands, the little archipelago off the coast of Northumberland, dots on a map, but hugely significant in the story of Christianity in these islands,
Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is where St Aidan founded a monastery that was to produce two of the most celebrated notables in the history of the British church – St Cuthbert, and the Lindisfarne Gospels.
St Cuthbert came first: a tireless evangeliser, winning hearts and minds for Christ in a world which was divided between pagan belief and the gospel. He was a bishop who settled the Northumbrian church, and enabled it to provide richly for the needs of the people and the expectations of the world. And he was a man of prayer, who retreated into solitude and austerity to bring in a sumptuous harvest for God.
His successor as Prior of Lindisfarne and Bishop was Eadfrith, not only an important churchman, but a great artist, who made the Lindisfarne Gospels around the year 700, perhaps the most famous illuminated Scripture in Britain, and the most exquisite example of Anglo Saxon art we have. They are in the British Library now, and well worth a visit, for the beauty and intricacy of the decoration and the text that Eadfrith produced are as dazzling today as they were when they were fresh.
Cuthbert and the Lindisfarne Gospels also share something else: they are survivors. Not just in life, but after death, when their importance was such they were fought over, stolen, restored, moved, hoarded, and given up, before they ended up where they are now, St Cuthbert, his relics, under a slab in Durham Cathedral, the Gospels behind glass on the Euston Road.
To pray at Cuthbert’s grave, to look into the dazzling pages of the Gospels, reminds us that we are in a long game, and that our church would not be what it is, or worth our care and attention and commitment, were it not something that, like us, experiences ups and downs, adventures and misadventures — Viking raids, the Black Death, Puritan vandals, the rise of secularism, COVID19 — and it bears the scars and the marks of its long and turbulent history.
But the Church is bigger than we are, it was here long before we were, and will be there long after we’re gone.
And what challenges and thrills and alarms us today adds to that story, like the intricate decoration of Anglo Saxon illumination, and only in time, and from distance, will we see what it looks like.
Stick with it. Take a long view. Keep going.
Yours in Christ,
Fr Richard.
All copy should addressed by the 15th of the month prior to publication
To: Gill Barlow
Tel: 07952 195816
email: gill.barlow64@gmail.com
Fr. Richard invites you to Parish Eucharist in church on Sundays at 9.30am and Wednesdays at 11:00am
and also Evening Prayer on Sunday evenings at 6pm on Zoom
Detailed information in the Sunday Sheet each Sunday morning
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