November 10th 2024  Remembrance Sunday Kingdom Season 2

Apart from being ‘Armistice Day’, when I will be observing the traditional two minute silence and saying a few words about remembrance to the students in Great Horwood School, tomorrow is also the feast of St Martin of Tours, one of my favourite saints, on account of the fact that one of the churches in the parish where I worshipped before my ordination was St Martin’s church in Canterbury. St Martin’s has the accolade of being the oldest continually used church in the western (i.e. non-Orthodox) world; and is consequently part of a United Nations ‘world heritage site’ along with its upstart new neighbour, the cathedral of Christ Church Canterbury, though parts of that too are older than the nation state of England itself. The church was originally used as a place of Christian worship by Roman legionnaires and perhaps, their Brythonic wives and children before the Romans finally abandoned Britain for good in 410 AD. After this, it was famously gifted by the pagan King Ethelbert of Kent to his Frankish Christian wife Queen Bertha around 580 AD so that she could practice her Christian faith privately, and it was in this church, that St Augustine first said mass for her and her entourage after his arrival in Kent in 597 AD having been sent by Gregory the Great to re-evangelise these islands.

St Martin, after whom the church is rather appropriately named, was born into a Roman military family in 316 or 336 AD in modern-day Hungary, though the family moved to northern Italy when his father, a tribune in the Roman army, was given a farm in modern-day Pavia on his retirement. It was here that Martin grew up, and at the age of ten, became a Christian against his pagan parents’ wishes. Christianity had not long been legalised in the Roman empire; so notwithstanding his Christian faith, Martin obeyed the legal requirement that he replace his father in the military at the age of just 15, where he became a cavalryman before being stationed in Gaul (France), the imperial city of Trier (Germany) and later, in Milan amongst other places.

Soon afterwards, the pagan Julian succeeded Constantine II and started persecuting Christians again, forcing Martin to resign his commission and saying that he could not serve a pagan emperor or join the persecution of his Christian brothers and sisters as a “soldier of Christ”, so like many pacifists or conscientious objectors in wars since then, he was arrested and imprisoned for cowardice, though he offered to march unarmed ahead of his comrades against Rome’s enemies if ordered to do so; and was later freed and allowed to leave the army, though his imprisonment had a lasting impact on him.

Martin became a monk and a hermit near Poitiers in Gaul, and on a trip home to see his family in Pavia, he succeeded in converting his mother, though not his father, as well as many other people to the faith. In 371 AD, he was made Bishop of Tours following another period of persecution of the Church under another pagan emperor, Diocletian, and it was here, amongst other things, that he developed the parish system for the first time, so that the poor and the weak could have their physical and spiritual needs met properly. In later years, he also campaigned with his friend and mentor Hilary of Poitiers against the persecution of ‘heretics’ by the Church authorities, remembering his own period of incarceration perhaps, and called for them to show a more Christ like and forgiving orthodoxy, establishing him as one of the most progressive and forward-thinking theologians of his time, making him a saint for the modern era as much as his own.

Collect

Almighty Father, Whose will is to restore all things in your beloved Son, The King of all:
Govern the hearts and minds of all those in authority,
And bring the families of the nations,
Divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,
To be subject to his just and gentle rule;
Who is alive and reigns with you,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,

One God now and forever, Amen.

Psalm 62:5-end

Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul;
for in him is my hope.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.
In God is my strength and my glory;
God is my strong rock; in him is my refuge.
Put your trust in him always, my people;
pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.
The peoples are but a breath,
the whole human race a deceit;
on the scales they are altogether lighter than air.
Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride;
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same,
that power belongs to God.
Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord,
for you repay everyone according to their deeds.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-end

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, the Archangel’s

call, and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

John 14:1-8

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ and Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.’

Please pray for:

The many victims of war throughout the world. For the work of the Royal British Legion, the United Nations, UNWRA, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Médecins sans Frontières, Medical Aid to Palestine, and all who seek to bring relief to those who suffer because of human pride and sinfulness. Pray for a just and lasting peace in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Ukraine; and for the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal, that all responsible for war crimes will be brought to justice no matter who they are. Please pray as well for all victims of sexual violence, including victims of the late John Smyth QC whose abhorrent abuse of those entrusted to his care has finally been laid bare by the release of the Makin Report this week, and for those responsible for the report’s much delayed release to duly consider their own positions in response to the findings.

This Week’s Events

Monday (Martin, Bishop of Tours, c397)

Bell ringing, 7.30pm in St Laurence. Contact Jan for more information on 07835 461361.

Tuesday

Zoom In Morning Prayer, at 9am. Meeting ID: 748 9970 4493. The password is Trinity, or contact Didier on [email protected]

Daytime Bible Study Group, 2nd and 4th Tuesdays each month. Contact Paula on 07803 942 687 for more information.

Evening Home Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 if you would like to be part of a group.

Wednesday (Charles Simeon, Priest and Evangelical Divine, 1836)

Morning Coffee, from 10.00-11.45 in the St Laurence Room.

Midweek Holy Communion, at 12 noon in St Laurence Church.

Thursday (Samuel Seabury, first Anglican Bishop of North America, 1796)

Daytime Home Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 if interested.

Friday

Junior Choir at 6.30 pm followed by Full Choir Practice at 7.30pm. Please email Derry on [email protected] if you would like to join in this term.

Saturday (Margaret, Queen of Scotland, church reformer, philanthropist, 1093)

Repair Café in the St Laurence Rooms. Drop in for coffee and cake!

Parish Quiz Night, 6.45pm for 7pm in the Scout Hut. £8 per person. Please speak to Judy on 01296 715 484 to book your place. Proceeds to church funds.

Pastoral Care

Telephone 07305 271 148 or email [email protected]