The Priory Church of St Mary and the Holy Cross is open daily between 10am and 4.00pm for individual prayer and contemplation.
The Priory Church of St Mary and the Holy Cross is open for worship as listed under Services.
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ZOOM SERVICES
Zoom Services on Sundays will continue on a monthly basis – the first Sunday of the month at 5pm.To participate please telephone Ian Newton on 01328 830947 or email iannewton46@ gmail.com. You will be warmly welcomed.
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Revd Ian Whittle’s Message
Dear Friends and Parishioners,
These months are busy if you farm or garden. But they are also months of delight: gentle rain by night, if we are so blessed, and warm sunshine by day. We should grow our own fruit and vegetables, eat our own meat and fish. An odd pineapple is fine, an occasional avocado a treat, but we do have almost everything we need, coffee excepted, and tea is now grown in Cornwall
But one thing unites all regions and countries, the universal reign of Christ. Human beings are stubborn, myself included. But if we try humility, truly bend the knee and admit that Christ Reigns, Christ is Triumphant and Christ Lives, then all can be changed. Wars will cease. Justice shall be done. Mercy shall blossom. We shall embrace free brothers and sister in every land. The arts and sciences will flourish.
There is hope. There is certainty. And there must be persistence and even resistance. In the walled town of Aigues Mortes in the Camargue there stands a terrible donjon, a fort with deep cellars. There was held in the Tour de Constance for 38 years a French Protestant woman, Marie Durand (1711-1776). The exercise of her religion was illegal; and if apprehended at worship the consequences were terrible. She existed in the cells for all those years and her motto, carved in stone now on the floor, is Resistez.
In Christ, resist and love and serve. And may the rain fall gently on our fields and may the sun shine upon us.
Yours truly,
Ian Whittle.
‘And That Will be Heaven’
and that will be heaven
and that will be heaven/at last the first unclouded/seeing
to stand like the sunflower/turned full face to the sun drenched/with light in the still centre/held while the circling planets/hum with an utter joy
seeing and knowing/at last in every particle/seen and known and not turning/away
never turning away/again
Evangeline Paterson 20th century