The Vicar writes………
The Autumn Term is always particularly active. We enjoyed a wonderful Patronal Festival with our visitor Fr. Thomas for the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield. We have also participated in a great Harvest Festival with our visitors from Hampers of Hope, who came to collect our donations of food, and we have also taken gifts out to the parish. There was Allison’s licensing which saw many of us go to Chester. Looking ahead, with the Requiem and Remembrance to lead us into Advent there will be plenty going on in our church life. Advent itself will be celebrated with a Toy Collection and the visit of the Salvation Army Band for our late afternoon service (4.30pm) on December 2nd.
Remembrance Sunday itself will be particularly poignant this year as we reach that milestone of 100 years since the Armistice of World War 1. It is a particularly apt time, this year, to inaugurate the new memorial in Knutsford, for the whole town. Like so many memorials over the country we are given a permanent, lasting reminder of the costs of human sinfulness. This year we will remember the end of what was sometimes called ‘the war to end all wars’. As you know, it was not. But looking beyond conventional warfare, there is the cruel and destructive violence of global terrorism, and lack of tolerance that cause scars and divisions in our world.
As Christians, we need the words to express the hope of Christ’s peaceable kingdom, as well as the imagination and resilience to go on, and on, praying for peace, working for reconciliation, and communicating the love of God. The Holy Spirit is at work in us, and in our church. My prayer is that the Spirit may be experienced in some measure by all who visit our church in the forthcoming weeks, so that all may come to know that hope too.
Yours in His Service ,
Paul