November 2020

Reflection for Advent Sunday by Canon Dean Fostekew

Advent Sunday 29th November 2020   Year B

We are at the beginning of a new year; the Church’s calendar refreshes itself today and we begin anew at Advent Sunday. The Church year starts a month or so before the calendar year so for most people 2020 is not yet over. For many this year, I suspect the ending of 2020 will come with very mixed emotions. It has been a very strange (and forgive the too often repeated word) ‘unprecedented’ eleven months, thus far. 2020 will no doubt go down in history as a year when things changed, when normal...

Reflection from the Rev'd Russell Duncan for Christ-the-King 2020

Christ The King – Sunday 22nd November 2020

I wonder what you have on your bedside table? Is there a telephone; a glass of water or a pen and notepad? Perhaps also a photograph of someone special or a small gift given by a family member or dear friend? For me, I have an icon of “Jesus Christ Pantocrater”. It is based upon the mosaic which I first saw years ago when I visited the magnificent former Church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul built around 537.

Many of you will be familiar with it. Some of you may also have...

Remembrance Sunday reflection by the Rev'd David Warnes

Remembrance Sunday 2020 Good Shepherd

Born in 1922, the poet Philip Larkin had no personal memories of the First World War yet wrote a powerful poem about it. It is called 1914, but the title is printed in the Roman numerals that feature on so many war memorials – MCMXIV. The poem was published in 1964 when the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War was commemorated. Its theme is the enormous changes and the numerous personal tragedies that the war would bring – changes and tragedies of which the young men marching off to undergo military training and...