As we give thanks to God for his bountiful crops throughout the world, we remember those farmers living in areas devastated by torrential rain in India, Bangladesh and America, where life was lost and the labour of their hands was ruined. In our prayers we bring to God also local farmers, whose land has suffered through this year's long drought, thus endangering the grape and olive harvests.

(1 September - 4 October 2017)

12th 'CARE OF CREATION' DAY

' travellers through God's land'.

“Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it.”

(Genesis 28, 16)

The area we live in – the Cote d'Azur and the Riviera dei Fiori – is often described by visitors as 'Paradise'. We are fortunate to have a good climate in which to enjoy the sea and mountains all through the year.

As Christians we are here not only to appreciate the beauty of this place, but to discover the Creator in a journey of the soul – an experience which transforms hearts and minds and which binds us to seek a better world, more beautiful, open, and just, because it is founded on the care of human relationships and our communion with nature.

The Church of England has endorsed the observance of a “Time for Creation” from 1 September (the first day of the church year for the Orthodox Churches) to 4 October (the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi). Congregations are encouraged to give particular focus to environmental issues.

The Ecumenical Group in Sanremo is preparing, as in previous years, how to celebrate the Care of Creation Day – this year, the 12th – with the theme 'travellers through God's land'. The date chosen will be announced in church.

Sign on a newly planted front garden

'Please stay off me. I want to be a lawn one day'.

The Smiths were going camping in France. As they sat in the queue to board the ferry, Mrs Smith suddenly said, “I wish we had brought the kitchen table.”  “We've already packed too much”, said her husband looking round at the pile of luggage in the back of the car. “I know”, said Mrs Smith, “but the ferry tickets are on the kitchen table.”

Seen in the Cumberland Times:

A man accused of stealing candlesticks from Carlisle Cathedral had his case temporarily adjourned when the court heard he had wax in his ears.

Mums I'd had a pretty hectic day with my four-year-old. When bed-time finally came, I laid down the law: “We're putting on your nightgown, brushing your teeth, and reading ONE book. Then it's lights out!”   In response, she slipped her arms around my neck in a gentle embrace, and said, “We learned in Sunday school about little boys and girls who don't have mummies and daddies.” Even after I'd been such a grouch, I thought, she was still grateful to have me. I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes, and then she whispered, “Maybe you could go and be their mum?”

After the church service the little boy told the minister: “When I grow up, I'm going to give you some money.” “Well, thank you,” the pastor replied, “but why?” “Because my daddy says you're one of the poorest preachers we've ever had.”

What is the smallest ant in the world? An infant.
Did you hear about the car with the wooden wheels and wooden engine?

It wooden go.

Attending a wedding for the first time a little girl whispered to her mother, “Why is the bride dressed in white?” “Because white is the colour of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life” said her mother. The child thought about this for a moment, then said, “So why is the groom wearing black?”

A man bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he decided to put it outside in his front garden, along with a sign saying: 'Free to good home. You want it – you take it.' For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. So eventually the man changed the sign to read: 'Fridge for sale: £30'. The next day someone stole it.

Food donated on Sunday 9th July together with food bought with the following amounts given at retiring collections was taken to the earthquake victims we have been supporting in Italy.

St. John's Menton - Sunday 09/07/2017 - €60

Bordighera, English Cemetery – Wednesday 12/07/2017 - €20

We thank you for your thoughtfulness and generous donations.

teacher and missionary

Here is a saint for anyone with a social conscience. Claver was born near Barcelona at Verdu, and at 20 became a Jesuit. He went as a missionary to New Granada and worked to alleviate the terrible suffering of the slaves who arrived from West Africa, caged like animals. (It was said that you could smell the stench of a slave ship while it was still seven miles from shore). Claver helped the poor wretches who survived long enough to reach dry land. He gave them food and medicine as well as spiritual comfort. He is said to have cared for and baptised 300,000 slaves. What a difference one life can make to thousands.

Think of a world without any flowers,
think of a world without any trees,
think of a sky without any sunshine,
think of the air without any breeze.
We thank you Lord, for flowers, trees and sunshine, We thank you Lord, and praise your holy name.

Think of a world without any animals, think of a field without any herd, think of a stream without any fishes, think of a dawn without any bird.

We thank you Lord, for all living creatures,
we thank you Lord, and praise your holy name.

Think of a world without any people,
think of a world with no one living there,
think of a town without any houses,
no one to love, and nobody to care.
We thank you Lord, for families and friendships, we thank you Lord, and praise your holy name.

(From a service for Creationtide Sunday – St. Michael's Church, Flixton)

Life at St. James the Least letters, brought this answer from the Bodmin Team Ministry in their magazine '5together' .  As they say: ' it is a little unusual .......

 

On a very English sort of family... Throckmarsh Hall revisited

Many decades ago, Admiral Horatio and his wife, the Honorable Mrs Chalfont- Morgan, lived at Throckmarsh Hall, Gloucestershire. There they had two children, Eustace and Penelope.

Eustace followed a traditional path: public school, then Oxford. He was something of a disappointment to his father as careers in the armed forces, law or finance were clearly not appropriate to his temperament. Having sung in the school chapel choir and later been an occasional church attender, ordination into the Church of England seemed the only choice.

Eustace served his curacy in one of the more fashionable churches in central London, before becoming chaplain to the bishop of one of our ancient dioceses in southern England. His machiavellian talents made the life of the bishop so much easier that, by way of reward, Eustace was comfortably settled into one of the pleasanter parishes in the Cotswolds, where he remained for the next 40 years. His eventual sudden death, the result of an apoplectic seizure, would happen when he read in “The Times” one morning over breakfast that one of his former curates had been appointed a bishop. But that is fortunately still some years off.

Penelope's life was rather different. She was recalled from finishing school in Switzerland to become companion to her mother, on the death of her father while at sea. One day, while running errands in the local market town, she met Jack Crump, a second-hand car salesman from Liverpool. She eloped and they married. Within months, it was discovered that he was already married – to two other ladies. Unfortunately by this time, Penelope was pregnant and later gave birth to her only child, Darren.

One day many years later, Darren was cycling to his work at the local undertakers when he suddenly knew he was being called to ordination. After studying by correspondence course, he was ordained and served his curacy in an inner-city parish in the North West of England.

His only living relation was his uncle Eustace, who felt a duty to keep an eye on his innocent nephew. The two were less chalk and cheese, more Chateau d'Yquem and draught bitter. Uncle Eustace, with resigned determination, sent his young nephew a series of monthly letters, advising him on all aspects of parish ministry.

Darren later denied that it was these letters that eventually drove him to minister to natives in the remote forests of Brazil ..............

At the end of August we received a visit from a former chaplain of All Saints, Sanremo, Revd. Michael Bullock.

He had been the chaplain 17 years ago, and is at present serving as locum in Genova.

What a lovely day we spent remembering old friends, some sadly no longer with us, others now living elsewhere or unable to attend. The memories were many, good and some not so good. Photographs were passed round and reminded us of the services in the church and chapel, of Ascension Day on the terrace of the Giove Restaurant in Perinaldo, of a pilgrimage to St. John's with the intention of encouraging people to travel by anything except a car. Some chose the train, others the bus, Michael his bicycle!

Over the years, the congregations of St. John's Menton, of All Saints Bordighera, and All Saints Sanremo, had supported one another and, in fact, still do, even though they are in two different archdeaconries of the Diocese in Europe, and are resident on both sides of the border between France and Italy. They now have only the one large church of St. John's and the small cemetery chapel of Bordighera in which to congregate. These are, however, sufficient for their needs. The only difficulty is ......... getting to the church on time!

Knowing of the recent re-sale of the former anglican church in Sanremo, Michael asked what it would now become. He wondered if it could be used for weddings and such like. No one knew. Time flew, as it usually does when the talk flows and laughter grows, and the food and wine disappear. It was soon, too soon, time for Michael to catch the train back to Genova. He would then return to the UK to prepare to take up a new position in the Diocese, as part-time chaplain in Cologne. We wish him the very best for his future ministry in Germany and look forward to his next visit.

Do you have a problem? Do not make any decision until you've slept on it. Recent research in California has discovered that even a nap can improve your powers of problem-solving.

A snooze, it seems, can help people to think more laterally and quickly. If they have dreamed, that is even better. When someone has had a period of REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) they do best: the REM sleep helps you to “assimilate new information into past experience”.

The recent study found that people who entered REM during their sleep were able to improve their ability to solve new tasks by almost 40 per cent.

Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626)

Lancelot Andrewes was born near to the Tower of London in 1555 and educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was elected Fellow in 1575. He was ordained in 1580. In 1589 he became Vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where he soon developed a reputation as a preacher, before returning to Cambridge as Master of Pembroke Hall. In 1601 he became Dean of Westminster and four years later was consecrated Bishop of Chichester.

One of the most learned men of his time, he was present at the 1604 Hampton Court conference out of which emerged the new translation of the Bible which became known as the Authorised (or King James) Version. Andrewes himself worked on the first part of the Old Testament. In an age of Calvinist theology and largely Low Church ceremonial, Andrewes was an articulate exponent of a more sacramental pre- Tractarian form of High Anglicanism, giving respectability and academic underpinning to a movement that was later to be associated with Archbishop Laud (1573-1645).

But, unlike Laud, Andrewes was not himself a controversial or combative figure. He was essentially a scholar and it was upon sound learning and a desire that Anglican worship should be based on ordered ceremonial that he adopted and developed practices in worship to complement his belief in the Real Presence and to honour the incarnate Christ. His ceremonial practices were largely a personal matter in his private chapel and where others adopted them it was by Andrewes' example and not by his persuasion. He was an outstanding theologian of the High Church movement in the Church of England, writing from a uniquely Anglican point of view about the Church, the sacraments and episcopacy. He counted Richard Hooker (1554-1600) and George Herbert (1593-1633) among his friends.

But in his own day he was best known as a preacher. He preached regularly at the court of James I and many of his sermons were published. Over three hundred years later T.S. Eliot took some words from Andrewes' 1622 Christmas sermon ('A cold coming they had of it...') for the opening five lines of his poem The Journey of the Magi.

Andrewes was translated from Chichester to Ely in 1609 and in the same year he was appointed a privy councillor. He was further translated to Winchester in 1619. He died at Winchester Palace in 1626 and is buried at Southwark Cathedral.

Prayers are requested for our ecumenical friends during September; Sunday 3rd - Give thanks and pray for our fellowship with the German Protestant Churches (Evangelische Kirche Deutschland) (Meissen Declaration)

Sunday 17th - pray for the Russian Orthodox Church

Tuesday 26th - Join with the Diocese in prayers for our church of St John during its long interregnum, and for the Priest that God is making ready for the position.