THE VILLAGE VINE
Newsleaflet sponsored by the
Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin
Dear Parishioner,
I offer you extracts of a sermon from the year 1014 AD. Beloved men, realise what is true: this world is in haste and the end approaches; and therefore in the world things go from bad to worse.... Things have not gone well now for a long time at home or abroad, but there has been devastation and famine, burning and bloodshed in every district again and again and stealing and killing sedition and pestilence, murrain and disease, malice and hate and spoliation by robbers have harmed us very grievously, and monstrous taxes have afflicted us greatly, and bad seasons have very often caused us failure of crops.... there have been many injustices and wavering loyalties among men everywhere.... It is no wonder that things go wrong with us, for we know full well that now for many years men have too often not cared what they did by word or deed; but this people, as it may seem, has become very corrupt through manifold sins and many misdeeds; through murders and crimes, through avarice and greed, through vices, through betrayals and frauds, through breaches of law and through deceit, through attacks on kinsmen and through slayings, through injury of men in holy orders and through adultery, through incest and through various fornications.
It is quite frightening to realise that 'things have not changed one jot...... And will not unless we ourselves are willing to change according to the teachings of Christ who is the heart and soul of the millennium.
A very happy New Year to you.
Basil Munro, Rector.
Our new cover photograph shows the church porch - the 'gate' to a new beginning. The poem below was quoted by King George VIth in his Christmas message during the darkest time of the second world war.
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown'
And he said to me
'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the band of God
and that shall be to you better than a light
and safer than a known way.
Holy Baptism on Sunday20 November we welcomed Gemma Laura Poxon into the family of Christ's Church here in Weston. We wish her, her parents and godparents well as they take on new responsibilities