From the Registers
Funerals at St. John’s
11th Oct.- Lee Barton
Funerals at Crematorium
2nd Oct.- Mary Alice Kirby
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All Saints Day, Holy Eucharist at St John's 9.00 am Wed. 1st November
All Souls, Holy Eucharist at St John's 7.00 pm Thurs. 2ndNovember
St. Catherine’s DaySunday 26th November 8.45 am (transferred from the 25th)
Remembrance Sunday Services 12th November:
at St John's, 11.00am
at New Brancepeth, 10.00 am Methodist Service in Village Hall, 10.55 am gather at War Memorial
Prayer for Our Churches: St Patrick’s Parish Room, Tues. 21st November,09.30 - 10.15 am. All welcome.
Brandon Parish Magazine
November 2017
St. John’s Church, Brandon
St. Catherine’s Church, New Brancepeth
Sunday services
St. John’s - 9.45 am Holy Eucharist
St. Catherine’s- 8:45 am Holy Eucharist
Weekday services – followed by tea/coffee
Wed. 9.00 am St. John’s – Holy Eucharist
Thurs. 9.30 am St. Catherine’s – Holy Eucharist
Evening Service: Mon. 7.00 pm St. John’s – Holy Eucharist
Revd. Carl Peters, The Clergy House, Sawmill Lane, Brandon,
Durham, DH7 8NS. Tel: 0191 6803875
Other Contact Telephone Numbers
St. John’s: David (Churchwarden) – 3789718; Carolyn – 6803875
St. Catherine’s: Joe (Churchwarden) – 3739927; Liz-3731554
Website
Events:
St. Catherine’s Lunch Club: Friday 10thNov., 12.15-2.00 pm.
£4.00 for hot lunch + dessert. Make a booking with Joe–
0191 3739927 or David– 0191 3731554 and if you want a lift contactJoe or David.
Xmas Fayres:
Sat. 18th Nov. 12.00, at St. John’s
Sat. 2nd Dec, 1.00 – 3.00 pm at St. Catherine’s
Mothers’ Union:
Next MU meeting will be on Wednesday 8th November 2.00 pm.
MU is having our usual Christmas Hamper at the Christmas Fayre (18 Nov.). All donations very welcome.
Mothers' Union Christmas Lunch will be at theBraun’s Den Brandon on Wednesday, 13th December – 12.00 for 12.30pm. There is a list and menu at the back of church, please sign up asap - £10.00 deposit is required.
Hall fundraiser Sun. 3rd Dec. 11.30 – 1.30. A table top sale for people to sell their own goods. £10 a table. Brick-a-brac, clothes and refreshments, tombola and door raffle. Any enquiries for a table please contact Lesley Baxter on 07846542035.
For Remembrance Day: -poppies & bits & bobs are now on sale in St. John’s church.
William Tyndale – Father of the English Reformation
31st October was the 500th anniversary of Luther’s posting of his ’95 Thesis’ in 1517, which some mark as the start of the Reformation. In 1516 Erasmus had produced his edition of the Greek New Testament and a few years later Luther and Tyndale produced German and English translations, which had a profound effect on the spreading of the reformation.
St Johns Hall rebuild - vote for us now.
The hall is in a competition in the Aviva Community Fund to win £10,000 from Aviva insurance and needs your votes. Finishes November 21st. You have ten votes. Please use the link:community-fund.aviva.co.uk
The community have been great since the fire and fully support the new community hall. As well as the local council and Mid-Durham AAP the community have rallied round to organise fundraisers and attend every event we put on. It has brought the community together.
For your prayers:
Please continue to pray for two activities at St. Catherine’s
- ‘OPEN THE BOOK’ assemblies in New Brancepeth Primary School. We continue on Mon.13thNov.. with the story of thefalling down of the walls of Jericho.
- ST. CATHERINE’S LUNCH CLUB. This continues to go well and enjoyed by many. Please pray for our next lunch on Friday 10th Nov.
Please pray for Fr. Carl, Church Wardens, PCC and others involved in deciding about St. John’s church heating.
If there are other topics for prayer please let David know.
St. John’s Heating: As most will know by now, we are intending to have a new heating system installed in the church. As a temporary measure we have 5 fan heaters heating the church. However, we are looking into havingmore powerful heaters installed as a mid- term remedy to have satisfactory heatingfor the church hopefully from the middle of November. We are currently waiting for estimates relating to the new system from heating engineers and as soon as the P.C.C. working sub-committee has any informationit will be in the weekly newsletter and the monthly magazine.
???????????
What did you think of our monthly magazine? – A brief report.
I (David) received 7 responses. Most people read all of the magazine and found the notices useful and the articles interesting.
Regarding the content, suggestions made were:
- The priest’s letter was very important and much appreciated.
- News from the churches’ activities, St. John’s Hall, Mothers’ Union etc. were thought to be important.
- More information about local activities, children’s clubs, Parish Council, etc.
- Anything our church family would like to share of perhaps holidays or hobbies.
So I will continue to include the first two – Priest’s letter and church activities. These are probably the most essential items. Regarding 3, I can include (subject to space) any information sent to me, but I do not have time to go round collecting such information!
I think point 4 could be very interesting, and perhaps help us to get to know each other better. We have had one such item a while back – Margaret Gould going to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. It need not be so spectacular – maybe an interesting place on holiday or some other outing or a hobby that you are keen on. Or maybe something from your past life which was significant.
ANY VOLUNTEERS? Please let me know ( or 0191 3731554). Otherwise I may have to pounce on you for something!
Tyndale’s New Testament was not the first to appear in English. More than a century earlier Wycliffe had produced a translation. What was new was that, whereas Wycliffe had used the Latin Version (the Vulgate), Tyndale went back to the original Greek. Also he was able to use German printers and a network of trade connections by which to distribute his books.
The use of the original Greek had a profound effect, not only on the accuracy but also on the style and cadence of the English. Tyndale explained the difference thus: ‘For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than the Latin’.
To unlock the scriptures from the Vulgate was a dangerous thing to do. The Latin straightjacket that had encased them for centuries was the foundation on which was built the entire edifice of medieval theology. Tinker with one part and the whole building might come crashing down. Thomas More (Chancellor under Henry VIII) knew this and he was unwilling to allow such an important matter to fall into the wrong hands. A translation might open the door to heresy.
To escape official persecution, Tyndale fled to the Continent, moving under cover from city to city, ever vigilant for informers and More’s spies. Even so he wrote books and commentaries which were smuggled into England. Finally he was betrayed and caught in Antwerp. He was convicted of heresy and sentenced to death. His martyrdom took place on 6th Oct. 1536. Before he died he was heard to cry out, ‘Lord, open the King of England’s eyes’.
A few months later in 1537 the first complete English Bible was published, this time ‘With the King’s most gracious licence’. When James I’s Authorised Version was published in 1611, it contained, with some revisions, Tyndale’s New Testament and his Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) which he had translated from the Hebrew.
If any single person can be called the father of the English Reformation, it must surely be the exiled and martyred Tyndale.
From our Priest
We are now very much into Autumn as we follow the familiar pattern of leaves changing colour, leaves falling, conkers in our garden maybe. The grass is no longer growing and the days are getting shorter, as summer seems further away now. All quite predictable things really and I must admit to liking the Autumn. Whatever the season and whatever the weather is like, good or bad, depending on our interpretation of what we think good or bad weather is; the changing seasons and the weather are beyond our control. Well more or less anyway, bearing in mind climate change and our responsibility to the environment.
Similarly events of the seasonal calendar are beyond our control. All Saints/All Souls, which we’ve just had, happen each year, however much we engage or don’t with them. Remembrance Day/Sunday is similarly an annual feature and in many ways is getting bigger and these give way to Advent and Christmas.
There are other things in life which also happen and have a degree of predictability about them. Maybe things we wish we could have more influence on, like having to pay the mortgage, going to work, paying the bills. Illness can afflict us, pain and hurt and in some cases the latter is somewhere more within our grasp to influence and deter. For we are people that can make a difference, both in our lives and in others, for good or bad.
And which do we prefer? Well the good surely? As human beings we have a basic understanding of what is right and what is wrong and there is great potential in all of us to go to one or the other. Most of us in varying degrees are a mixture of the two, as we live out good and bad in our lives. As much as we might try to live well and do the right things, either by faith or by basic human nature, we are all subject to failure. Perhaps we hurt others. Perhaps we hurt ourselves by the way we live, think and consume. So should we be resigned to this, accepting that this is all part of human nature? Just like we accept the pattern of the year; the weather, the seasons, the events?
We can’t help the way we are?(Example) ‘I’m a stubborn or miserable old bugger and nothings gonna change me!’ It’s just inevitable that I, she or he will carry on this way in life, stuck in a rut?
Well no we shouldn’t accept it and it shouldn’t be predictable that we will always be like that. If we are aware of our shortcomings, both inside and out, we can make a choice to address these things and challenge any sense that it just happens. It’s just the way it is. For we can live a better way if we knock on the door of inner selves and look our sinfulness and failings in the face. It’s painful confronting where we are going wrong and what is wrong about us. But we don’t do this alone, for God is with us and the more we get to know God the more we will see the right life choices. Choices that will give us a greater freedom than the freedom we had to make bad choices. A freedom that means that we don’t live just for ourselves anymore, but we live for the good of others, loving our friends, neighbours, strangers and even enemies, in order to create a better world and not accept a less than good world.
This requires effort and the change we want to bring about, starting with ourselves, might seem too much of a challenge. It means we are striving for purity of heart and that’s a real battle with the side of us that takes us away from God. But struggles can be won and God gives us direction and the clarity to see the target we need to reach.
The Christian Desert Fathers of the Egyptian and Syrian deserts used to compare purity of heart to the target that the javelin thrower aimed at in the ancient games; a small target may be difficult to hit but it can be done and the effort required draws out the best from the thrower.
So let’s look for that target that God wants us to see. The target to a better way, that brings out the best in us.
Fr Carl Peters