From the Vicar

Whether or not your village church has celebrated its Harvest Festival (only Swaffham Bulbeck of our 3 is still to come, plus The Little-Chapel-in-the-Fen), I find myself writing this pastoral letter at the end of the week in which evil stalked the face of the western world, and in particular North America.

The poignant loss, to date, of nearly 6,000 lives in the 4 aeroplane incidents, puts our cosy, English, rural custom in priority context. Of course we need to thank God for his bounty in creation, and to count our blessings that in temperate latitudes it is rare not to be able to celebrate the harvest being safely gathered-in. But, the intrusion into our sense of safety and well-being is surely more than "mind-blowing"; it is a moment in the history of the world that demarcates the civilised from the barbarian. No cause, however worthy, could surely ever justify such pre-meditated crime?

The half-muffled bells at Swaffham Bulbeck on 16th September, in honour of those who lost their lives on Tuesday 11th, reminded us of Remembrance Sunday, and this year we shall honour the war-dead with perhaps renewed tribute, for as we read in Holy Scripture, our warfare is against principalities and powers; the battle is for hearts and minds and ideologies across the globe, and not just the territories of old.

All Souls Day, November 2nd, falls on a Friday this year, and with a 6.00 pm `Music on the Move' Cambridge Voices concert on Sunday 4th November in Reach Church (to include Faure's Requiem), the Annual All Souls-tide Service, for those who have laid loved-ones to rest, will be held this year on Sunday 28th October @ 6.00 pm, as usual, in Reach Church. Only those to whom I have ministered in the last year will be directly contacted by letter, owing to the administrative burden of contacting 8 year's-worth of names; hopefully families from previous years will read this or be asking me directly.

Family Services are back on the agenda at Swaffham Prior on most 2nd Sundays @ 11.00 am, and the 1st Sunday 9.30 am at Swaffham Bulbeck is always a guaranteed time and place for such an all-age service. Indeed, the village school are with us, corporately, on November 4th, and we look forward very much to that occasion, welcoming families from across our group of parishes.

We remember those whose families have been devastated by terrorism, and we pray for wisdom and justice; the ruined cities will be re-built, and shattered lives will be restored. But Christianity has no monopoly on humanitarian concern for fellow human-beings; the world-faiths unite in prayer at least, that our/their God will hear our cries of anguish, and that our belief in his power to transform will turn our bitterness into joy.

Yours sincerely,

Your Parish Priest, Mark

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