Wivenhoe Stations page is now live
A new tab appeared at the top of our Welcome page, marked Wivenhoe Stations.
The page is now full of informative content and will be curated by Rev Dr Sara Batts-Neale over the period of Lent.
Come back to it often to follow the developments.
Early call for St Mary’s 2024 markets
St Mary’s Church Wivenhoe is advertising for outside stall holders for both its June Market on Saturday 1st June 2024 and its December/Christmas Market on Thursday evening 5th December 2024.
Each stall space is available for £15. Please contact us by email on fundraisingwivstmarys@gmail.com to book your place via our application form.
Open Gardens 2024
The Open Gardens Team is thinking ahead to May which is when this popular Wivenhoe event will happen again, just so that gardeners can start planning too!
The results of last year’s efforts by all involved, plus the details of this year’s organisation, can all be found on this linked page.
Ash Wednesday and Lent
This coming Wednesday marks the beginning of the church season of Lent.
Some see this as a dour period of weeks to get through while abstaining from enjoyable things.
Others are happy to use it as a time for reflection and study.
On Wednesday evening at 7.30pm there will be a service of Eucharist with imposition of ashes.
The accompanying words ‘dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return’ are not exactly conducive to lending a spring to the step of those departing the service…
Yet, there is a perhaps little realised connection between ‘spring’ and Lent…
There is a (in the opinion of this author) quite remarkable website, called A Clerk of Oxford.
Written during the period of Covid lockdown, a blog article treated of the meaning of Quarantine and how the concept can be linked to Lent.
It is respectfully linked to here to help us, through its profound and erudite insights, with our collective preparation for and understanding of the period we are about to enter.
Local Lent Course – commencing 15th February 2024
The Lent Course 2024 is entitled “Introducing the Bible” and is for those
who are new to the Christian faith, or who have not previously studied the
Bible.
It will run via Zoom at 7:30pm on five consecutive Thursday evenings.
Each session will last about 40 minutes.
The topics for the five weeks are:
-The Bible and ways to read it,
-The Old Testament,
-The New Testament,
-The book of Psalms and
-an Easter meditation from the Gospels.
To book please contact Helena Hughes on: biblestudystmaryswiv@gmail.com
Fish?…. what fish..?
What other at this time of the year than an allusion to the ichthyic shape of St Mary’s Quiz trophy – now awaiting the addition of its tenth ‘scale’!
Actually, but for the Covid interruption, it could have been its ‘twelfth’ scale with the winning team’s name engraved on it – as would have been clear if the partial image below could have been enlarged without loss of detail.
You’ll have to take my word for it that the hands holding it are those of 2023’s winning team – holding it on the night itself and before the team name was added.
And here’s a fact: The first team to register for the 2024 quiz as soon as invitations had gone out was the 2022 winner.
No names no pack drill- but it looks like a revenge match in the making 🙂
There are not many team places left. Deadline for registration is 10 February.
Single entrants may be accommodated with incomplete teams – it’s worth trying.
email to wivstmaryscom@gmail.com
Unchanged conditions: Teams of 6 people maximum; cost is £6 per person; coffee/tea/cakes included in the entrance price; bring your own drink/glasses if desired; separate raffle; payment at the door accepted if participation is registered before the deadline. Doors open at 6.30 for 7.00pm start on Saturday 17 February 2024.
Midnight Service 2023
If you cannot attend in person you may like to know that the Midnight Eucharist service will be streamed live on both Youtube and Facebook this year.
If you have a Facebook account you’ll find our page by searching for St Mary’s Church Wivenhoe.
On Youtube you can find our channel at @stmaryschurchwivenhoe1752.
The service will start at 23.30 GMT and the stream just a little before that time.
stmaryswivenhoe 