Benefice Blog 2025
It only seems like yesterday that I was writing about Christmas and here we are with Lent hoving on to the horizon!
Lent begins on Wednesday March 5th this year and ends on Thursday 17th April. Lent is the 40 days (not including Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter
Lent is often described as a time of preparation and an opportunity to go deeper with God. This means that it’s a time for personal reflection that prepares people’s hearts and minds for Good Friday and Easter.
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. You may have noticed people with a smudged, black cross on their foreheads. Those are ashes from the Ash Wednesday service. The ashes symbolise our sadness for the things that we have done wrong or that we are not proud of.
Let’s go back a day, though, and not forget Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. Pancake Day is the nickname for Shrove Tuesday, which is a day when many people eat pancakes.
The tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday may have originated in Olney, Buckinghamshire, in 1445. The story goes that a woman was so busy making pancakes that she ran to church for a Shrove Tuesday mass while still carrying her pancake in the pan. The tradition may have come about because people were using up rich ingredients like eggs, flour, and milk before the 40 days of Lent.
Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday was always a tradition in our house, and Chris and I continue that tradition. We are also very traditional in that we have sugar and lemon juice on ours, just as we did as children.
My Mum had a tiny china milk jug covered in painted rosebuds that I was allowed to use to pour lemon juice over my sugary pancakes when I was little. It was light enough for me to pick up and it had belonged to my beloved Nanna. I inherited it and have since collected the rest of the tea service that would have gone with it. The pretty little milk jug still comes out every Shrove Tuesday and is a treasured possession.
Writing about my Nanna reminds me that she was in Service. She was born in 1896 and after leaving school (her father had died whilst working on the railways in Northumberland) she went in to Service at 13.
During the Middle Ages, the custom developed of allowing people who had moved away from where they grew up to come back to visit their home or ‘mother’ churches, and their mothers, on the fourth Sunday of the Christian festival of Lent.
At the time it wasn't uncommon for children to leave home to work when they were as young as 10 years old, so this was an opportunity for families to meet up again. This became Mothering Sunday in Britain.
Those in Service were given the day off to visit home and to go to church in their ‘mother’ churches. On Mothering Sunday I often think of my Nanna and her family (she was one of 11 children) all coming together again in Alnmouth.
The discipline of being in Service never left my Nanna and she had a special ‘gopher’ iron (that looked like a pair of hair tongs) to iron the frills of Oxford pillowcases. Denim jeans were ‘workmen’s overalls’, and she was very particular about how things were to be done. Her work ethic was incredible. She was widowed in 1939 and brought my Mum up alone.
I adored her and always remember that she rarely wore long sleeves as they got in the way of her housework! Her arms and hands were work worn and I always thought looked strong. I was her first grandchild and we spent a lot of time together. Those hands could heave loads of washing in and out of a twin tub but hold mine with such gentleness.
It’s funny the memories that stick in our minds; Nanna kept a washboard in her bath tub and loved to watch Mick McManus on the Saturday evening wrestling programme!
Mothering Sunday will be celebrated in St Peter’s Church on Sunday 30th March at 10.00 am, and all are welcome to join us. This will be a benefice service, when all of our churches join together to worship.
I am very conscious that Mothering Sunday is not always an easy day for some. It may, for many different reasons, be a day that is difficult or impossible to celebrate. Please know that you are being upheld in prayer.
Please do keep an eye on the Haven Churches website www.havenchurches.org.uk for updates on the services and events that are being planned for Holy Week and Easter across all of our churches. There will be plenty of services and events that are family friendly, as well as our offering of more traditional services.
Whatever March brings for you may it be blessed.
Revd Karen
March 2025
Christmas seems as if it is in the dim and distant past now. However, the fairy lights are still up in the Vicarage because it is not yet Candlemas and the Christmas season is not yet over!
This Christian festival, which takes place this year on 2nd February, commemorates the presentation of Jesus at the Temple of Jerusalem, referring to him as the light of the people of Israel. On this day, Christians take candles to be blessed in church and the new church candles are also blessed.
I do love still having some twinkling lights around the Vicarage in the darker months of the year.
I have the blessing of my study having a wonderful view of our garden from three windows. I have put up my bird table so that I can see it from my desk, and I am also awaiting the delivery of a rather fancy new bird feeding station.
The garden is next to the Eco Gold Award winning churchyard of St Helen’s church. I would recommend to you a visit to the churchyard (it’s available for all to enjoy), relishing the peace and tranquility as well as the labyrinth to walk around and the pond to enjoy. There is an abundance of wildlife, and there is always something new to look at.
It is a very special place which takes a lot of work to maintain and to retain its Gold Award. Thankfully we have a dedicated team who ensure that the churchyard is not only a sanctuary for wildlife but a place where people can come and visit the graves of their loved ones in beautiful surroundings. As you can imagine, this does take money as well as time and expertise to maintain.
Many of the birds pop over the fence to make use of my bird table, which is a joy and a distraction to my work! I have also installed a bird box, a squirrel feeder (they are elusive little creatures!) and a hedgehog hotel. The more the merrier is our motto where nature is concerned! I found the hoof prints of a deer in the muddier parts of the garden this morning, which is very exciting!
I have been taking time to attend meetings of local organisations since Christmas and have been asked to become an ex officio governor of Brading School. I have had the pleasure to meet with The Friends of St Helen’s, The Nettlestone and Seaview Community Partnership and plan to meet others as the next few weeks unfold. Part of my role is not only to minister here by leading services, but to engage with the communities and to work alongside them. ‘Feet on the Ground’ is important to me.
Having four churches and their communities to look after is about balance. It is important that all four churches feel as if they have their own Vicar, and being a visible presence in the communities goes some way to achieving this. Naturally there are going to be times when one church will need more of my time and energy than the others.
We have a wonderful team of lay worship leaders in the benefice, and we have also been meeting to talk about what and how our services and events will look like this year. They have some great ideas, so look on the church noticeboards, the Haven churches website, and pew sheets for news of what is coming up.
I have had the pleasure of meeting with the choir leaders from St Peter’s church to talk about how they will play an integral part in ministry this year. It was a very congenial meeting over food and dry Martinis!
Children and young people have always played a large part in my ministry, and I have been praying as to how we can engage them more with our churches. There are conversations to be had and plans to devise but it is definitely on the Haven churches’ radar.
We hope to hold Confirmation classes this year, and our Curate, Revd Bev, is keen to get a group together and to make a start. If you have been considering your next step in faith and would like a chat about becoming Confirmed, please do speak to Revd Bev or myself.
We are blessed to have a great magazine, website and pew sheets, which keep everyone informed of what is happening in the Haven churches. A huge thanks to all who put these together and keep them going. I have never lived and ministered in a place where there is so much going on! I would like to take some time to visit more local groups and to find out what is happening in the communities. There are so many of them it may take me a while, but ‘have comfy shoes will travel’...
Over time I hope to become more familiar with the people I am meeting as I get out and about. I have met so many people in the short time I have been here it is not unusual to draw a blank over a name! I do apologise, and please do introduce yourself if you see me out and about.
Whatever the month of February brings I pray that it is blessed.
Revd Karen
February 2025
We would like to thank everyone who has supported the Bell Restoration Appeal over the last year.
We are now gearing up for a new year of fund-raising and this starts with our 8 Bell Club.
If you would like to renew your membership or join for the first time please contact Margaret at Brading or Yaverland after the services or email Marghanita at bradingbells(at)hotmail(dot)com.
It costs just £12 per ticket for 12 months and each month your number(s) get entered into the draw where you could win either £15, £10 or £5.
All the profits are for the Bell Restoration Appeal.
Brading Bellringers
January 2025
