Beautiful Daffodils, Refreshments with Home Baking, Homemade cakes to buy, Guess the Sweeties in the Tin, Craft Stalls, Daffodils for Sale, Raffle, Lucky Squares, Preserves Stall, Plant Stall, Book Stall.
Fun for all the family
Donations Welcome
Organised by the Tain and Dornoch Firth Fundraising Group in aid of Marie Curie which provides care and support through terminal illness.
In 2012 St Aidan’s Church in Clarkston (Glasgow) hosted the first in what has become an annual series of public lectures on a subject relevant to our faith but also of potential interest to a wider public. The 2023 St Aidan’s Lectures are being delivered by the Rev. Dr James Currall. The topic is The Environmental Crisis and the Church. The Lectures will be delivered on Monday evenings, 17 and 24 April, 1 and 8 May, beginning at 7.30pm and for the first time will be delivered both at St Aidan’s and on Zoom.
The questions to be addressed in the four lectures are:
How did we get here?
Where are we now?
Not Zero?
Where do we go from here?
The importance of the environment (and caring for it) is becoming more and more central to the life of many people, not only but especially for the younger generation who often look at the Church and think it has nothing to say with regard to the issues that concern them. This clearly has implications for the credibility of our mission in the world. It is, furthermore, an area in which people of all faiths and none have started working together for the future of humanity and the world.
The St Aidan’s Lectures in 2023 explore some of the past, present and future of the Church’s relationship to these issues and why it has often been viewed as trailing behind the secular world.
Lecture 1 – How did we get here?
The Western Church has only relatively recently woken up to the reality of Climate Change and the Environment Damage that human beings have wrought in our world. So why has the Church been so blind (or at least agnostic) to what for many in the secular world has been glaring obvious for three-quarters of a century?
Redemption in the writings of Augustine and Anselm is primarily Ethical. Humanity has been viewed as distinct from the natural world and Christianity and Salvation largely concerned with Personal and Social existence. The Western tradition has relatively little to say about the destiny of the universe, though there are a few honourable exceptions, such as St Francis of Assisi.
The Eastern Church, on the other hand has had a different relationship with the natural world. It has seen Redemption as concerned also with the Physical or Natural world. In both Greek and Syrian writing humanity is at the heart of the natural world. Patristic writing sees Salvation more holistically as Personal and Cosmic, Social and Universal. Perhaps we have much to learn from this more holistic approach to faith and worship.
The first lecture explores this historical background to help us to answer the question: “How did we get here”.
Lecture 2: Where are we now?
In 1999, the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) urged churches to adopt a “Time for Creation” stretching from 1st September to the feast of St Francis on 4th October. and this was endorsed by the European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu, Romania, in 2007, which recommended that the period ‘be dedicated to prayer for the protection of Creation and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles that reverse our contribution to climate change.’ The following year, the World Council of Churches (WCC) invited churches to observe “Time for Creation” through prayer and action.
From that time on, Christians worldwide have progressively embraced the season as part of their annual calendar. Since 2008 Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) has compiled a programme of resources to encourage and assist churches to observe Creation Time. In summer 2020, just in time for COP26 in Glasgow, the Scottish Episcopal Church joined this movement, introducing Liturgical material for this Season.
This second lecture explores where the Church is at the present time in relation to the Environmental Crisis and the extent to which the approaches of Christian Churches differ from or reflect those of other commercial and community organisations.
Lecture 3 – Not Zero?
At it’s 2020 General Synod in December, the Scottish Episcopal Church started talking about environmental issues and committed to working towards Net Zero carbon emissions by 2030. A Church in Society Technical Committee then produced guidance for Synod in 2021 to set the direction for practical action and established a committee to take this work forward.
Many organisations and indeed governments have set targets for Net Zero, but does this represent an appropriate and sufficient response to the urgency of the issue? When we start to look for solutions to environmental issues, it is very easy to adopt too narrow a focus and attempt to reduce the environmental impact of one isolated factor, and in the process increase the impact of another.
This third lecture explores this question and we may well find ourselves outside a Church door in Wittenberg in the company of Martin Luther. That may of course raise the question as to whether or not the Church needs a New Reformation in relation to Environmental Justice.
Lecture 4 – Where do we go from here?
Responding to the climate crisis and the injustice inherent in both its causes and effects, it is much easier to make on one or two minor lifestyle changes, and thereby feel better about it all, than to engage with the real problem. The former is simply a mechanism to ‘greenwash’ our consciences, likely to have little or no effect and may actually do a great deal of harm. What is actually needed is repentance, a turning away from excessive consumption and back to God. Rowan Williams put it very simply when he wrote:
“we need to regain a sense that our relationship to the earth is about ‘communion not consumption’”.
Christians have a responsibility not only to take action to contribute less to the problem, but to be prophetic voices in the world. In the words of Walter Brueggemann they have a threefold prophetic task:
“The prophetic tasks of the Church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair.”
What is needed is nothing short of salvation, and not just a narrow salvation of self, but a salvation of humanity and the whole of God’s Creation.
After the remembrance of the Last Supper at which +Mark washed the feet of members of the congregation, we moved to the Garden where we wtched and waited with our Lord.
This morning we walk the way of the Cross in Ardgay/Bonar Bridge in witness to His Passion, we reflect on His final hour in Brora this afternoon and this evening we relive His Passion again in Tain in a service of Tenebrae, with Communion from the Reserved Sacrament.
As many of you know, Anna and I have just returned from a break in Andalusia in southern Spain. We arrived in Triana, a small village in the hills, on the day that they were celebrating the Festividad de San José (the festival of St Joseph) sensibly transferred to Saturday so that everyone could enjoy a good party then a four hour procession and then another party (all this of course after starting with a Festal Mass at 12 noon).
According to those in the know, there are such events regularly in towns and villages around the region mark particular saints’ days but of course everywhere has a full programme of events to mark Semana Santa (Holy Week). In Velez-Malaga (the nearest large town to where we were) the celebration of Semana Santa is recognised as one of the most impressive in the whole of Spain.
Along with everything you would expect of a fiesta (including amazing food and drink), there are processions, much like the one we witnessed in Triana, which become ever more grand throughout the week – starting on Palm Sunday and culminating with the Resurrection procession on Easter Day. The processions are accompanied by bands with crowds carrying candles. There are also huge floats (tronos) weighing up to 5,000kg, carried by large numbers of people, that depict scenes from the events in the week leading to Christ’s death and Resurrection.
Good Friday trono – Malaga
From time to time the crowd are become silence and the procession pauses while a saeta is sung. A saeta is an acoustic religious song (often in Flamenco style) sung from a balcony accompanied by wonderful guitar playing. After the saeta, the band start up again and theprocession moves forward. These processions seem to be able to blend celebration with sombre reflection and at the same time are also incredibly beautiful and moving.
This year along with other local churches we are once again holding a Walk of Witness from Kincardine Church in Ardgay to Creich Church in Bonar Bridge. There will be no huge tronos (just a rough wooden cross carried by one person), nor a band (just the voices of the pilgrims), but just like the people of Velez we will be marking the events of Christ’s last week, in Scripture, in prayer and in song (though maybe not in a flamenco style), as we pause from time to time along the road. When we arrive at Creich Church we will also be ‘partying’ with hot cross buns and coffee!! You are all of course welcome to join us and to bring your friends (we start at Kincardine Church in Ardgay at 10:15am).
Walk of Witness – Ardgay/Bonar
It is interesting to experience and reflect on how different cultures mark the milestones of our faith. We all start with the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and throughout Holy Week we engage with a number of important events as we reflect on our faith and on the life of Christ, before finally emerging blinking into the light of Easter. Although the Resurrection is a fundamental part of our Christian belief, there can be no Resurrection without all that precedes it, including of course the brutal execution. Conversely without the Resurrection, Jesus was just a good man who was unjustly put to death in a brutal, inhumane and horrendous manner – something that sadly happens daily around the world.
I would therefore encourage you all to engage with some of the events and services during Holy Week – Stations of the Cross in Dornoch on Monday or Tain on Wednesday, our service in Dornoch on Maundy Thursday with its reliving of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, sharing the last supper with them and then retiring to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and our moving reading of the Passion from John’s Gospel in our service of Tenebrae or Walk of Witness on Good Friday all tell the story of what happens between Palm Sunday and Easter Day and help us to really understand what our faith is about.
The walk will consist of Eight stops, with a variable amount of walking between them. There is room for at least a few cars at each stops and so it will be possible for those who cannot or do not wish to walk the whole route to participate by adjusting the amount of walking required to suit their needs.
The walk will start in the car park adjacent to Kincardine Church in Ardgay and will end at Creich Church in Bonar Bridge, where there will be Hot Cross buns and tea/coffee available. The walk itself will commence at 10:15am and we should arrive at Creich Church by about 11:50am.
At each stop, there will be a Reading from Scripture, a short Reflection and a Prayer As we leave heading towards the next stop, we’ll sing a hymn. We will carry a large rough wooden cross throughout the walk.
The stops are as follows (time are rather approximate):
Kincardine Church car park (@10:15)
Ardgay Hall car park (@10:35)
Drover’s stone near Ardgay Station (@10:45)
‘Stonehenge’ just the Ardgay side of the Bridge(@11:10)
Garden adjacent to the Caley Cafe(@11:20)
Car Park behind the Bonar Health Centre(@11:30)
Grassy area just beyond the Bradbury Centre(@11:40)
Yesterday evening, Hamilton Inbadas was instituted as Rector of St John’s Forres in a wonderful display of the gift that is Anglican Liturgy.
The Church was packed with guests, members of the congregation, an all-age choir, visiting clergy from the SEC and clergy of other denominations in Forres.
Bishop Mark said in his address that at times during Covid, he had wondered if our churches would ever be full again – well he got his answer in St John’s last night.
The hospitality was generous and heartfelt and to top it all, there was a full supper served afterwards. Worship, fellowship, celebration, the whole package.
God was there! As we God’s people Met to offer praise and prayer, And we found in fuller measure What it is in Christ we share. There, as in the world around us, All our varied skills and arts Saw the coming of the Spirit Into open minds and hearts.
Scottish Episcopal Church - Dornoch, Lairg, Brora, Tain & Tongue 