Welcome to Weobley & Staunton Joint Benefice

While on holiday, I found myself grumbling about a few days of rainy weather. However, my complaint led me to recall the times that I lived in desert environments, in Australia and the Middle East, when I used to lament the lack of green in the landscape. There’s a well-used saying in the UK that ‘You don’t get a green country without rain’. As we celebrate Harvest season, we are also called to give thanks for the blessings that come with rain!

I once heard a story related by an Australian who was working in a dry, remote part of Africa. She was asked by the women of the village about how far Australian women walked to fetch their water from a well. When she replied that most Australian women had access to piped, clean running water, both hot and cold, one of the ladies exclaimed ‘How happy must be the people of your country!’

This anecdote caused me to reflect on how much we take for granted; how we often        overlook the simple provisions of everyday sustenance. Perhaps it also illustrates our deeper need to cultivate a spirit of thankfulness. Are we thankful for the material blessings of food, shelter and warmth? And are we grateful for the support of others around us? In the letter to the Ephesians Paul says ‘I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers’. May this Harvest season be a time of heartfelt thanksgiving and may the joyful fruits of this spirit of gratitude be evident in our lives and churches.

Rev’d Philip

Harvest Collection for Water Aid

PCC members across the benefice were consulted about supporting a charity with our        harvest collections, and the decision was made to make donations to Water Aid, a charity working in developing nations to provide access to clean water and drainage. More              information can be obtained at www.wateraid.org/uk

In 1961, I became a founder member of the choir of the new St Francis Church in the Parish of Langley Marish, Buckinghamshire. We lived just fives miles away and for years I sang at the annual Patronal Festival of St Francis, on October 4th.

Francis was born in Assisi, Italy, in 1181/2 and died in 1226 aged 45.

His father was a wealthy silk merchant, but Francis renounced a life of privilege and          embraced the life of a poor man. Dressing in a coarse woollen tunic, like the poorest           Umbrian peasants.

He went about preaching peace and love, and although Francis was not an ordained priest and had no preacher’s licence, in 1209 he obtained permission from the pope to found a religious order—the ‘Lesser Brothers’ later to be know as the Franciscans.

Francis of Assisi preached the Christian doctrine that the world was created good and       beautiful by God, but suffers a need for redemption because of human sin.  He believed that nature itself was the mirror of God. In his ‘Canticle of the Sun’ he gives God thanks for    Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Water, Fire and Earth, all of which he saw as       rendering praise to God. He called all creatures his  ‘brothers’ and ‘Sisters’, and even preached to the birds.

Perhaps ahead of the modern curve, on 29th November 1979, Pope John Paul II declared Francis the Patron Saint of Ecology.

I am not a papist, and I don’t venerate the saints, but I do see in Francis a fine pattern for Christian life which we could all do worse than to follow.

Rev Charles Overton