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A message from Mother Emma

It is with sadness that we bid farewell to Fr Jonathan at the end of his three-year term this week, but also with gratitude for everything he has brought to the parish since his arrival in June 2020.  He, Helen and Caspar will be much missed, and we wish them every blessing on the next stage of their journey.
 
Fr Jonathan has written to you below, and he will also be both presiding and preaching at the 9.30 Eucharist and 11.15 on Sunday.  I am sure that many of you will want to be with us on that day - please do sign up on Eventbrite if you are able. We are sorry that Covid-19 precautions prevent us from a more St Mary Abbots-style send-off after the service, but we look forward to inviting all three MacNeaneys back for a full celebration of their contribution here, as soon as gatherings and hospitality are deemed safe again!
 
My thanks to everyone who attended the Zoom APCM on Wednesday evening, and especially to those who completed their term of faithful service to the PCC and Deanery Synod (Maxine Croft,  Pippa Currey, Eliza Low, Andrew Freestone, Martina Sadovska and Kiaron Whitehead.)  We are delighted to welcome (or welcome back to the PCC or Synod):  Peter Darrell, David Shaw, Jamie Dunford Wood and David Wilkinson, and to the PCC Alex Juergen, Margaret Lane and Pat Wilson.
 
Especial and heartfelt thanks are of course due to Jamie Dunford Wood, who completed a very eventful and hardworking six years as Churchwarden, and to David Banks, who kindly took over from Hannah Stewart to complete her term (having already served two terms as Warden here in the past himself!).  I am hugely grateful to them both for their kindness and support since my arrival.  My congratulations to the newly elected churchwardens, Guy Heald and Ed Warrick, about whom we shall be sharing more information in a future email and newsletter.  I am much looking forward to working alongside them.
 
With my love and prayers, Mother Emma 
​

Message from Father Jonathan

Dear St Mary Abbots
 
I feel like I've started a lot of things over the last couple of weeks with "This is my final" but I promise it is actually true. This is my final piece to you in the newsletter. I'd like to be able to tell you where I'm off to next or what I will be doing but I don't have a firm answer to either of those questions at the moment. I will let you know once I know!
 
In the meantime I want to leave you with a couple of poems below. The first of which is a bit of fun composed this last week. The second is a piece I wrote on Good Friday a year and a half ago which is, at least intentioned as, a more serious piece. If nothing else hopefully my weak efforts will be permission giving for you to explore your creative giftings.
 
Thank you for sharing with me in worship and communion these last three years. God bless you.
 
Jonathan

​

​On Leaving St Mary Abbots
Down the hill back up the hill
Life lived by the vestry bell
There cannot be another service
Of course there is, its St Mary Abbots
The Lord looks down as we repeat the verses
Oh great another act of worship
And they’re celebrating the eucharist to boot.
Oh this is a house of fine repute.
A house of prayer, inclusion and care
More like a house of endless repairs
That fall on the wardens to fix and to mend
Whose excellent job we do commend
And to whom should we address our thanks
It’s Jamie DW and David Banks
David Banks is he at it again
Yes Gillean hammered his tympanic membrane
Till David agreed to warden one more year
If he’d lay off the pleading in his ear
And Jamie’s served out his six year sentence
Which counts for his next ten years of repentance.
Coronavirus was a temporary halt
A time when we could not exult
The name of the Lord in our marvellous church
As scientists joined the vaccine search
Worship was at an all time ebb
Till we moved our home to the interweb
That was fine but not very st mary abbots
We’re more of a church that inhabits
The act of worship with our bodies
Kneeling standing profound noddings
So we’re gathered again under the tenure
Of our incumbent vicar mother emma
Whose first year must go down in history
As the most unexpected trajectory
Of a priest’s ministry in a parish
Through a time that not too many will cherish
But we are resolutely an Easter people
Who smirk in the face of a bit of upheaval
So though these months have been quite awful
Soon enough we’ll be back to normal.
Down the hill back up the hill
Life lived by the vestry bell

​Good Friday 
To pay respect is what we do at funerals
And so they come on this Good Friday
I was there at the end to say goodbye
Where loyal apostles could not bear to look
 
Some bend the knee
Some come with knees that long since bending ceased
But bow and touch with lips which feel the roughness
Of stubbly wood that was their saviour's throne
 
Some come quick with designated action
And other linger long for grief or show.
But one comes quiet near the last processor
Approaching with a tender mother's touch
And stays not long nor is too fast
And kisses as in sorrowed parting
One she hopes to keep but knows must go
 
And this is why she offers daily worship
And this is why she serves the unseen hours
For from this cross her saviour did first teach her
The love that she now teaches unto me.

Tweets by @stmaryabbots

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"Transforming St Mary Abbots" is a fundraising project, for works to the fabric of the building, which operates within the PCC of St Mary Abbots, a Registered Charity : Number 1132235