Dear Friends

Next Monday 14th June marks the fourth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire. This was a major event in the recent history of London and the entire nation. St Nick’s will be joining with other churches across the country to remember this tragedy by ringing our church bell 72 times at 7pm, once for each victim of the fire. At 7.03pm there will be two minutes’ silence, as we remember those who died, and pray for all those still affected by the fire, four years on. There will then be four more rings, one for each year since the fire itself.    

Bishop Graham writes: ‘There is a sense that until some measure of justice and closure has been achieved through the Grenfell Public Enquiry, and particularly bearing in mind those who continue to be affected by the Cladding Crisis, it is important to keep the memory of Grenfell in the public consciousness, particularly as public acts of remembrance are still limited this year due to restrictions on gathering due to the pandemic.’.

On Sunday the liturgical colour in church will be green as we start that long stretch of the liturgical year known as ‘Ordinary Time’ which runs right through to the beginning of Advent. This follows the brief period of Ordinary Time we had between the end of Christmas and beginning of Lent.  Our former Archdeacon Stephan preached on the subject of Ordinary Time at my licensing service at St Nick’s some five years ago last week. He reminded us that, far from being a ‘filler’ between other liturgical seasons, it has its own meaning signified by its own colour. Derived from Latin, ‘ordinary’ means to rise up, to be stirred up and to grow. Green is a colour that evokes life and growth. Following the pandemic, this new season of Ordinary Time will be particularly important for us a church to stir up our faith and our spiritual life, to identify the new growth that has occurred during lockdown, and to revive all the good things we used to do that have been dormant during lockdown. It has been wonderful to see many of our congregation now back in church and I am looking forward to our first concert of the year at the end of this month!  

With every blessing

Mother Eileen