Martin Tarr
On Sunday 21 November, a number of St Margaret’s members were in St Ninian’s Cathedral in Perth to celebrate the installation of four new Honorary Canons at a service of Evensong led by Bishop Ian Paton. The new Honorary Canons are the Rev Canon Celia Matthews, the Rev Canon Kenny Rathband, the Rev Canon Professor Trevor Hart, and Lay Canon Dr John Ferguson Smith (the first such appointment).
The service also celebrated the installation of the new Dean of the Diocese, the Very Rev Graham Taylor, while the Rev Canon Kenny Rathband and his wife, Ruth, were also honoured for his time as Dean from 2007 to 2021.
You can enjoy the whole service on the Diocesan YouTube channel:
This year, Rev Eddie Sykes is leading three Advent studies to help us in our preparation for Christ’s coming. Sessions are on Zoom on Thursday mornings at 10:30am, and last for just over an hour. If you haven’t have received the meeting details direct, please email Eddie at minister@rosythmethodist.org.uk for an access code.
Everyone is warmly welcome to join with us – no previous Bible study experience is necessary – just bring a Bible, and perhaps a cup of coffee, and enjoy the conversation!
Our topics will be:
- 2 December Preparing the Way (Luke 3:1–8)
- 16 December Embodying God’s Love for Others (Luke 1:26–56)
- 23 December God Sends the Church into the World (Luke 2:1–20)
Before each session Eddie will email you a reminder of the joining instructions and some study material. The study material will also be linked to this post.
This morning the Rev Dr Michael Paterson presided and preached on his first Sunday as our newly-licenced Priest-in-charge, and we celebrated the Feast of Christ the King with a special liturgy for the day.
The occasion was also our first service as an independent congregation. As you can read in this service sheet, we also gathered round the font and Paschal candle, both symbolically placed in the centre of the congregation, to rededicate ourselves, using the deeply-moving words of a covenant for Shared Ministry.
Before choir and congregation sang the Old Hundredth we also managed to mark the occasion in typical St Margaret’s fashion, firstly by our sacristan, Pam Pryde, presenting an inscribed quaich to Michael, using some of the words lovingly written on the accompanying card by Lesley Yellowlees on behalf of the congregation.
Then Lesley herself presented a basket of flowers to our Vestry Secretary, Sandra Young, in recognition of the enormous amount of extra work Sandra had carried out in recent months, dealing with the consequences of both pandemic and interregnum.
This happy picture was taken after the end of the service on 18 November at which the Revd Dr Michael Paterson (right) was duly licensed as Priest-in-Charge of the Scottish Episcopal Church of St Margaret, Rosyth by the Right Revd Ian Paton, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane (left).
There was some formality – you can’t escape having the Very Revd Graham Taylor, in his role as Dean, read the words of the Licence – and much symbolism, in the presentations made to Michael of an icon of Christ, a Bible, holy oil, the bread and wine of communion, and the church keys. But above all, there was much joy at welcoming our new priest, much hearty offering of praise in music, and much unity on display, with representatives from our Methodist partners and other local churches as well as the wider Episcopal community.
There was also much challenge in what Bishop Ian had to say in both sermon and prayers. He ended his sermon, centred on the Gospel reading of three parables of the kingdom, by reading R S Thomas’s “The Bright Field” and reminding us of the need to give all that we have to possess that pearl of great price. Highly appropriate for a congregation whose patron is St Margaret, when we remember that her name derives from the Greek μαργαρίτης … pearl!
Thanks to David Salthouse, the service was recorded, so you can hear Bishop Ian’s words in full through the media player below.
Our thoughts last Sunday – Remembrance Sunday – were led by Adrian Masson, whose reflections were inspired by some of the poetry at the core of the Act of Remembrance that had formed the first part of our service.
Adrian spoke of his personal experiences … “the outcomes of conflict are hugely stressful, sometimes horrific and difficult to comprehend. When I was at sea I belonged to the Naval Christian Fellowship [whose watchword was] the text from Proverbs 3:5 ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding’ – a verse I often had to remind myself of as events in the South Atlantic and the Gulf unfolded.”
He went on to reflect on the way that “war waged against the civilian population …has become as much a part of modern warfare as the conflict on the front-line.” “… we should also reflect on the breadth of mankind who have been, and are still being, affected by the horrors of war.”
His final thought was about us, as “those living the tomorrow for which others gave their lives. And we are fighting many battles, but thankfully at the moment ones that challenge us in different ways. As the events of the last two weeks have acutely reminded us, we live on a planet that desperately needs our love and care if it is to serve the tomorrows of our children and our children’s children as well it has served us. We live in a world that increasingly creates military, political and religious tensions and these are very real. Others are drawing up the strategies and plans of combat of which we, maybe unwittingly, are a part. So perhaps we are now the soldiers in the trenches of a very different battlefield but still have an important role to play.
“Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah wrote to the embattled nation of Israel: ‘So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’ Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)
“These words would have helped sustain generations of Christians struggling with conflict over the centuries and I hope will sustain us too in whatever struggles lie ahead.”
You can read the whole of Adrian’s address at this link.
This picture of a war memorial in Westbury-on-Trym, was taken in 2005 by Bob Brewer of Bristol: see this link for the original image from which this has been cropped.
