After Jesus rose from the dead, he “presented himself alive” (Acts 1:3) to the women near the tomb (Matt. 28:9-10), to his disciples (Luke 24:36-43), and to more than 500 others (1 Cor. 15:6). In the days following his resurrection, Jesus taught his disciples about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). Forty days after the resurrection, Jesus and his disciples went to Mount Olivet, near Jerusalem. There, Jesus promised his followers that they would soon receive the Holy Spirit, and he instructed them to remain in Jerusalem until the Spirit had come. Then Jesus blessed them, and as he gave the blessing, he began to ascend into heaven. The account of Jesus’ ascension is found in Luke 24:50-51 and Acts 1:9 -11.  It is plain from Scripture that Jesus’ ascension was a literal, bodily return to heaven. He rose from the ground gradually and visibly, observed by many intent onlookers. As the disciples strained to catch a last glimpse of Jesus, a cloud hid him from their view, and two angels appeared and promised Christ’s return “in just the same way that you have watched Him go” (Acts 1:11).

The musings of one of God’s smallest creatures on events in and around the Parish over the past seven days . . . . A very busy week around The Presbytery this time round . . . . At our Sunday 11.00 Mass last weekend we were joined by this year’s Confirmation Candidates, their families, and their sponsors as they celebrated a Lucenarium (Service of Light) before being sent off by the community to celebrate their Confirmation with Bishop Richard this Saturday. During the service the candidate’s parents lit the Baptismal Candle they were presented with on the day of their child’s Baptism and solemnly handed it over to their child as a sign that they are now considered adults in the Church and are responsible for themselves for keeping the flame of faith alive in their hearts. After celebrating Morning Prayer, Mass, and Exposition on Tuesday morning Fr D had several specialist engineers coming in: - the electrician was around to replace a failed ‘Fire Exit’ sign in the main hall of the Parish Centre, check on a failing fire escape ceiling light in the back corridor of the Centre, confirm the death of a tea urn in the Centre kitchen, and finally, to connect-up a ‘penny heater’ for the airing cupboard in the Presbytery - the LiveStream engineer came up (from Cardiff) to re-instate the set-up after some sort of an energy spike caused a failure two weeks ago; whilst here he serviced the security alarm in the Presbytery and replaced a camera on the church CCTV system that had failed. - By the time that all the workmen had departed in the middle of the afternoon Fr D was quite exhausted! Wednesday, after Morning Prayer and Mass, Fr D needed to make a start on the newsletter as he was losing both Friday and Saturday with events involving the bishop, so would not have the time he usually has. In the afternoon Fr D and a workman were sorting out which replacement shower he needed for his bathroom the old one that Canon Tony Clarke had put in having ‘given up the ghost’ last week (Fr D has been dashing across the landing to the guest bathroom since it failed!), Between them they worked out what the new version was and are now looking for a supplier before fitting it.  After Morning Prayer and Mass on Thursday Fr D was down in Crawley, working on his marriage cases. When he came back he was meeting with a family whose child will be baptised later in May . . . . . .

This week, we hear a Gospel reading with Jesus’ invitation to “remain in my love” and to “love one another as I love you.” He doesn’t spell out endless rules (“Do this.” “Don’t do that.”) which we need to memorize and follow in order to do what is right. Instead, his invitation is simply to focus on remaining connected to him (“remain in me”) and letting all of our actions flow from a commitment to loving others as he loved us. It is an invitation for a mature follower. Just as we need to spell out many simple rules to help younger children understand right from wrong, with “younger” disciples more rules or “commandments” are helpful. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Pray for your enemies. Forgive those who have hurt you. There is nothing wrong with following a list of religious commandments as we learn how to be faithful disciples. At a certain point, though, our faith needs to mature to take into account more complex situations - the grey areas between the black-and-white, or simple right and wrong. Jesus is asking us to go beyond what the rules say and commands us to respond in love to everyone, just as he did.  Jesus gives us a lot of respect here, insisting that we are his friends, not his students, his servants, or his slaves, when we love one another as he does. Often Christians fall into the habit of relating to God or Jesus as a child to a parent, but Jesus suggests a more equal relationship. God will always be God, and we will always be human, but Jesus still invites us to be in friendship with him. Questions of the week  Think of a situation in which the difference between right and wrong might be blurred but you are asked to respond with love rather than holding strictly to what a law or commandment says. How does it challenge you to be more Christ-like?  Have you ever thought of yourself as being friends with Jesus? How so? If not, what is your reaction to this invitation?

Children’s Liturgy is a structured time during Mass at which children (typically aged 4-7), are invited to gather separately from our main congregation to hear and reflect upon the weekly scripture readings at a language and comprehension level that is suitable for their age group. In order to consider restarting this in the Parish we are seeking to establish a team of at least 8 (preferably more) parishioners who would be interested in serving the children in our Parish, and who would be able to commit to leading/helping in a team of two/three, after training, during school term time, on a rota basis, during the first part of our 11.00 Sunday Mass.  All leaders/helpers will need to have/obtain an enhanced DBS certificate that we can arrange through the Diocese. Please contact the Parish Office if you could assist in joining this venture for our children.

We know nothing of St James except his name, and, of course, the fact that Jesus chose him to be one of the 12 pillars of the New Israel, his Church. He is not the James of Acts, son of Clopas, “brother” of Jesus and later bishop of Jerusalem and the traditional author of the Letter of James. This James, son of Alphaeus, is also known as James the Lesser to avoid confusing him with James the son of Zebedee, also an apostle and known as James the Greater. Philip came from the same town as Peter and Andrew, Bethsaida in Galilee. Jesus called him directly, whereupon he sought out Nathanael and told him of the “one about whom Moses wrote.” Like the other apostles, Philip took a long time in coming to realize who Jesus was. On one occasion, when Jesus saw the great multitude following him and wanted to give them food, he asked Philip where they should buy bread for the people to eat? St John comments, “[Jesus] said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.” John’s story is not a put-down of Philip. It was simply necessary for these men who were to be the foundation stones of the Church to see humanity’s total helplessness apart from God and the human ability to be a bearer of divine power by God’s gift.  On another occasion, Philip said, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Enough! Jesus answered, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

The musings of one of God’s smallest creatures on events in and around the Parish over the past seven days . . . . A ‘full-on’ time around The Presbytery this week as Confirmation, First Eucharist, and Baptism programmes are all coming to a ‘high point.’ On Monday Sarah & Fr D were chasing the engineers for our LiveStream service on the Parish Website to get things back to working order. Sarah was sent chasing all around the system machinery to see if it would ‘re-boot’ in some fashion but all to no avail. The conclusion is that the engineers will have to visit (Fr D thinks that one of the machines has died!). Tuesday morning after Morning Prayer, Mass, and Exposition Fr D was following the activities of the engineers who were running an optical cable between the Presbytery and the Parish Office ready for ‘the great telephone switchover’ which will get rid of one of the present telephone accounts (which will be a saving of £1,200 a year!). An extra benefit is that we will now have wifi access points in each of our upstairs meeting rooms and the main hall (one step closer to being able to renew the audio visual set-up in the hall). The engineers will be back next Wednesday to complete the new wiring. We also discovered a fire detector in the loft of the Parish Centre which we didn’t know existed! In the evening Fr D met with the Parish Finance Committee for one of their quarterly meetings. On Wednesday evening Fr D met with our Confirmation Candidates for their last ‘input session’ before the Confirmation ceremony with the Bishop at St Joseph’s Church, Epsom next Saturday morning. Fr D was also able to give the group the final instructions concerning the celebration which he had just received from the co-ordinator. After Morning Prayer and Mass on Thursday Fr D went off in the car to the diocesan offices as usual, but this time (for the first time in ages) went there using the motorway. This meant that he was able to see exactly what the new car could do! When he got to his Tribunal office there were several Decrees for cases that required his signature. There was also a little celebration given by the Tribunal Secretary to mark her six months in the position (lots of Polish food)! In the evening Fr D was to have had the second session of the present Infant Baptism Course but one of the parents had gone down with food poisoning so the session was moved to the following week.  Once Morning Prayer and Mass had been celebrated on Friday morning Fr D completed his bits of this week’s newsletter . . . . . . . .

We hear often from John’s Gospel during the Easter season, and Jesus’ message to us includes many invitations to abide, rest, and remain in him. The other Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Jesus giving us many directions for the actions we should be taking as his followers: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love your enemies, forgive others repeatedly, turn the other cheek, etc. They are Gospels for “human doings.” John’s Gospel, on the other hand, is a Gospel for “human beings.” In John, Jesus repeatedly invites his followers to express their discipleship by how they carry themselves-how they are in the world, not what they do in the world. How are we to be in the world? Like a branch on a grape vine, Jesus says. The branch doesn’t do anything to make the grapes; it simply remains connected to the vine and allows itself to be pruned. If the branch stays connected, all it has to do in order to bear fruit is to be open while God works the miracle of creating the grapes.  Jesus is calling us to trust that if we do our primary “work” of remaining in him and allowing him to remain in us, then God’s works will automatically flow through us. If we can be human beings first, then our “doings” will be natural outcomes of that. The invitation for us is to relax into that sense of being and abiding with Jesus. Questions of the week • Which do you more naturally gravitate toward in your sense of discipleship: “doing” things or “being” a particular way? Put another way, are you naturally more active or contemplative? • When you consider abiding with/ remaining with/resting in Jesus, what comes to mind for you? How might you build more time for that into your life?

DIY ABORTION UP TO BIRTH - Dame Diana Johnson MP has put forward an extreme abortion amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill. This amendment would decriminalise abortion in England and Wales and means that there would be no criminal sanctions for a woman using deadly abortion pills sent to her by post to carry out an abortion at home, right up to the time of the baby’s birth! The Government has confirmed that the Bill will not be debated until after the Easter recess. So this will be a date after 15th April. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) will be alerting people to the actual date as soon as it is known. There is now more time for concerned citizens to lobby their MP’s to vote against Dian Johnson’s amendment. Please go to  https://www.spuc.uk/abortion amendments for:- • More information about abortion decriminalisation • To find who your MP is • To use SPUC’s online tool to contact your MP ASSISTED SUICIDE DEBATE - There will be an important debate on assisted suicide in the House of Commons on Monday 29th April at 16.30. This debate is taking place as a result of the campaign by media personality Dame Esther Rantzen who wants a change in the law to legalise assisted suicide. It is vital that as many MP’s as possible speak up in the House to oppose any move to make assisted suicide legal in England and Wales. Please go to  https://www.spuc.org.uk/livesworthliving for:- • A briefing on the case against assisted suicide • Three video stories opposing any change in the law • An online tool to contact your MP

Countless stories are told about St. George, including the famous episode of the dragon and the girl saved by the saint. According to the standard version of the legend, we hear that in the city of Selem in Libya, there was a large pond where a terrible dragon lived. To appease it, the inhabitants offered him two sheep a day and later a sheep and a child drawn by lot. One day the king's daughter was chosen, and while she was heading toward the pond, George passed by and pierced the dragon with his spear; a gesture that became a symbol of faith triumphing over evil. Who was St. George? George, whose name in Greek means “farmer,” was born to a Christian family in Cappadocia around the year 280. After moving to Palestine, he joined the army of Diocletian. When the emperor issued the edict of persecution against Christians in 303, George gave all his belongings to the poor and, in front of Diocletian himself, tore the document apart and professed his faith in Christ. For this he suffered terrible torture and was eventually beheaded. Shortly after his death, a basilica was erected over the place of his burial in Lydda (modern-day Lod, in Israel). His relics are still visible today. Among the most ancient documents attesting to the existence of St. George, a Greek epigraph from 368 found in Heraclea of Bethany speaks of the “house or church of the saints and triumphant martyrs George and companions.” A Passio Georgii was classified among the hagiographic works by the Gelasianum Decree of 496 and deemed apocryphal. There were many later redactions of the Passio, which informed subsequent legends. From martyr to holy warrior The crusaders contributed a great deal to transforming the figure of St. George the martyr into a holy warrior, seeing in the killing of the dragon a symbol for the defeat of Islam; Richard I of England (“the Lionheart”) invoked him as the protector of all soldiers. With the Normans the cult of St. George became firmly rooted in England where, in 1348, King Edward III established the Order of the Knights of St. George. Throughout the Middle Ages his figure inspired a great deal of epic literature. Devotion to St George St George is considered the patron of knights, soldiers, scouts, fencers and archers, among others; he is also invoked against the plague and leprosy, and against venomous snakes. In the absence of certain information about his life, in 1969 the Church changed the liturgical feast of St George to an optional memorial on the universal calendar. However, this change did not affect devotion to the saint. The relics of the saint are found in different places of the world; in Rome the church of San Giorgio al Velabro has housed his skull from the time of Pope Zachariah.  As in the case of other saints wrapped in legend, the story of St George serves to remind the world of a fundamental idea, that good ultimately triumphs over evil. The fight against evil is a constant in human history. It is a battle cannot we cannot win on our own. Saint George was able to kill the dragon because God was acting in and through him. With Christ, evil will never have the last word.