Introduction to the Season of Lent -

Lent may originally have followed Epiphany, just as Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness followed immediately on his baptism, but it soon became firmly attached to Easter, as the principal occasion for baptism and for the reconciliation of those who had been excluded from the Church’s fellowship for apostasy or serious faults. This history explains the characteristic notes of Lent – self-examination, penitence, self-denial, study, and preparation for Easter, to which almsgiving has traditionally been added.

Now is the healing time decreed for sins of heart and word and deed, when we in humble fear record the wrong that we have done the Lord.   (Latin, before 12th century)

As the candidates for baptism were instructed in Christian faith, and as penitents prepared themselves, through fasting and penance, to be readmitted to communion, the whole Christian community was invited to join them in the process of study and repentance, the extension of which over forty days would remind them of the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, being tested by Satan.

Lent - A period of 40 days before Easter in the Christian calendar. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, Lent is a season of reflection and preparation before the celebrations of Easter. By observing the 40 days of Lent, Christians replicate Jesus Christ's sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for 40 days. Lent is marked by fasting and abstaining from food and festivities.

Whereas Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus after his death on the cross, Lent recalls the events leading up to and including Jesus' crucifixion.

Why 40 days? 40 is a significant number in Jewish-Christian scripture:

In Genesis, the flood that destroyed the earth was brought about by 40 days and nights of rain.

The Hebrews spent 40 years in the wilderness before reaching the land promised to them by God.

Moses fasted for 40 days before receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry.  The generally accepted view of most Christians and indeed, the Church of England.

The calculation of the forty days has varied considerably in Christian history. It is now usual in the West to count them continuously to the end of Holy Week (not including Sundays), so beginning Lent on the sixth Wednesday before Easter, Ash Wednesday.

Liturgical dress is the simplest possible. Churches are kept bare of flowers and decoration. Gloria in excelsis is not used. The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare or Refreshment Sunday) was allowed as a day of relief from the rigour of Lent, and the Feast of the Annunciation almost always falls in Lent; these breaks from austerity are the background to the modern observance of Mothering Sunday on the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

Why is it called Lent?

Lent is an old English word meaning 'lengthen'. Lent is observed in spring, when the days begin to get longer.

East and West

Both the eastern and western churches observe Lent but they count the 40 days differently. The western church excludes Sundays (which is celebrated as the day of Christ's resurrection) whereas the eastern church includes them. The churches also start Lent on different days. Western churches start Lent on the 7th Wednesday before Easter Day, i.e. Ash Wednesday. Eastern churches start Lent on the Monday of the 7th week before Easter and end it on the Friday 9 days before Easter. Eastern churches call this period the 'Great Lent'.

2015 service for week of prayer for Christian Unity

On Saturday, 24^th January 2015, some 60 plus Christians of three different Christian denominations were join together in worship at the Chapel of the Église protestante unie de France in St. Pargoire in the Hérault.

 The service formed part of this year’s “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity”, an annual event involving Christian communities across the world and from almost every denomination. Each year, a different country selects the “theme” and this year it was Christians from Brazil. They chose the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, as the Bible reading.

This year’s service was organised by us (the English church in St. Pargoire), thus providing Roger with the opportunity to practise his French.  Departing from previous year’s, our service was bi-lingual with the Order of Service being prepared in English and French. André de Winne, who gave Roger’s sermon in French, ably assisted Roger. Bobbie and Nigel gave the readings in English. But perhaps the bravest of all were Ros, Terry, Alison, Bobbie and Vincent who sang a harmony at the service to illustrate Roger’s sermon, with only minimal time to practice!  And it came together at the last moment……..

In his sermon, Roger talked about Jesus showing us how to approach those who are different from us, for instance Christians of another denomination.  Jesus broke the taboos of his time by talking to somebody who was both a Samaritan and a woman; but most important he offered her the gift of eternal life. 

God made us wonderfully, gloriously different from each other and we should value those differences, singing different tunes as it were but making a harmonious whole.  Unity in diversity should be our aim.

Joining Roger, as Celebrant’s were Pasteur Jean-Paul Nunez of the Église protestante unie De France and Père Jean-Louis Lignon of the Catholic church.

After the exchanging of peace between members of the three churches, and this being France, wine and aperitifs were on offer.

For those members of the church who for whatever reason could not attend the service but would like to reflect upon the message of Christian Unity, you will find the order of Service on the church website under church paperwork.

Archbishop of Canterbury's NewYear message

Link to original article:

 http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5471/archbishop-of-canterburys-new-year-message-?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ArchbishopOfCanterbury+%28Archbishop+of+Canterbury%29

The World's 10 Most Popular Bible Verses of 2014

YouVersion studies which scriptures 164 million users shared and remembered most this year.

One takeaway: Most were searching for love.

Philippians made out well this year. The New Testament letter authored by the Apostle Paul contained 3 of the top 10 Bible verses that were most bookmarked, highlighted, and shared with YouVersion’s Bible app in 2014, according to an end-of-year analysis released today.

The No. 1 spot went to Romans 12:2 ["Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...." (NIV)]. But the fourth chapter of Philippians took No. 2 with verse 8, No. 3 with verse 6, and No. 6 with verse 7.

In order, the verses read: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

The entire Top 10: 1. Romans 12:2

2. Philippians 4:8

3. Philippians 4:6

4. Jeremiah 29:11

5. Matthew 6:33

6. Philippians 4:7

7. Proverbs 3:5

8. Isaiah 41:10

9. Matthew 6:34

10. Proverbs 3:6

These verses, and others, were shared nearly 69 million times this year. In fact, every second sees two verses shared through Twitter, Facebook, text messages, and email around the world, YouVersion said.

Philippians 4:6 was the only verse to stay on the top five from last year's list, which featured Philippians 4:13 as the No. 1 verse ["I can do all this through him who gives me strength" (NIV)]. Rounding out the top five most popular verses of 2013: Isaiah 40:31, Matthew 6:13, and Joshua 1:9. (Philippians 4:6 moved from No. 5 last year to No. 3 this year.)

Out of the 10 countries with the most YouVersion usage, Philippians 4:8 was the most popular verse in the United States, Brazil, and Nigeria in 2014, while Jeremiah 29:11 was the most popular verse in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Jeremiah 33:2-3 was the most popular verse in South Korea. Isaiah 41:10 was the most popular verse in Mexico and Colombia.

The verses that users share most are quite different from what they bookmark and highlight most. Philippians 4:8 was the only verse to also make the top 10 list of verses shared in 2014, placing fourth after Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Chronicles 16:34, and 2 Chronicles 7:14.

None of the top 10 most shared verses of 2013 made this year's list. Last year, Psalm 118:24 was the most shared verse worldwide.

Christianity Times (CT) previously noted how the Web's most-popular Bible verses match up—except for John 3:16. Once again, the key verse, which ranks high among other digital Bibles, failed to make YouVersion's top list of verses shared. But it does top recent lists of verses searched.

CT has spotlighted YouVersion's volunteer army, profiled its rise among other "social network gospels," and offers a Who's Next profile on founder Bobby Gruenewald. This fall, CT reported when YouVersion hit 1,000 offered translations, enabling 7 out of 10 of the world's inhabitants to read the Bible in their own language.

[Note: Bible GateWay also offers a year-end analysis of the Bible searches of 150 million visitors).

Link to original article: http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2014/december/worlds-10-most-popular-bible-verses-youversion-2014.html

Cartoons on the church website

For time to time, we have published cartoons on the website. He is another opportunity to see them. 

Nine Reasons People Aren’t Singing in Church

The following article appeared on an American Baptist website (http://blog.ncbaptist.org).

Is it True or False reflection of singing in C of E Churches today?

Nine Reasons People Aren’t Singing in Worship by Kenny Lamm Worship leaders around the world are sadly changing their church’s worship (often unintentionally) into a spectator event, and people are not singing any more.

Before discussing our present situation, let’s look back into history. Prior to the Reformation, worship was largely done for the people. The music was performed by professional musicians and sung in an unfamiliar language (Latin). The Reformation gave worship back to the people, including congregational singing which employed simple, attainable tunes with solid, scriptural lyrics in the language of the people. Worship once again became participatory. The evolution of the printed hymnal brought with it an explosion of congregational singing and the church’s love for singing increased. With the advent of new video technologies, churches began to project the lyrics of their songs on a screen, and the number of songs at a church’s disposal increased exponentially.

At first, this advance in technology led to more powerful congregational singing, but soon, a shift in worship leadership began to move the congregation back to pre-Reformation pew potatoes (spectators). What has occurred could be summed up as the re-professionalization of church music and the loss of a key goal of worship leading – enabling the people to sing their praises to God.

Simply put, we are breeding a culture of spectators in our churches, changing what should be a participative worship environment to a concert event. Worship is moving to its pre-Reformation mess. I see nine reasons congregations aren’t singing anymore:

1 They don’t know the songs. With the release of new songs weekly and the increased birthing of locally-written songs, worship leaders are providing a steady diet of the latest, greatest worship songs. Indeed, we should be singing new songs, but too high a rate of new song inclusion in worship can kill our participation rate and turn the congregation into spectators. I see this all the time. I advocate doing no more than one new song in a worship service, and then repeating the song on and off for several weeks until it becomes known by the congregation. People worship best with songs they know, so we need to teach and reinforce the new expressions of worship.

2 We are singing songs not suitable for congregational singing. There are lots of great, new worship songs today, but in the vast pool of new songs, many are not suitable for congregational singing by virtue of their rhythms (too difficult for the average singer) or too wide of a range (consider the average singer—not the vocal superstar on stage).

3 We are singing in keys too high for the average singer. The people we are leading in worship generally have a limited range and do not have a high range. When we pitch songs in keys that are too high, the congregation will stop singing, tire out, and eventually quit, becoming spectators. Remember that our responsibility is to enable the congregation to sing their praises, not to showcase our great platform voices by pitching songs in our power ranges. The basic range of the average singer is an octave and a fourth from A to D.

4 The congregation can’t hear people around them singing. If our music is too loud for people to hear each other singing, it is too loud. Conversely, if the music is too quiet, generally, the congregation will fail to sing out with power. Find the right balance—strong, but not over-bearing.

5 We have created worship services which are spectator events, building a performance environment. I am a strong advocate of setting a great environment for worship including lighting, visuals, inclusion of the arts, and much more. However when our environments take things to a level that calls undue attention to those on stage or distracts from our worship of God, we have gone too far. Excellence – yes. Highly professional performance – no.

6 The congregation feels they are not expected to sing. As worship leaders, we often get so involved in our professional production of worship that we fail to be authentic, invite the congregation into the journey of worship, and then do all we can to facilitate that experience in singing familiar songs, new songs introduced properly, and all sung in the proper congregational range.

7 We fail to have a common body of hymnody. With the availability of so many new songs, we often become haphazard in our worship planning, pulling songs from so many sources without reinforcing the songs and helping the congregation to take them on as a regular expression of their worship. In the old days, the hymnal was that repository. Today, we need to create song lists to use in planning our times of worship.

8 Worship leaders ad lib too much. Keep the melody clear and strong. The congregation is made up of sheep with limited ranges and limited musical ability. When we stray from the melody to ad lib, the sheep try to follow us and end up frustrated and quit singing. Some ad lib is nice and can enhance worship, but don’t let it lead your sheep astray.

9 Worship leaders are not connecting with the congregation. We often get caught up in our world of amazing music production and lose sight of our purpose of helping the congregation to voice their worship. Let them know you expect them to sing. Quote the Bible to promote their expressions of worship. Stay alert to how well the congregation is tracking with you and alter course as needed.

Once worship leaders regain the vision of enabling the congregation to be participants in the journey of corporate worship, I believe we can return worship to the people once again.

“Le Poulain”, the totemic animal of Pézenas,

“Le Poulain”, the totemic animal of Pézenas, was honoured recently at a festival in Barcelona.

The totemic animal and symbol of the town of Pézenas, was acknowledged as “décerné aux Amis du Poulain dans le cadre des festivitas bestiarum” 

Each year, Le Poulain festival takes place in Pezenas at the start of Lent ( late February or early March). The festival features a parade led by the local totem-animal from Pezenas: Le Poulain. 

Le Poulain is a mock horse constructed of a cloth head draped over a wooden frame. It is pushed through the streets of Pezenas in a grand procession. 

The history of Le Poulain festival dates back to 1226 when a foal was born to the favourite mare of King Louis VIII. 

The Le Poulain festival kicks off a three-day Mardi-Gras festival in Pezenas, which is one of the highlights of the Languedoc festival calendar.

Regular Gardening column - January's 2015

In the garden – January 

 It has been an incredibly mild December so at the time of writing this there are still flowers on plants like sages, perennial morning glory and Plumbago capensis which in most years would have been cut back by the frost by now. These flowers will all disappear once some real cold weather arrives. 


However, there are other plants which give colour during the winter months; the Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica or Néflier du Japon) is an evergreen tree with scented white flowers in the winter and rosemary is always a delight too since it tends to start flowering in December and continue until February. Anisodontea malvastroides is a fast growing shrub that can reach about 1m20 in height and spread and flowers for most of the year, it is closely related to Lavatera and tends to be short lived but it is a great filler plant.

We think of January as a quieter time of year in the garden but there are plenty of jobs that can be tackled that will give you a head start for the gardening year.

• Remove piles of wet dead leaves from flower beds as the damp can encourage rot, if possible add the dead leaves to your compost heap or use them to make leafmould
• General weeding of flower beds
• Spread some organic material (compost, rotted manure etc) onto your flower beds
• Ornamental trees can be pruned for shape
• Check on any plants which are staked to make sure that the stakes are firm against the winter winds
• Prune ivies and ornamental climbers, start pruning roses.
• Sprinkle some slow release fertiliser
• Continue to protect tender plants against the cold.
• There is still time to plant trees and shrubs, including hedging, except if the ground is frozen.
• If you haven’t yet done so then it is time to winter prune wisteria, cutting back to two or three buds on this years stems.
• If you have a greenhouse or conservatory you can start to take cuttings of tender plants such as geraniums that you took in for the winter.

The more attractive garden task when the weather is cold and damp is doing some reading and planning for the warmer weather! If anyone is interested I have a list of books relevant to gardening locally and would be happy to email it to you. The website of Mediterranean Gardening France is a useful resource too - http://www.mediterraneangardeningfrance.org/ Although it is not focussed for gardening the the Languedoc the website of the Royal Horticultural Society in Britain remains an invaluable source of general information - http://www.rhs.org.uk/ And if you are thinking of planning some garden visits for the spring and summer the following French sites which are directories of local gardens are very useful for discovering gardens to visit - www.jardinslanguedoc.com   and www.pjmp.eu

Very best wishes for 2015 from La Petite Pépinière!

Pictures: 

Top      Anisodontea malvasrtoides

Middle   Eriobotrya japonica

Bottom  Rosmarinus officinalis

We do circulate information about activities at La Petite Pépinière to our own mailing list, if you would like to kept up to date about events here just drop us an email and ask to included on our circulation list.

For further information and gardening queries contact Gill Pound at La Petite Pépinière de Caunes (shrubs and perennials, unusual plants and plants for dry climates), 21, Avenue de la Montagne Noire, 11160, Caunes-Minervois. Tel: 04 68 78 43 81, email Gill@lapetitepepiniere.com www.lapetitepepiniere.com

We do not have regular opening times for the garden or nursery during the winter but are always by appointment; just email or phone to make an arrangement.

Prevent devastating climate change.

The chaplaincy of the Midi Pyrenees has a link to a website which urges our global leaders to prevent devastating climate change.

The UN is asking people of religious and spiritual faith to speak up so loudly that we put the moral case for action at the heart of the Talks, thus encouraging our global leaders to take the decisive action that's needed.

If you would like to add your name to the petition, please visit the website 

http://www.ourvoices.net

So what colour was Jesus? By Giles Wilson BBC News Online Magazine

Jesus has been named the top black icon by the New Nation newspaper. Their assertion that Jesus was black has raised eyebrows in some quarters - so what colour was he?

Just as no one will ever produce proof for the existence of God, the question of Jesus's colour may always be a matter for personal belief.

Was he white, white-ish, olive-skinned, swarthy, dark-skinned or black? There are people who believe he was any one of those shades, but there seem to be only two things about the debate that can be said with any degree of certainty.

First - if the past 2,000 years of Western art were the judge, Jesus would be white, handsome, probably with long hair and an ethereal glow.

Second - it can almost certainly be said that Jesus would not have been white. His hair was also probably cut short.

Yet the notion that Jesus was black - highlighted this week in a survey of black icons by the New Nation newspaper which ranked him at number one - is genuinely held by some. One school of thought has it that Jesus was part of a tribe which had migrated from Nigeria.

And Jesus probably did have some African links - after all the conventional theory is that he lived as a child in Egypt where, presumably, his appearance did not make him stand out.

The New Nation takes it further: "Ethiopian Christianity, which pre-dates European Christianity, always depicts Christ as an African and it generally agreed that people of the region where Jesus came from looked nothing like Boris Johnson," the paper says. As light-hearted evidence that Jesus was black, it adds that he "called everybody 'brother', liked Gospel, and couldn't get a fair trial".

But the truth, says New Testament scholar Dr Mark Goodacre, of the University of Birmingham, is probably somewhere in between.

"There is absolutely no evidence as to what Jesus looked like," he says. "The artistic depictions down the ages have total and complete variation, which indicates that nobody did a portrait of Jesus or wrote down a description, it's all been forgotten."

Dr Goodacre was involved in the reconstruction of a Middle Eastern first century skull for the BBC's Son of God programme in 2001, which resulted in a suggestion of what a man like Jesus might have looked like. He advised on hair and skin colour.

"The hair was the easiest - there's a reference in Paul which says it's disgraceful for a man to wear long hair, so it looks pretty sure that people of that period had to have reasonably short hair. The traditional depictions of Jesus with long flowing golden hair are probably inaccurate."

Deciding on skin colour was more difficult, though. But the earliest depictions of Jews, which date from the 3rd Century, are - as far as can be determined - dark-skinned.

"We do seem to have a relatively dark skinned Jesus. In contemporary parlance I think the safest thing is to talk about Jesus as 'a man of colour'." This probably means olive-coloured, he says.

Professor Vincent Wimbush, of California's Claremont Graduate University, who is an expert on ethnic interpretations of the Bible, says the matter of the historical colour of Jesus seems to him a "flat, dead-end issue".

"He's of Mediterranean stock, and it's quite clear what that means. We see people like that in the world today, and that should end the matter." The fact that the debate rages on regardless is fascinating, he says, because of what it says about people's other issues.

The artistic representations of Jesus which are so familiar are not necessarily a negative thing, Dr Goodacre says. There is "theologically something quite profound" in the fact that throughout history people have tried to depict Jesus in their own image.

"This is not a rough image of themselves people have been depicting. It's an ideal image of themselves, painting Jesus as something they are aspiring to.

"Things have changed a bit in recent culture because people are conscious of the need to be challenged by him and shocked. I think that's why in more contemporary representations, even those coming from a white, western background, people will think very carefully about the representation."

Even the world of film is catching up, albeit slowly. Robert Powell had famously piercing blue eyes in Jesus of Nazareth in 1977. And although Jim Caviezel, who played the lead in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, also has piercing blue eyes, by the time the film was shown they had miraculously become brown.

Dec 27

2014 Quiz -Courtesy of BBC - Mark Easton Home editor

1. Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe competed for Mexico in alpine skiing at the Sochi Winter Olympics this year, dressed as a mariachi. He really did. The prince was the oldest skier in Winter Olympic history. How old?

2. The Chinese version of eBay, Alibaba, was launched on the New York Stock Exchange this year. After one day as a public company, what was its value put at in $bns?

3.  Connie Paulgrave bowed out of public life this year, "too old to bear media fuss", it was said. Connie, better known as Koni, is President Putin's black Labrador, who often roamed uninvited into top-level diplomatic meetings. How many Russian satellites are used to keep track of Koni's movements?

4.  There was a record turnout in Scotland's independence referendum this year of 84.6%. But what proportion of Scots voted in the European elections this year?

5.  There are more cars on Britain's roads than ever - the latest estimate is 29.7m. But more cars mean more traffic jams. What is the current average speed on English 'A' roads in mph?

6.  Far from the dreams of a white Christmas, last winter was the wettest on record in Britain, with rainfall 65% above average. How much rain fell in mm?

7.  The Rosetta spacecraft captured the world's attention when its lander touched down on a comet in November. Named after the Rosetta stone, which unlocked the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the spacecraft carries a micro-etched disk inscribed with text in a number of Earthling languages. How many?

8.  In August this year, a chef in Guangdong province, China, was killed while preparing a local speciality made from cobra flesh. How many minutes after he had started cooking the snake's body did he receive the deadly bite from the decapitated head?

9.  According to figures released this year, what proportion of 10-15 year olds in England and Wales have a negative opinion of the police?

10.  How many special-edition footballs (training and match balls) were used by players during the 2014 World Cup in Rio?

11. Figures out this year reveal that the average English city dweller walks 202 miles a year. How many miles does the English village dweller walk?

12.  Stoke City goalkeeper Asmi Begovic was credited this year with scoring the longest ever goal in competitive football. What, in metres, was the official measurement of his wonder-strike?

13. How many people in the UK sent off a postal vote for the European elections this year, but forgot to put their voting slip in the envelope?

14.  The selfie has been an almost unavoidable feature of 2014, and none attracted more attention than film star Bradley Cooper's star-studded selfie at the Oscars that included Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep among others. Tweeted by Ellen DeGeneres, how many times does Twitter say the photo had been re-tweeted?

15.  UK schoolchildren do an average of 4.9 hours of homework a week, according to figures published by the OECD this year. How many hours do pupils in Russia do each week?

16.  Reflecting the fashion for beards, the organisers of the Parliamentary Beard of the Year competition (now in its 15th year) had so many entries they held a pre-final beard-off for the first time. How many MPs and peers put their faces forward in 2014?

17.  For the past 20 years, the Gay family from LaGrangeville in New York State have decorated their home with ever-more elaborate Christmas lights. This year's display saw them regain the world record for "most lights on a residential property". How many lights?

18.  How many people now cycle to work in central London, according to statistics published this year?

19. Teenager Chris McKernan, from Tunbridge Wells, hit the press in January after suffering a hiccup attack lasting two months. How many times was it estimated that he hiccupped?

20.  Musician Stuart Hampton found a mutated Hula Hoop while snacking on a packet of salt and vinegar in bed this year. He decided to sell the three-inch long hoop on eBay. How much did it finally go for?

ANSWERS

1.  55; 2. 231 (Bigger than Amazon and eBay combined) 3. 21; 4. 33.5% (lower than the UK average); 5. 24.3; 6. 545; 7. 1000; 8. 20; 9. 4%; 10. 3240; 11. 109; 12. 91.9; 13. 26,376; 14. 3.4 million; 15. 9.7 16. 18; 17. 601,736; 18. 106,219; 19. 1.4 million (24,000 per day); 20. £712