GIFT AID ENVELOPES 2026/2027:- As always, our grateful thanks to all those who are able to make financial contribution to the parish via the ‘Gift Aid’ scheme. For those who do so via the envelope system, we are pleased to tell you the envelopes for this tax year 26/27 are available in the sacristy, please collect your box with your name on a printed label on it at the earliest opportunity. Very many thanks. If you are a tax payer and are not already in the ‘Gift Aid’ scheme, might we encourage you to ‘join’ as we are able to get a further 25p in every £1.00 you contribute from the Inland Revenue, so, your £4.00 becomes £5.00. Do please give consideration to this. Again, very many thanks.
The dawn crow of the cockerel in the Passion Narrative: - (Part 2) The Midrash, about King Solomon who desires to build the Temple, the shamir and the Hoopoe begins by announcing that King Solomon got himself a male and female demon (derived from shiddah and shiddot which could mean ‘singers’ (see Jerusalem Bible version) but is obscure enough, according to the footnote, to possibly mean demons) who, in turn, eventually got a hold of the king of the demons, Ashmedai, who pointed King Solomon in the direction of the hoopoe, the guardian of the ‘shamir’. The text continues:- “Solomon replied, “I want nothing at all that is yours. But because I desire to build the Temple, I need the shamir.” Ashmedai (the king of demons) said to him. “ The shamir was not placed in my charge but given to the prince of the sea, and he gave sole charge of it to the wild cock, (the hoopoe) who is entrusted with it on oath. Do you know what he does with it? He takes it to an uninhabited mountain and sets it down upon a peak, and the mountain splits asunder. Then the wild cock gathers seeds of trees and scatters them in the split, which consequently attracts settlers .” (Hence the Aramai Targum calls the wild cock the “splitter of mountains.”)” (See:- “The Book of Legends Sefer Ha-Aggadah” No. 122 P. 130 Ed. Hayim Nahman Ravnitzky, Schocken Books, New York, 1992) If, in Judaism at the time of our Lord, the cockerel announces the new day and the call to first prayers, the clearing by the priestly caste of the ashes of the previous days sacrificial oblations in the Temple as preparation for sacrifices of the new day, and indeed, the cockerel is recognised as the one who has charge of the shamir then surely, we can equate the shamir with our Lord and the wood of the cross! The cross upon which our Lord was nailed, would have been erected in the rock, that is, it would have split the rock, and so we could say that symbolically, Christ is indeed the shamir who ‘attracts settlers’, the new Covenant, which is the Church, and therefore it is no surprise, the shamir disappeared after the building of the Second Temple, because Christ is the shamir, the tool required to build the (new) Temple, announced by the cockerel on Good Friday morning. When, as the Gospel recounts our Lord died upon the cross, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom (Mk 15:37, Matt 27:51) and thus the Covenant of Sinai is superseded, the New and Everlasting Covenant (of the Church) is established through the Resurrection of Jesus and the institution of the Ministerial priesthood and the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper; these surely all point to Jesus as being the shamir. The cock crow on that Good Friday would see our Lord died upon the Cross and again, as the Gospel relates, there was an earthquake and the ground was split open and the souls of many rose from the dead (Matt 27:51). Is it that Christ is the shamir, the tool who enables the new temple to be built, the ‘keystone’ over which many would stumble, but upon whom, the Church, the New Temple or Tabernacle is built? In which case, the dawn crow of the cockerel, the splitter of stone, if the Gospel narrative references the Midrash, is of greater significance than we may think!
Many thanks for your Easter Offering, details of which, should be available next weekend; thanks also for the cake, chocolate, wine and Easter cards, the latter not having been consumed, but the others are a work in progress. Thanks also to all those who helped with the Holy Week liturgies in various ways! Thanks to those who prepared things in the sacristy, the flower arrangers, who made the church look so beautiful. Our thanks to our altar servers, who gave their time not only for the liturgies, but the rehearsals as well! A lot of time on their feet! Thanks to those who did the readings each day and to those who assisted with the music. Also, to take the opportunity to thank all those of you who help in the life of the parish in so many varied and different ways; particular thanks to those who look after the church linen, the flower arrangers, to the Special Ministers of Holy Communion, especially those who go out to the sick and housebound with Holy Communion; thanks to the gift aid organiser, the money counters, the finance team, the sacristans, the readers rota organisers, those who tidy up both in and around the church, attending to the plants, drains etc. the cleaners, the ‘Core Team’ and the roles they have undertaken, those who look after the coffee after the Masses on Sunday and Tuesday, those who organise and prepare the ‘First Friday lunch’ and of course the people that I will have forgotten to mention. Thanks also to Maria for the generous manner in which she has taken on the role of parish secretary, especially in getting the hall bookings sorted out and up to date. Again, my thanks, Fr. Ian