Dear St Mary’s, 

On 22nd March, the Fifth Sunday of Lent – which is also known as ‘Passion Sunday’ – we will share Holy Communion at 9am followed by our monthly Intergenerational Service (all ages together) at 10.30am. Revd Vanessa Conant will preside/ lead and Revd Tim Scott will preach at 9am with Revd Jacintha Danaswamy giving a short reflection at 10.30am. 

On Passion Sunday, the atmosphere of Lent changes as we anticipate the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday followed by his arrest and execution. For those who are unable to join us in person this Sunday, we will livestream the 9am service to Facebook. 

Later on Sunday, there will be evening prayer held in the church at 6pm led by the St Luke’s Community. This Sunday, we also have an end-of-term celebration for our youth group, with games, snacks and pizza from 5pm in the Welcome Centre. For more information on our youth group, email Revd Jacintha Danaswamy at . 

Upcoming Opening/ Closing Times for St Mary’s Play Area and Ruttle & Rowe Cafe 
Please note that there will be changes to the opening and closing times for our church Play Area and Ruttle & Rowe cafe in the coming days and weeks: 

• Cafe/Play Area closed on Thursday 19th March from 11.30am for a funeral 
• Both open on Saturday 21st March until 11.30am, then closed for a wedding 
• Play Area closed on Thursday 26th March, cafe service through the outdoor hatch
• The Play Area will be closed on Friday 27th March, but the cafe will be open with service through the outdoor hatch and seating outside and in the Exhibition Space 
• Cafe/Play Area closed on Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Monday

Holy Week and Easter Volunteers 
Every year, we welcome hundreds of people to St Mary’s to share in Holy Week and Easter services. We can’t do that without the generosity and kindness of our church members who welcome, host and guide. If you are able to help prepare resources, serve refreshments or welcome people for services, sign up here or email for more information. Full training will be provided if you are serving in a role for the first time. 

Holy Week and Easter 2026 
Join us for Holy Week and Easter at St Mary’s and in the Parish which begins on Palm Sunday (29th March) and will include a reading of the Passion Story and a procession with palms around the church. On Tuesday 31st March, we will offer Stations of the Cross at 7.30pm. On Wednesday 1st April, St Mary’s will host a Tenebrae service at 7.30pm, which will feature a reading of the Passion story with music and poetry. On Thursday 2nd April at 7.30pm, there will be a Maundy Thursday Holy Communion at St Gabriel’s. 

And then on Good Friday 3rd April, there will be Morning Prayer with Hymns at St Mary’s at 9am; a 10.30am Messy Good Friday service at St Mary’s for children and families with crafts; a 12-3pm Watch at the Cross at St Gabriel’s; and a Quiet Easter service for neurodiverse children at 2pm at St Mary’s (booking required – sign up link coming soon). In the evening, there will be a 7.30pm Good Friday Service at St Mary’s. There will be no services on Holy Saturday. On Easter Sunday, we will have an Easter Sunday Dawn Service with Easter Fire outside St Mary’s at 6.30am; a 9am Easter Holy Communion at St Mary’s; and a 10.30am Easter Family Communion at St Mary’s. 

Knitting & Crochet Group Paused for Two Saturdays 
Our drop-in Knitting & Crochet group, which meets on Saturdays in our Exhibition Space from 10am to 12pm, will not meet this Saturday (21st March) or next Saturday (28th March), but will return on Saturday 4th April. There may however be a meet up on a weekday; for details on that, or any questions about the group, email . 

Bishop Guli to Visit St Mary’s on the Afternoon of 23rd March  
During Lent, Rt Revd Dr Guli Francis-Deqhani, Bishop of Chelmsford, is making a pilgrimage around our area, visiting art works in churches and taking time to pray. On Monday 23rd March at 3.20pm, Bishop Guli will visit St Mary’s. You are welcome to join her for this and for the rest of her pilgrimage around Waltham Forest, which, after St Mary’s, will continue on to St Barnabas Church, Walthamstow, and will end at St Andrew’s, Leytonstone, around 5pm. 

Join Other Christians on 28th March in Celebrating Love, Hope and Unity 
On Saturday 28th March, a coalition of civil society organisations – including churches and Christian charities – are gathering in Central London to walk for hope, love and compassion in the face of rising movements of division and hostility. Called ‘Together’, this march will be a family-friendly day of welcome, unity and prayer, with activities for children as part of the day and a Christian Bloc which will march together. We are hoping to take a group from St Mary’s. Find out more about the march here or at togetheralliance.org.uk. To join us, register your interest here or email Revd Vanessa Conant at . 

Welcoming Matt Begg and Harry Moore 
We are pleased to welcome two new members to our staff team. Matt Begg – a member of our congregation who has a background in music education – will start next week as our new Schools’ Worker, a role which has been made possible with project-specific Church of England funding. And Harry Moore, who started earlier this year, is our part-time Operations Assistant, helping to do compliance checks and maintenance tasks in the mornings. 

New Foodshare in the Welcome Centre: Opportunities to Volunteer
Over the last few months, St Mary’s has partnered with Kindwell, a local charity, to offer a foodshare for local residents. Taking unwanted, surplus food from local suppliers, each Sunday evening at 7.15pm, local people can collect free, high quality food from the Welcome Centre, reducing food waste and ensuring as many people as possible have access to good food. After an initial trial, we are delighted to continue hosting the foodshare and Kindwell are now looking for volunteers to collect food (from Marks and Spencers in Woodford, Gail’s in Walthamstow Village, or Marks & Spencer’s in Leytonstone) or set up and serve (7-8pm). For more information or to volunteer, email Hilda Jackson at . 

Introduction to the Bible Course in April 
We are pleased to announce a new Introduction to the Bible course, beginning after Easter on Thursday 16th April and the following three Thursdays in St Mary’s. If the Bible fascinates, challenges, delights, or troubles you, come along to this course which aims to help you know a little more about how to read the Bible, the shape and structure of the Bible, its history and development, and how to approach difficult passages. Led by our lay minister Rob Duddridge, the course is a great opportunity to learn alongside others. Register interest here or speak to Rob or Vanessa on to find out more. 

Join St Mary’s Children’s Ministry Team
Children’s Ministry is one of the fastest growing parts of our church life, with occasionally as many as 60 children at our 10.30am service. We celebrate this and recognise that in order to respond to this growth, we need to build our team of Children’s Ministry leaders and helpers, as we currently have a small team. Leaders plan and host each session but there are also roles for helpers, who support and assist. Training and support is provided for anyone interested in serving in this way and we follow safer recruitment processes when appointing volunteers. If you are interested in having a conversation about joining the team, sign up via this form or email Revd Jacintha Danaswamy at . 

Save the Date: Waltham Forest Citizens’ Assembly on 22nd April at 6.30pm
For nearly 15 years, St Mary’s has been a member of the Waltham Forest Citizens’ Alliance. This is a group of local schools, colleges, community groups and faith communities working together on issues which promote the Common Good. Over the years, we have organised around affordable housing, climate and youth safety. On Wednesday 22nd April, St Mary’s is hosting a borough-wide assembly in advance of the local council elections on 7th May, meeting with candidates for the election and bringing before them the stories of local people and the issues which matter most to us. This is positive politics where we demonstrate the power of local institutions and their members and show the possibilities for working together across difference. Assemblies are dynamic, fun and inspiring. Save the date and join us! 

Joining the Electoral Roll 
If you consider St Mary’s to be your church home and would like to make a commitment to our church, you can join the electoral roll (different to the roll which allows you to vote in local elections). To join, you must be over 16 and baptised. Joining means that you are eligible to serve on our parish trustee board (PCC) and vote at our annual meeting (APCM), but more importantly, it means that you feel a part of St Mary’s and want to affirm that sense of belonging. You can sign up for the electoral roll here or by visiting stmaryswalthamstow.org/electoralroll. If you signed up last year, you do not need to sign up again as your name will remain on the roll until 2031 unless you ask to be removed. Please speak to Vanessa or email if you have any questions.

Openings for Regular Classes in the Welcome Centre 
We have space for new regular bookings in the Welcome Centre – our church hall located across the churchyard from St Mary’s – and invite anyone looking for space to get in touch. Alongside monthly giving from our congregation (which is our largest source of income), a significant source of income comes from regular hires of our Welcome Centre lounge and hall – money which helps us keep the church open in the week. The Welcome Centre is a great space for after-school activities, choir rehearsals, fitness classes and baby and toddler groups. To get in touch, visit welcomecentreE17.org and fill out our enquiry form. 

Giving Monthly to St Mary’s 
Your financial support is crucial as we work to keep St Mary’s ancient building open to the whole community throughout the week, to support Walthamstow and to share the love of Christ with all. Your donations make this possible as we receive no direct, ongoing support for the day-to-day running of St Mary’s from the Church of England or from the government. Monthly giving is particularly transformative as it allows us to plan, budget, and even expand our work in the community. If you would like to become a monthly giver, we would encourage you to sign up via the Parish Giving Scheme which you can find here or by going to stmaryswalthamstow.org/donate and clicking on the Parish Giving Scheme link. 

Safeguarding 
St Mary’s takes safeguarding seriously and works hard to ensure that our church is a safe place for everyone. If you see anything that concerns you at St Mary’s, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Safeguarding Officer Emma Clements at . You can also contact the Diocese of Chelmsford at or Waltham Forest Council at 020 8496 2310. 

Please pray this week for:

• An end to the violence around the world, including in Iran and around the Middle East 
• The meningitis outbreak at the University of Kent
• Campaigners and people of goodwill to make the case for a fair, fast transition away from polluting fossil fuels – the overuse of which continue to upend geopolitics 
• The impact of higher energy prices on all, especially the most vulnerable 
• Churches around the world, especially churches ministering in places of conflict 
• All who are exploring faith at St Mary’s this Lent, and for our entire church and parish as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter, that we would be changed by Christ’s love 
• All in need of work, especially those who have been out of work for some time 
• Cost of living pressures, including high food prices, as well as for services/ ministries attempting to help, including our Walthamstow Welcomes cafe and new foodshare 
• Those who feel marginalised or lonely in our community, that our church would be a place of welcome, healing, connection and hope 
• In this Neurodiversity Celebration Week, for all who are neurodiverse as well as for greater understanding and appreciation of neurodivergence across society 
• All in our parish who are unwell in body, mind or spirit: for hope, help and healing 
• All students, parents/carers and school staff as schools prepare for Easter Holidays 

Reflection: ‘The Light Will Always Outshine the Darkness’ 
Revd Vanessa Conant, Rector of St Mary’s and the Parish of Walthamstow, writes:  

An article in The Guardian drew my attention this week. Its headline read, ‘The light will always outshine the darkness.’ Perhaps it was the resonance with the prologue of John’s gospel, those words we read each Christmas – ‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it’ – which caught my eye. Perhaps it is because I often say these words quietly to myself as prayerful reassurance whenever the world feels frightening or uncertain or out of control (as it quite often does these days). 

Reading on, I discovered that the article was describing the life and work of a remarkable man: trauma surgeon, Shehan Hettiaratchy, who has operated with great courage and fortitude in the midst of a terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge and on surgical missions to Ukraine or Gaza. 

I was particularly struck by his advice to his medical students on encountering tragic situations. He writes, ‘I think they should stay horrified by what they see – they need to stay shocked..otherwise you’ve lost your humanity.’ Rather than detaching emotionally from the horrors of war or human cruelty, Dr Hettiaratchy believes profound human-to-human connection is what is needed in healthcare and in the world. 

On Sunday, the church enters Passiontide, the two weeks leading up to Easter Sunday in which we reflect particularly on Jesus’ journey to the cross, his death and resurrection. While this is a time I treasure in the church – I often find the services moving and profound – there is always the danger that the familiarity of the story inures us to its full impact. Sometimes, it’s hard to stay horrified; it’s hard to stay shocked. 

And yet the crucifixion of Jesus is profoundly shocking. It is deeply horrifying. It was a humiliating, degrading and excruciatingly painful punishment – one which the Romans often reserved for rebellious slaves. Death is protracted (often taking 3-4 days) and it is public. Your suffering is an object of ridicule, you can do nothing to protect yourself as people watch you struggle to lift yourself up to gasp for breath. Your dying is, as historian Tom Holland writes, ‘A billboard for Roman power.’

Christians believe that it is here, in the midst of the horror, that the world is redeemed. We believe that by the grace of God, this symbol of torture, becomes a sign of glory. The one who suffers the death of a slave is the author of all creation. The victim has triumphed over the persecutor. Sin and death have been defeated – and he who was killed as the lowest of the low is raised as Lord of all.

 The light will always outshine the darkness. 

It is hard to convey how shocking this was in Roman culture. Even St Paul, writing about the cross, has to grapple with its astounding reality – how this appalling death upends everything people understand about power and greatness and victory.

I expect it’s still pretty shocking now. As the world reels from devastating displays of human might, as documentaries about the ‘manosphere’ reveal thinly veiled worlds of distorted power, as political (and even religious) movements wage war on empathy, it seems the message of the cross remains bewildering and discomfiting to those more at ease with domination and violence. 

And yet for thousands of years, the death and resurrection of Jesus have also inspired followers of Christ to do as he did. Out of love for neighbour, and in pursuit of mercy, justice and the Kingdom of God, people of the Jesus way have risked (and lost) their lives. They have done so because Christ provided a model of suffering – and of triumph over suffering – and that those who follow him can share in it. 

I wonder, this Passiontide, how we might remain shocked by the story of Jesus’ suffering as we hear the Easter story again. And how that horror might help us to understand both the love of God more fully and retain our humanity. Maybe, like Hettiaratchy, not looking away as we hear the Gospel accounts are read again might mean that we, trusting in Christ’s triumph, are capable of our own courageous acts of self-giving love, each able to live in such a way that joyfully and hopefully proclaims: the light will always outshine the darkness. 

With love, 

Vanessa