Dear St Mary’s, 

On 12th July – the Sixth Sunday of Trinity – we will celebrate Holy Communion at 9am followed by Morning Worship at 10.30am, a service which will include a baptism. Revd Jacintha Danaswamy will preside/ lead and Revd Vanessa Conant will preach. 

There will be supervised children’s groups at 10.30am and a Baby Lounge at both services. 

This Sunday’s lectionary readings are Romans 8:1-11 and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23. 

Later on Sunday, our youth group (Year 6 through Secondary School) will meet in the Welcome Centre at 5pm, while at 6pm, the St Luke’s Community will say evening prayer in the church and all are welcome. We hope to see you this Sunday at St Mary’s! 

St Mary’s to Host East London Brass Band This Saturday 11th July: Tickets Available 
Join us at St Mary’s on Saturday 11th July at 7pm for an evening of Summer Brass with the award-winning East London Brass Band as we raise money for St Mary’s. Tickets are £10 (+ processing fee) for adults or £5 (+ processing fee) for children and young people, and we will run a card-only bar on the night. Based in Walthamstow, East London Brass is a championship section brass band with a reputation that extends far beyond our local area. You can purchase tickets here or by going to stmaryswalthamstow.org/SummerBrass. 

Youth Group Summer Social on 19th July 
Our Youth Group will have an end of term Summer Social on Sunday 19th July from 5-6.15pm in the Welcome Centre – their last meeting until the new school term begins. For details, please email Revd Jacintha Danaswamy at . 

Summer Sundays from 19th July 
Beginning Sunday 19th July and running through Sunday 30th August, our 10.30am service will look slightly different. For these seven weeks, both our 9am and 10.30am services will be services of Holy Communion, with the 10.30am service lasting approximately one hour. There will be no supervised children’s groups at 10.30am throughout the summer but we will have activity packs for children to work on in the service and our sermons will be shorter than usual. On Sunday 6th September, we will return to our normal pattern of having supervised children’s groups on the first three weeks of the month at our 10.30am service, with Holy Communion celebrated on the first and third Sundays of the month at 10.30am. 

Pastoral Contacts Over Summer 
Over the summer weeks, our clergy and staff team will be taking periods of rest. Please be aware that it may take longer to get a response to an enquiry and that there will be times where very few staff are available. That said, there will be pastoral cover throughout the summer, and the pastoral contacts for different weeks of the summer are as follows:

• 18th-25th July: Revd Jacintha Danaswamy () 
• 26th July-3rd August: Revd Tim Scott () 
• From 3rd August: Revd Vanessa Conant () 

Vestry Sessions at St Mary’s: Tango with El Chamuyo Quartet on 17th July
On Friday 17th July at 8pm (doors at 7.30pm), join our music partners Vestry Sessions for a night of Latin dance, live music, food and a bar, with El Chamuyo Quartet performing famous tangos alongside more obscure ones. There will be a dance performance and in the second half the floor will be opened up for a Milonga. Don’t feel like dancing? There will be ample seating for those who want to sit, sip and listen. Purchase tickets here with early bird tickets for £11 each (+ booking fee), or visit wegottickets.com and search ‘Vestry Sessions’. 

Spaces Now Available: Summer Saturday Churchyard Volunteer Sessions 
This summer, St Mary’s Head Gardener Tim Hewitt is running free Saturday sessions from 10am-Noon for volunteer gardeners who have struggled to attend Tim’s regular weekday sessions – an opportunity to learn new skills, meet new people and better understand the principles of gardening for wildlife. Due to anticipated demand, Tim is asking people to book in advance as spaces will be limited for each session. The free Saturday sessions will begin on 25th July and run the following five Saturdays through the end of August. Book here or find a booking link at stmaryswalthamstow.org/SummerSaturdays. 

Churchyard Tours in July and August to Raise Money for St Mary’s 
Join us for a tour of the award-winning St Mary’s Churchyard led by our head gardener Tim Hewitt as we raise money for the church. Learn about gardening for biodiversity, explore the stunning planting around the churchyard, and discover some of the wildlife that calls St Mary’s Churchyard home. Finish the tour with a cup of locally-grown herbal tea. Tickets are £10 each (+ booking fee) with three dates to choose from: Wednesday 22nd July at 6pm, Wednesday 5th August at 6pm, or Wednesday 19th August at 6pm. Click here to book a churchyard tour, or visit stmaryswalthamstow.org/ChurchyardTours. 

Volunteers Needed for Free Summer Activities for Children in August 
After the success of our 2025 Summer Activity Programme, we are planning to offer another week of free children’s activities, 24th-27th August. Throughout the week, we will hold two free sessions per day for children and their parents/carers (10am-12pm and 1.30-3.30pm). The plan is to run outdoor fete games, crafts, board games and a movie day, and we are looking to build a team to serve our community. If you are available to help out at one or more sessions, please email Revd Vanessa Conant at . 

Fundraising Goal Met for St Mary’s School Leavers’ Bibles 
We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all who donated money for us to purchase Bibles for this year’s St Mary’s Primary School Leavers. With your support, we raised enough money to purchase Bibles for all 87 St Mary’s children who are preparing to go to secondary school in the autumn. And for many of these children, it will be the first Bible they have ever received. It’s such a lovely way for our church to bless these young people – thank you! 

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:

• Those we met at Waltham Forest Pride, that they would know and experience God’s welcome, acceptance and love, and for our upcoming Inclusive Church Eucharist 
• All who have been impacted by the Venezuela earthquake, as well as for other places where there is war or tragedy, including Sudan, DRC, Ukraine, Gaza, Iran  
• Jon and Lucy and their new baby, Maeve 
• All who are getting married over the summer, including couples marrying at St Mary’s
• Iris, who has been on work experience with us this past week at St Mary’s 
• Children being baptised on Sunday, as well as for their families and godparents 
• All who are unwell in any way, praying especially for those undergoing tests, receiving treatment, or preparing for surgery: for hope, help and healing 
• A fair, fast transition to renewable energy and a move away from planet-heating fossil fuels, as well as for more public funding to mitigate the impacts of global heating 
• The current Prime Minister as well as for the incoming Prime Minister: for wisdom and a willingness to work for the Common Good even when that it is difficult 
• The US and Iran conflict: for a peaceful resolution and a return to diplomacy 
• All who are struggling financially in our parish and across the whole of Walthamstow and Waltham Forest, including any small businesses which are currently struggling
• More people to come to faith in our parish, and for us to find new ways of introducing people to the love of God and building lasting connections and relationships 

Reflection: ‘All That Matters’ 
Revd Jacintha Danaswamy, Curate at St Mary’s, writes: 

In recent years, I have come to cherish early mornings, a time of day when the world is still and peaceful and gently coming to life. There is a real gift in beginning the day slowly with a good cup of coffee, before the day moves into a busier pace. 

The stillness is nourishing, a preparation for the day’s activities.

As we enter our third heatwave of the year, my morning routine is marked, firstly, by moving around the house, opening all the upstairs’ windows, letting in the cooler morning breeze, and encouraging the air to flow, pushing out the heat and stuffiness of the previous night. 

It’s lovely to see the thermometer move slowly down from 30C to 26C. In it, there is a sense of relief and respite – but also a reminder that our routines and practices must shift as we respond to extreme weather. In fact, so many of the conversations I’ve had recently have centred around the challenges of the heat – from our concerns for the vulnerable to sharing ways to stay cool as we learn to navigate a different way of living.

Recently at St Mary’s we hosted two amazing climate films – both thought-provoking, engaging, and inspiring. They powerfully demonstrated the current climate and ecological emergency, and were also a hopeful and encouraging call to action – a call to not only adapt to how we respond to the extreme heat, but also to adapt how we live, which will involve moving away from using fossil fuels in order to protect our environment and natural world.

Our Gospel reading for this Sunday is from Matthew 13, the parable of the sower, where Jesus deeply connects our faith with the allegory of growing seeds and good soil. As we read the passage, we see that Christian flourishing is deeply interwoven with God’s creation: 

‘But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.’ – Matthew 13:23

This growth and interrelationship contrasts with the seed on rocks or thorns that cannot grow. As Irish priest and poet John O’Donoghue writes, ‘the raw material of Jesus’ language was the everyday world of nature and human activity. Jesus’ parables are rich with stories of people and imagery of the natural world. He creates tapestries of images that encourage us to listen, navigate and learn – always inviting us closer into relationship with God.’ 

In his wonderful sonnet, Good Ground, Malcolm Guite also responds to Jesus’ parable of the sower, writing: 

‘I love your simple story of the sower,

With all its close attention to the soil,

Its movement from the knowledge to the knower…Your story takes me straight to all that matters…’

I offer these words as an encouragement and invitation to explore the simple story of the sower, giving attention to the soil and land whilst exploring how, as part of God’s creation, we are deeply interwoven with nature – our flourishing and growth interconnected with everything around us.

This week, I pray that as we navigate this extreme weather, we will stay safe and cool; that we will have moments of respite from the heat; and that we will be reminded of Jesus’ parable of the sower and how it takes us straight to all that matters.

With love,

Jacintha