Dear St Mary’s, 

On Sunday 21st June – the Third Sunday of Trinity – we will share Holy Communion at 9am and again at 10.30am. Revd Tim Scott will lead and preside and Revd Jacintha Danaswamy preach, with supervised children’s groups at 10.30am and a Baby Lounge at both services. 

Our lectionary readings this week are Romans 6:1-11 and Matthew 10:24-39 – a Gospel passage full of counter-intuitive teachings from Jesus, including, ‘Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 10:39). 

For those who are unable to join us this Sunday, we will livestream our 9am service to Facebook. After the 10.30am service, we will also have communion preparation for children over the age of 8 (details below). We hope to see you this Sunday at St Mary’s! 

Communion Preparation on 21st June After 10.30am Service
Communion preparation for children over the age of 8 who are already baptised will be on Sunday 21st June after the 10.30am service with lunch provided. Admission to Communion will take place on 5th July. To reserve a place for the preparation session, or for more details, contact Revd Jacintha Danaswamy at . If your child is keen to receive Holy Communion but hasn’t been baptised, do also contact Jacintha. 

Climate Films at St Mary’s on 25th and 27th June: Tickets Still Available  
Next week, join us at St Mary’s for a thought-provoking weekend of climate films. We’ll start with the People’s Emergency Briefing on Thursday 25th June at 7pm – a film featuring contributions from Chris Packham, Deborah Meaden and leading scientific, energy and national security experts, with a panel discussion to follow. Tickets are available for a donation of your choice. And then on Saturday 27th June at 7pm, join us for Power Station by Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn, with £6 tickets. This locally-made documentary follows attempts by Hilary and Dan to turn their Walthamstow street into an energy-generating collection of solar-powered Power Stations. The film will be followed by an in-person discussion with the filmmakers. To book tickets, visit stmaryswalthamstow.org/climatefilms. 

‘House Meeting’ on 5th July after the 10.30am Service
St Mary’s has been invited to work with other local community groups to campaign for a safer, slower Wood Street and we would love to hear your thoughts. If you regularly travel across or along Wood Street and would like to share your hopes and concerns, as well as any ideas for making it safer, we are holding a 45-minute ‘house meeting’ in church after the 10.30am service on Sunday 5th July. A house meeting uses a simple community organising approach to enable attendees to share their stories and to workshop solutions. Register your interest here or email . 

St Mary’s to Host East London Brass Band on 11th July 
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. Tickets are available for £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 beyond our local area. You can purchase tickets online here or by going to stmaryswalthamstow.org/SummerBrass. 

Sponsor a Bible for School Leavers 
Every year we give a Bible to Year 6 leavers of St Mary’s Primary School. This is a gift from the church that we hope will bless them throughout their lives, and for many children, it will be the only Bible they have ever received. If you would like to sponsor a Bible for £10, you can give via stmaryswalthamstow.org/donate (write in the notes section that your donation is for a St Mary’s School Leavers’ Bible). You can also make a bank transfer, noting the reason for your donation. Our bank details are: Co-operative Bank, St Mary’s Church, Parish of Walthamstow; Account Number: 65579372, Sort Code: 08-92-99. If you would give cash or to donate via a cheque, contact our Parish Office (). 

Free ‘Summer Saturday’ Churchyard Volunteer Sessions to Start 25th July 
This summer, St Mary’s Head Gardener Tim Hewitt is running free Saturday sessions from 10am-Noon for volunteer gardeners who may struggle 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 and spaces will be limited for each session. Saturday sessions will begin on 25th July and run through the end of August. Booking will open next week, so watch this space. 

Men’s Dance Class to Start in the Welcome Centre on Fridays, 5.30pm-7pm 
A men’s Chantraine dance class is starting on Fridays in the Welcome Centre from 5.30pm-7pm. No previous dance experience is necessary and all men are welcome. For more information about Chantraine dance, visit chantrainedance.com; for more information about the Friday dance classes in the Welcome Centre, email . 

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:

• A strengthening of civil society and community cohesion across the UK 
• All who are unwell in any way: for hope, help and healing 
• All who care for others, including foster carers, parents of children, those looking after elderly parents, and all who work in caring professions 
• Additional funding and support for the essential public services people rely upon 
• Places of war and unrest, including Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Lebanon 
• Anyone who is in need of a job or is in low-paid work or is struggling financially 
• Those in our parish who are in need of mental health support but are not receiving it 
• An increase in the amount of ministry we can provide as a church and parish 
• All who are exploring faith at St Mary’s or in our parish: for them to know God’s love 
• The safety and wellbeing of children and young people across our community 
• Leaders of our church and parish, as well as for leaders across our diocese and across the Church of England, and for Christian leaders globally, including Pope Leo 
• All who are working and campaigning for a safer climate and cleaner environment 

Reflection: ‘Acedia’ 
Revd Vanessa Conant, Rector of St Mary’s and the Parish of Walthamstow, writes: 

A couple of weeks ago in a sermon, I used a quote from the late journalist, Monica Furlong. In an address to the clergy in the 1960s, Furlong exhorted them to live differently and so show what holy contentment and peace might look like in a frenetic, frantic, addicted world. I have always found the words of this speech challenging – and I always feel some measure of trepidation when I read them again. 

In the days recovering from surgery, a line from that address has returned to me over and over again: ‘I am clear what I want from the clergy…I want them to be people who are secure enough in the value of what they are doing to have time to read, to sit and think, and who can face the emptiness and possible depression which often attack people when they do not keep the surface of their mind occupied.’ 

The line visited me in the first sleepless hours on a hospital ward. It came back in the days that followed. Unable to work, I found it spectacularly difficult not to keep the surface of my mind occupied. Faced with the blessing of time and love and the requirement to rest, I thought I would delight in hours spent with books, in the gift of sleeping when my body required it, and in letting a quiet peace sink into my soul. 

Instead, I found myself edgy, restless, and craving constant distraction. I scrolled the news for hours and hours. I know this to be inadvisable but I did it nonetheless. I couldn’t settle to sleep or to reading or even to the television that I so often dream of in seasons of relentless busyness. I was, frankly, a little miserable. What on earth, I thought, was the matter with me? 

And then I remembered. I recalled a conversation with a spiritual director many years ago when a similar listless anxiety had envelopped me. 

‘I think,’ he had said, ‘that this might be acedia.’ 

Acedia was identified by the first monastics, the desert mothers and fathers, in the third century. Sometimes termed the ‘noonday demon’, acedia was the temptation to flee from one’s vocation and be consumed by an inner restlessness that drove the monk or nun from those things which were for their own spiritual good. Its literal translation means a lack of care; there was something self-neglectful, a willful choosing not to nourish or nurture the spiritual life. Acedia lures us away from closeness to God and so away from fullness of life. 

Acedia has extraordinary contemporary resonance. We might recognise it in our endless distractions, in the difficulties many of us may have in finding focus for the smallest of tasks. Social media platforms play on our temptation towards acedia and on the listlessness which can keep us scrolling and addicted. 

Acedia tempts us to avoid reality. It invites us to believe that we might be better selves somewhere else (perhaps if we move house or job), as though the limitations on our lives, the ways we are and behave and struggle, were largely a result of external circumstances, not a result of our own inner struggles. Acedia stops us from facing the truth of who we are.

Finally, acedia can lead us to deny ourselves those things which actually lead to life. The early monastics would watch for the neglect of duty, the lack of commitment, a restlessness that avoided work. Believing work to be formative and helpful (even mundane tasks), that neglect was indicative of a refusal to care for one’s soul. In contemporary terms, perhaps that looks like denying ourselves a place of stillness or reading, rest or prayer. Perhaps it is allowing the relentless demands of life to crowd out those spaces which allow us to attend to our soul and discover the fullness of God’s love. Acedia is that ‘emptiness and possible depression which often attack people when they do not keep the surface of their mind occupied’.

The comfort is that acedia has a remedy. And it begins, very simply, by noticing and observing how we are. Rowan Williams says that the only solution to acedia is to be drawn into the present moment, putting our hands on the seat where we are sitting, feeling the fabric of the moment, and saying as we breathe: ‘Here I am, this is what I am, this is what I do next, here is God.’ It’s a recognition that God meets us in this moment and nowhere else.

The desert mothers and fathers were committed to reality, committed to not carrying around any false notions or beliefs about themselves, and to facing the truth of their lives. When acedia creeps in – perhaps through fantasy thinking or endless distraction – clear-eyed honesty about ourselves can be freeing and hopeful. 

Finally, the early monastics believed in making commitments. ‘Stay in your cell,’ they would remind one another, ‘and your cell will teach you everything.’ Though everything in our increasingly individualised and atomised culture might call us to flee from duty or responsibility, the desert mothers and fathers believed that staying, committing and serving was an act of profound love for self, for others and for God. 

The remembering of acedia has helped me, in recent days, resist its temptations. I have been able to care more tenderly for myself and pursue a gentleness and rest that seemed to elude me before. I have dared to face the emptiness of my sometimes unoccupied mind. 

I have tried to pray. 

Another line from the Monica Furlong quote returns to me: ‘I long so much to be shown how to break out of the iron grip of a society which cuts people off from one another, makes love difficult to practise, and which tells me that my spiritual life is something unimportant.’  

I wonder if the naming of acedia, and in learning to resist it together (with the help of God), might help us to meet that longing for ourselves and for one another. I pray that it might. 

With love 

Vanessa