February 2023

St Leonard’s, Sherfield English

At St Leonard’s we have well and truly seen the New Year in,

with a Communion service led by James on New Year’s Day.

It was well attended, and no one looked too tired from

partying the night before, or at least they hid it well!

Christmas has been an absolute delight at St Leonard’s this

year. The community’s enthusiasm for all our festive events

and services has been tremendous. I think the decorating of

the church with each window depicting a carol or Christmas

song – reindeer, donkeys, bells and stars standing next to

towns and crowns, while the gentlemen rested, ably

supported the real Christmas tree with twinkly lights.

Everyone was surrounded by the story of the Nativity and

was humbled by the thought of the arrival of the Prince of

Peace.

So as we ended 2022 we also start 2023 by hoping for peace

and joy to the world. Lent gets under way in this month of

February; in March we join the Thorngate benefice by

hosting a Lent Lunch on Saturday 18th (12 noon to 2 p.m.)

We will offer several varieties of home-made soup, as a light

lunch at no fixed cost. But you are asked to donate to UNICEF

and all their projects across the world, particularly

concerning the war in Ukraine. In our small way, hopefully,

we can help many.

Julia Noble, St Leonard’s Churchwarden

News from the Church Commissioners:

Resulting from their Mission, Pastoral and Church Property

Committee meeting on 25th January, the Church

Commissioners have deferred making a decision on the

future of our parishes, “pending further information they

wanted first from the Diocese”. The next meeting of that

Committee is scheduled for 22nd March 2023.

This “Post meeting note” is now publicly available at

https://www.churchofengland.org/consultation/Thorngate

From there it is also possible to download their “Committee

paperwork”, as accumulated prior to 25th January, via

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-

01/thorngate_comm_papers_www.pdf (96 pages).

While the news of this further delay will be disappointing to

us all, we can at least be reassured that the issues involved

are being thoroughly considered.

Paul Newby, Parish Newsletter Compiler