SUNDAY SERVICES

Hartlip:

8.00 a.m.Holy Communion: 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays.
10.30 a.m.Parish Communion (except 2nd Sunday: Matins).
6.30 p.m.Evensong.

Sunday School every Sunday at 10.30 a.m. in the Church School.
(Children are welcome at the Parish Communion and on the last Sunday in the month, the address will be specially for the children in the congregation).

Stockbury:

9.15 a.m.Parish Communion.
3.30 p.m.Evensong: 3rd Sunday only.
(Evensong is at 6.30 p.m. in the summer).

THE VICAR WRITES

I would like to thank everyone who sent Christmas greetings to my family and me; it was lovely to receive so many cards. Thank you. And may I wish you all a Happy New Year.

It hardly seems five minutes, as the saying goes, since I was writing for the January, 1976 magazine, but here we are in 1977! Jubilee Year! Our Queen will very soon have reigned for twenty-five years and all over the country there will be celebrations to mark the event, I hope that there will be in those celebrations a good element of thanksgiving, for we are very fortunate to have a Queen and a Royal Family such as we have in this country. The actual day of the Queen's Accession to the Throne, February 6th, 1952, will be commemorated this year on a Sunday, and that seems to me very appropriate, for it provides many people with the opportunity to come to church to give thanks for the last quarter of a century during which the Queen has reigned with great dignity, despite the innumerable changes that have taken place in our society. There are those, I know, who won't share in our celebrations this year; those who would see radical changes in our society, including the end of the monarchy. Well, I'm not alone, I'm sure, in thinking that if the views of such people prevail in the coming years, this country of ours will be the worst for it. I'm not really a politically minded person, speaking in terms of parties; but, along with many others, I do feel that we need to be careful and thoughtful about the affairs of our nation if we are not to move further from the freedoms that we all take for granted. Nineteen-hundred-and-seventy-seven, Silver Jubilee Year, is an opportunity to revive an interest in and a concern for our Queen and Country.

Starting this month, I hope that you will receive each month with your magazine a copy of the Canterbury Diocesan Notes. These always contain a letter from the Archbishop and news of the Diocese which helps us to look out from our own parish and to know what is happening elsewhere. The price of the magazine remains the same, six-pence, ....(cont.)