For the virtual Service available from 9.30 am please click on the link below for the podcast.

Youtube: www.youtube.com   and type 'holy cross church uckfield' into the search box (you can then click to subscribe to our account) 

Welcome to the Service for Feast of the Holy Trinity from St. Margaret’s, Isfield

Prayer of the day              

Holy God,

faithful and unchanging:

enlarge our minds

with the knowledge of your truth,

and draw us more deeply

into the mystery of your love,

that we may truly worship you,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen.

 Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity:

keep us steadfast in this faith, that we may evermore be defended from all adversities; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

 Readings

Isaiah 40.12-17, 27-end

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? 
¹³ Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counsellor has instructed him? 
¹⁴ Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice?  Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? 
¹⁵ Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; see, he takes up the isles like fine dust. 
¹⁶ Lebanon would not provide fuel enough, nor are its animals enough for a burnt-offering. 
¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. 
 ²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God’? 
²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 
²⁹ He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 
³⁰ Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 
³¹ but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Dear All,

It was with some trepidation that I went back into Holy Cross Church. I parked down the side, near the Cardale Chapel door, & gingerly went in, not quite knowing what I’d find.

It was strange, just as we’d left it, two months ago. All a bit “Marie Celeste”-ish. The last time I’d been in was to record four services, from Mothering Sunday to Easter, and everything was still there – the notice sheets printed out for Mothering Sunday by the door to be collected, the icon on the altar, held up by a pile of Bibles, a banner made by Junior church with all their hand prints on, an odd Palm Cross or two and – most poignantly – a little vase of desiccated daffodils we’d had to represent Easter, now long dead. It was dispiriting.

Our church buildings remain closed (thank you to all those who have been keeping an eye on them!), but the Bishop of Chichester has directed his clergy to now go in once a week to pray/film/stream. My initial response was to think that why should I have special privileges to go in when others from the congregations – with a much closer & longer association with these places than me – couldn’t. After reflection, though, I  thought that maybe if I recorded an introduction to our weekly broadcast service in church, then maybe it would be a way of people sharing in worship, and “touching base” with our sacred spaces.

Staying safe has meant that most of us have had to stay at home in social isolation.  This has presented me with an opportunity to get to know the animals that are using our Uckfield garden more closely.  Just sitting in the garden revealed 16 species of birds within about 30 minutes recently.  These were blue tit, great tit, wren, house sparrow, blackbird, song thrush, magpie, jackdaw, carrion crow, buzzard, swift, chaffinch, robin, woodpigeon, collared dove and blackcap.  In addition, from my garden, records have included, flying over and within, herring gulls, herons, mallards, ravens, Canada geese, goldcrests, long-tailed tits, goldfinches, starlings, coal tits, great tits, greenfinches, bullfinches, nuthatch, great spotted woodpecker, a hawfinch and tawny owl.

We were sitting in the garden yesterday and a female woodpigeon was sitting on her nest uttering an intermittent growling call to her mate who was collecting twigs for her nest in our field maple tree.  He perched next to her and passed one to her in turn before flying off to collect another.  The female incorporated each one into her nest beneath her.  Meanwhile, on the roof of a neighbour’s house, a carrion crow was sitting on a chimney stack where a pair of jackdaws had their nest in one of the pots.  They took great exception to this and were dive-bombing and strafing the crow which clearly intended to make a meal out of their offspring.

Make a Difference is a campaign that the BBC is promoting across their Local Radio Stations with the aim of keeping communities connected.  Each day examples of acts of kindness from listeners are being broadcast, and on Sunday the Church of the Holy Cross Junior Choir featured on the Emily Jeffries Radio Sussex Sunday Morning programme.  As a result of Social Distancing the Choir has been unable to meet for their regular Thursday practice, so their ‘Choir Master’ organised some remote recording sessions and this was broadcast by Emily Jefferies.  To hear the Choir in action follow one of the links below:-

Facebook: www.facebook.com/holycrosschurchuckfield    or  Youtube: www.youtube.com
 and type 'holy cross church uckfield' into the search box (you can then click to subscribe to our account) 

Coronavirus

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have announced that in order to keep human contact to a minimum, Church of England Sunday and Midweek Services will be suspended with immediate effect. For more information visit:

https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/news/archbishops-call-church-england-become-radically-different-public-worship

Holy Cross Church, Little Horsted, Isfield and St Saviour’s will therefore not be holding any regular services for the foreseeable future. They will however be looking at alternative ways of worship and how people can be kept in touch. Please keep an eye on their
Facebook page (www.facebook.com/holycrosschurchuckfield) and Website (www.churchoftheholycrossuckfield.co.uk) for updates.

In the light of the Government’s guidance churches will be encouraged not to hold meetings unless they are absolutely necessary.  The APCM  has as a result been postponed until such times that guidance is received advising that Church Meetings can be resumed.