Click here to see The Rector’s video service for Lent 5 Passion Sunday or click on the Youtube link below.

As a result of current changes to Services at The Church of the Holy Cross we are intending to make the weekly Sunday Link information available from the website.

Click here to open the Sunday Link.

 
Lent 5: Passiontide Reading Service and Podcast . Sunday 29^th March 2020

Dear All, We are broadcasting our Podcast for Palm Sunday this Sunday morning.

Do join in and sing! The podcast is available via Facebook or the website 

www.churchoftheholycrossuckfield.co.uk

Welcome to you All!

Reading: John 11:1-45 (shortened)

11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. ³ So the sisters sent a message to Jesus,^[a] “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” ⁴ But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, ⁶ after having heard that Lazarus^[b] was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. ¹¹ …….he told the disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” ¹² The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” ¹³ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. ¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵ For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 

Dear All,

As I write, my Garden is a Quagmire.

It feels as if it has been raining solidly since the beginning of February, & I, like everyone else, have just about had enough of it all! The ground is sodden, and every time Sophie walks in, she leaves a trail of muddy paw-prints for me to mop up.

As I write, my grass cutters are in the garden for the first cut of the year: using their lightest & smallest mower: they are trying not to sink into the mud, feeling that if they don’t attempt a cut, the grass will be waist high before we know it.

As I write, the forecast is ominous.

Snow & temperatures of down to -5 degrees are supposedly on their way. I remember in Moulsecoomb some 15 or so years ago, waking up on Easter Day to a thick covering of snow. We started the Easter Day Service with a spirited rendition of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas!” I’m hoping we don’t have a repeat performance.

And yet, and yet….

As I write, I see signs of hope too.

Trudging soggily around the garden, in one pot of Lilies I see a number of fat, purple buds promising not only that the flowers have survived winter but potentially will be vigorous and healthy in the months to come. Daffodils are out, and primroses, and snowdrops.

They all show that new life is coming, that the cold grimness of Winter is not the final word, that Spring is breaking through with the certainty of summer beyond. 

This is what Lent & Easter are about: in the midst of death & loss & hopelessness, the death & Resurrection of Jesus the Christ proclaim that love is stronger than death and always will be.

Whatever personal Winters we walk through, whatever storms life throws at us, we have in Eastertide the assurance of God’s love and of God’s power to transform and bring Salvation.

Happy Lent, & when we get there, Happy Eastertide!!

 As I write in Early March, frog tadpoles have hatched out in our Uckfield garden pond, the hazel catkins are nearly over and the tree’s tiny maroon flowers will be generating hazel nuts.  Hawthorn and elder are breaking forth into leaf and eventually white pearlesque blossom.  Among the birds, the robin and blackbird females are carefully building nests in our hedgerows.  Celandines have been flowering for some time, but now look out for the pink flowers of ladies smock, also known as milkmaids and cuckoo flower (Latin Cardamine pratensis) a type of cress.  These will grow in any exposed damp wayside ditch or bank and adorns the roundabout at Little Horsted in most years. 

Spring can be a very personal season as we emerge into longer, brighter days, warmer weather and an awakening of the countryside.  It is good to spend time just watching the changes, as nothing stays the same for long in spring.  Look and watch the different types of tree bursting into leaf. Understorey species like the ones mentioned above are leafing first to ‘catch the rays’ before the larger ones such as oak, ash and horse chestnut steal their light with their canopy.  Listen also, for the singing of the blackbird, robin, wren, song and mistle thrushes, great and blue tit, chaffinch, chiffchaff and eventually cuckoo.  They and others will be celebrating the rise of spring with both a dawn and evening chorus.  Smell also the fragrance of the wood anemones, bluebells carpeting our ancient woodlands in April and May and eventually honeysuckle or woodbine and wild roses adorning our hedgerows.

Nature abhors a vacuum.  So, every damp space on the planet Earth’s soil’s surface will be colonised by something.  Usually, first algae, bacteria and fungi, then moss, grass and broadleaved herbs also known as forbs.  Some of the latter are vigorous and grow large like nettles brambles and hogweed.  But, beneath these, acorns, haws, beech nuts and horse chestnuts will germinate, protected by these herbaceous bullies, then with autumn the herbs die back, tree seedlings are revealed and continue to put on height and eventually outgrow the herbs, shade them out and form a woodland habitat.  This is called succession and will always happen without intervention by humans.  In short, in every grassland there is a woodland trying to get out!

Dr. Martyn Stenning

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.

The Church of the Holy Cross was transformed into a forest of Christmas trees over the course of December 6^th, 7^th and 8^th for the twelfth annual Festival of Christmas Trees.  A wonderful starburst of brightly decorated Christmas trees attracted people from all over Sussex, as well as from further afield, to visit and enjoy the splendour of the magnificent display of over one hundred Christmas trees. Visitors were amazed by the wonderfully creative and stylistic hand crafted decorations.

This year was very much a magical display and the wonderful array of different decorated trees made it a very special event.  A complete cross section of Uckfield’s community was represented by local businesses, charities, Church communities and schools, as well as individual people and families. ITV Meridian came to carry out a recording on the Friday afternoon and it featured on that evening’s local evening news.  Also included in this year’s Festival was live musical entertainment with a strong seasonal bias.  Friday evening featured Uckfield’s talented entertainer Bernard Tagliavini.  During Saturday morning Jimmy the Juggling Jester made his customary appearance to entertain the younger visitors.  In the afternoon John Pontefract sang and played guitar, Tim Guntrip (the Church organist) played the organ and Uckfield Concert Brass followed playing a selection of popular Carols. Click here to see the gallery of photographs.

In the Belmont Centre refreshments and hot lunches were available, and visitors could also purchase from stalls selling a wide variety of made hand seasonal gifts and home produce.  Children could be kept busy with Face painting (by Sarah Moxon) and be creative with a number of craft activities.

The photograph depicts some of the youngest children from Manor Primary School to visit the Festival together with Aissa Rippingale, of Holy Cross Church, who will be 99 in January 2020 Over the course of the three days of this year's Festival the Church welcomed just over 5700 people. Details of the 2020 Festival of Christmas Trees will be available in September.  However, if you wish to receive information about the Festival please contact the organisers via the Contact Us Form on the Home Page menu selection of this website.

I’ve just come back from a week in Venice & it was Fab.

For me, as for so many people, Venice is a really special place, and it has been ever since I first went as a child. My last visit was three years ago, when I had a glorious sabbatical studying Titian and Veronese, and it was good to “touch base” with the place again. It was as beautiful as ever, with autumn sunshine on the faded facades of the palaces and with the reflections from the water in the canals glittering on the undersides of the bridges as we passed. I can well understand Peggy Guggenheim’s rather chilly comment on the city: "It is always assumed that Venice is the ideal city for a honeymoon, but it is a serious mistake. Living in Venice, or just visiting it, means falling in love and in the heart there won't be room for anything else."