From the Registers

Blessing of Marriage. Saturday 11th May at St Mary, Over Silton. Paul and Jane Warwick of Over Silton.

OBITUARY - Fred Lumley Tuesday 2nd April. Funeral Service at Leake St.Mary, committal at Northallerton Cemetery. Fred had a long struggle with failing health and other complications for the last years of his life - he had hardly ever seen a doctor before he was 60. Fred lived in many of the houses in Knayton over the years and had farmed there from leaving school. He concentrated on high quality seed potatoes which were stocked by Sam Turner for many years. He preferred to employ potato gangs to machinery until they proved too unreliable. Latterly he set up a new depot on his farm outside Knayton when machinery and lorries and trailers became too big for the old traditional farm buldings in the village. For many years he had been Treasurer of Leake. Our best wishes go to Hazel and his daughter Dawn. Sadly his son Richard pre-deceased him.

CONFIRMATION. 12th May 6.30 p.m. The Bishop of Whitby, at St Michaels and All Angels, COWESBY. Robert and Beverley Elenor : Barbara Mohan Carol Finch : Kate Oldershaw Received into Church: Richard Mohan.
Please pray for all these new full members of our Church, welcome them, and journey with them on our earthly pilgrimage. T.H.

June 2002 - "Receive Holy Spirit"
as Jesus said to his disciples, John 20v.22.

 What is Holy Spirit? If you turn to Genesis 1 and Proverbs 8, Spirit has something to do with the energy and dynamic power of God, or rather, that side of the Godhead. It suggests movement: the sort of attraction that moves atoms together if you subscribe to the Big Bang Theory. Psalm 51v.11 and Isiah 63v.10 are the only references to Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Post O.T. literature uses the term in reference more to the activity of revelation (Daniel and Revelation are particularly written in that genre), the product of special godly persons. It points to special inspiration from God.

One suggestion is that Holy Spirit was special to those who regarded themselves as 'holy ones' and were those people stamped out as somehow apart. Not inappropriate if you consider the season of the year - Whitsun when we celebrate the pouring out of Holy Spirit - and the fact that Confirmation has just taken place in the parish. The latter again marks people out as those who have chosen a special path in Life from that point onwards. Somehow the Holy Spirit sanctifies people, as the last verses of Matthew imply. Again this is appropriate as both in the O.T. and the N.T., before the term Christian stuck, people whom we would say were spirit-filled in a special way were described as 'saints' or 'the dedicated ones'. That is certainly something to celebrate post Ascension Day and post Confirmation, and at Whitsuntide.

Psalm 51v.10-11 reflects the mood of the verses and responses in Matins and Evensong, and is therefore part of the experience of our worship.

V "O God make clean our hearts within us"

R And take not thy Holy Spirit from us."

It is a penitent's psalm, appropriate to complement Bartholomew contemplating Psalms 38 or 32. Isaiah 63v.10ff. suggests Holy Spirit is an aspect or vulnerable mood of the Godhead, rather as elsewhere angels become his voice or hotline. It has to do with being on the same wavelength as God in every aspect of our being. 

In the light of Jesus' death and resurrection Holy Spirit takes on more of a personality to pervade our own. It is poured out on us all, even though the Gospel accounts do not tally as one over the mechanics. We are people of Holy Spirit. Ascension, Whitsun/Pentecost, and Trinity are Sundays to explore this phenomenon. Holy Spirit is there for the asking. It fills us with that compassion, energy, discernment and purposefulness that was the mark of Jesus' ministry and earthly being. The more we open to it the more we are filled with its dynamite. The more we pray the more we channel into life some of that power.

Holy Spirit turns holiness inside out. Just as Jesus was not "holier than thou" before the Pharisees so we can enjoy a sanctification, a setting apart, a dedication to God's purposes. We can be in the world but not of the world. We can express the truth of Christ yet at the same time experience the reality of Christ. It is all to do with being special and realising it.

Receive Holy Spirit with joy.