Page 3 - Sunday by Sunday Issue 103

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CO-ORDINATORS
Tim Ruffer Stefan Putigny
EDITOR
Kathy Dyke
CONTRIBUTORS
Gordon Giles
John Henderson David Ogden Jonathan Robinson Andrew Robson Daniel Soper
Chris Thorpe Geoff Weaver Wendy Wilby Anna Williams
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PREFACE
Welcome to Issue 103 of Sunday by Sunday, which provides resources from Sunday 2 April to Sunday 11 June 2023, Year A. In addition to the weekly listings and the resources for Holy Week, we have tables for Passiontide, the season of Easter and Ascension Day. Several alternatives are supplied for Sunday 11 June, including resources for those celebrating Barnabas the Apostle, a second set for the first Sunday after Trinity, and a third set for those celebrating the RSCM’s own Music Sunday. The comments for this issue have been supplied by the
Revd Canon Wendy Wilby.
In this issue we also have a short article about last words. Famous phrases spoken by the dying range from the humorous to the poignant. Oscar Wilde was reputed to have said, ‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go’, while Henry Ward Beecher, the American clergyman and social reformer, suposedly said, ‘Now comes the mystery!’ The last words of Christ are given in Luke 23.46 as ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!’ And on page 7 of this issue, Chris Thorpe writes about the great love that can lie behind Christ’s words.
The life and deeds of St Barnabas are mainly told in the Acts of the Apostles, which tells the story of the founding of the Church and the dissemination of Christianity across the Roman world. Born into a wealthy family, Barnabas gave up his lands to spend his life working alongside Christ’s other apostles – particularly Saul of Tarsus, later known as St Paul – to spread Christ’s teachings and to build church communities. St Barnabas was a key figure in establishing Christianity in Antioch, which was the third most populated city in Rome’s empire. Now in southern Turkey, Antioch has been called the ‘cradle of Christianity’, and was in fact the place in which the name ‘Christians’ was first applied to the disciples: ‘So it was that for an entire year [Barnabas and Saul] associated with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians”.’ (Acts 11.26).
Those wishing to celebrate this significant apostle on his festival day can turn to pages 42–43 for music and for some appropriate readings that, as Wendy Wilby points out, are fittingly concerned with love for one another.
STEFAN PUTIGNY
CONTRIBUTORS
T H E R E V D C A N O N W E N D Y W I L B Y served as Precentor of Bristol Cathedral and Dean of Women’s Ministry before moving back in retirement to North Yorkshire with her composer husband, Philip. She now enjoys ministering at Ripon Cathedral when required, in between looking after her hens and cat.
D A V I D O G D E N is much in demand as a conductor and director
of choral and church music workshops, courses and festivals in the UK and abroad. He is Director of Music at Westbury-on-Trym Parish Church in Bristol and has worked extensively with the RSCM and the BBC, including conducting, arranging and advising on Songs
of Praise and Call the Midwife. As a busy composer, David writes music for churches and schools.
T H E R E V D P R E B C H R I S T H O R P E has been a parish priest
for 30 years, serving mostly in urban priority areas, but is now Vicar
of Shifnal, Sheriffhales and Tong. Chris works with the Teaching Community Ministry in the Diocese of Lichfield, and has been involved in writing liturgy with Canterbury Press for the past 10 years. He is the author of Dreamers and Stargazers, Touching the Sacred, Apprentices and Eyewitnesses, Dancers and Wayfarers and, most recently, Ploughshares and First Fruits.