Ascension Day - 2nd June 2011

All being well we will be marking Ascension Day with Eucharist at 8.00pm. Falling on a Thursday, this is an often overlooked festival yet a significant one. It being half term this year, if you are around Hounslow, do try to join us and swell the ranks!

Easter 6 - 29th May 2011

10:00am Eucharist as we come towards the end of the Easter season. Refreshments as usual after the service - do try to join us.

The Big Lunch - Sunday 5th June 2011

St Stephen's Residents' Association will be organising The Big Lunch in the church grounds. Everyone is welcome.

Tickets for Sale - Tarts & Vicar's tea

Available after the 10.00am service on Sunday, tickets for our summer fund raiser - Tarts & Vicar's tea on Sunday 26th June at 4.00pm! Sweet and savoury tarts, quiz, raffle. Hopefully in the church grounds. Tickets are £5.00.

Vicar's Letter - May 2011

…slowly the gauze begins to lift from those downcast eyes of the disciples and they begin to see the transformation of the man they had given their allegiance to – Jesus, the Christ now risen from the dead. Joseph of Arimathea had the body of Jesus wrapped in linen cloths and laid it in a new tomb – it would appear to be the end of a journey, the end of the line, but God had other ideas.

The narrative of this Easter morn transcends from the gloom of the garden on Good Friday to the joy of a garden bathed in early sun as Mary approaches the tomb expecting to see the corpse of the one she had loved. Mary had intended to spend time alone and reflect on all that had happened, but now the tomb is empty – she is afraid and goes off to fetch the others. They come, they enter, they believe for they too remembered the words of Jesus. With speed they return home with the ‘glad tidings’ leaving Mary alone in bewilderment. It is here that a remarkable encounter happens.

Seeing a figure in the haze of the early sun she asks where the body of Jesus had been taken – for she only wanted to offer perfume and spices to the one who had changed her life so dramatically. The Venetian artist Titian captures this precise moment in his canvas Noli Me Tangere where Mary suddenly recognises the man as her Lord and begs to cling to him. Sadly here Mary, like so many of us, was living in the Good Friday experience rather than the new dawn of Easter, but this of course changed later.

As we move from the Easter celebration towards the Ascension at the beginning of next month, I commend this painting to you for contemplation and invite you to consider the Easter experience as happening now dispelling all gloom and doubt in the glory of the Easter experience. Perhaps in some way your life might be changed too and enable you to go forward in the light of the Risen Christ.