Time to Blossom

St. Catherine’s Parish Church 

Blossom Project

The Environment Group of St. Catherine’s Church are working towards making the Churchyard and The Rectory Garden into a Therapeutic experience for the Community of Burbage to enjoy. 

They have taken up the Bishop of Carlisle’s challenge to use parish land as therapeutic gardening spaces for their community:  

Churches should offer their green spaces as gardening projects for people with mental health problems, a senior Church of England bishop has said.

Studies had established the therapeutic benefits of gardening, said James Newcome, the Bishop of Carlisle and the C of E’s lead bishop on health issues.

He said: “Churches should look at the land they have around their buildings to see if there’s any possibility of people who are homeless or have mental health difficulties or who are lonely [getting] involved in hands-on gardening.

“In urban areas there is a real shortage of green space, and churches often have the only green space in a neighbourhood. In rural areas there are real problems of isolation and loneliness. There are all sorts of benefits – therapeutic, meeting up with others, finding a sense of belonging and purpose. [This idea] is not complicated but it can make a huge difference.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05/free-up-church-land-for-therapeutic-gardening-says-bishop-of-carlisle

Over the next five years the main outcomes will be Raised flower beds for easy access to planting, a scented garden area for the visually impaired to join in the project and paths & walkways for young and old alike to wander through at their leisure. This will add to our wonderful existing wildlife garden and quiet area.

The Rectory is already part of the Quiet Gardens in Leicestershire and Fr Andrew has quiet days throughout the year in it. Plans are afoot and ground has been cleared in anticipation of building a covered area for social functions, visitors will be able to enjoy the gardens in all weathers.

Over the next five years sponsorship and volunteers are needed to turn this into the Social and  Therapeutic Haven envisaged by its forward thinking Group. 

The Environmental Group already organise litter picking up teams around the village, now they want to encourage and envision young and old alike to get ready for Spring. 

We are also planning a series of Table-top gardening sessions, watch out for details.

Here’s to the future, let’s see our village BLOSSOM; please consider joining our group and supporting it financially too. 

Scan to QR. link to donate, please give generously. 

Reflection for Harvest

 Harvest Reflection

“I thought of this: I Thought of how every day each of us experience  few little moments that have just a bit more resonance than other moments - we hear a word that sticks in our mind - or maybe we have a small experience that pulls us out of ourselves, if only briefly… a stranger gives us a piece of bread to feed the ducks, say; a small child starts a conversation with us.

And if we were to collect these moments in a notebook and collect them over a period of months we would see certain trends emerge from our collection, certain voices would emerge that have been trying to speak to us. We would realise that we have been having another life all together, one that we didn’t even know was going on inside us.

And maybe this other life is more important than the one we think of as real - this clunky day-to-day world of furniture and noise and media. So just maybe it is these small, silent moments which are the true story making events of our lives.”

D. Coupland, Life after God.

I would ask you to consider this passage this coming month, as the seasons change and life takes another turn, consider, pause, ask of yourself; 

“What are life’s voices saying to me?”

If I tell people I hear voices won’t they think less of me or even worse? Perhaps; but I am convinced that God though his grace, mercy and love for us, longs to speak to us, to be with us, is interested in our life story. 

He loves us, we are his Beloved. Lovers are intimate with each other, completely together, ‘entwined,’ to quote Captain Corelli; ‘of one heart and mind.’ They often know what the other says, wants or desires before they speak.

So, as we celebrate this season of Harvest, reaping quite literally what we have sown.

How about preparing your life now for the next season; to sow seeds within your soul?

Have you noticed as soon as the harvest is in the famers are busy sowing for the next season? To this end place yourself in the right setting, spend time listening to and receiving from the Lord, our Churches of St Catherine and St Peter are not only wonderful spaces and places to be in, they are places that provide the space to hear ‘His Voice.’  

But where and when you may ask? Why not join us for one or more of our services, outside of the usual Sunday service at 10:30am, there is so much more you could gain from attending one of our other services.

Times of Services: 

Sunday 8:00am, 10:30am Holy Communion and 6:00pm Evensong

Wednesday 10:30 prayer and 11:00am Holy Communion

Thursday 6:30pm Evening Prayer

The one thing that has impacted my life over the years has been the rhythm of the daily offices of Prayer and Holy Communion - putting myself in that place enabled my soul to be refreshed, for me to hear the Lord’s voice, realising that “I have another life all together” as our reflection states. 

Please do consider joining me, you may be surprised in what you hear!

Fr Andrew