1/1/23
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Dates for your diary
Week Commencing Mon 2 Jan
Regular events return to the normal pattern (apart from Art Club)
Week Commencing Mon 9 Jan
Art Club restarts
Wed 11 Jan
7.30pm - Real Conversations at St James
Thurs 19 Jan
7pm - PCC meeting at St James
Services this week
Sun 1 Jan
11am - Ven Bede, New Year's Day communion
Sun 8 Jan
9.45am - St Margaret's, Holy communion
11am - Ven Bede, Holy communion (parish eucharist)
Thurs 12 Jan
11am - St John's, Holy communion
News
Happy New Year!
A blessing for the New Year:
May God the Father keep you in all your days. May God the Son shield you in all your ways. May God the Spirit bring you healing and peace. May God the Holy Trinity drive all darkness from you and pour upon you blessing and light. Amen.
Clergy Holidays
David returns from his post-Christmas break on 1st Jan.
Dominic returns from his post-Christmas break on 8th Jan.
Chris will be on break from 1st Jan and returns on 8th Jan.
Worship Texts
The Collect
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Isaiah 63.7–9 7 I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us, and the great favour to the house of Israel that he has shown them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 8 For he said, ‘Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely’; and he became their saviour 9 in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
Gospel
Matthew 2.13–23 13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’ 16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.17Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’ 19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ 21Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’
Intercessions
If you would like to add someone to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
The name will stay on the list for 1 month unless requested to be long-term.
Prayers for others:
Daniel and Luda
Shno, Dara, Hani and Yani
Shakira, Donna, Sophie and family
Lorraine Atkinson
Esther Kolie
Edith Hutchinson
Lyndsey Richardson
Christine, David, Philip, Neil and Steven
Elizabeth Taylor
Honar
Moe and Mary
Alison Campbell
John Taylor
Irene Foskett
John Nicholson
Alan Robson
Michelle Wilson
Joan Finley
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Herbert Agbeko
Rest in Peace:
Janice Blake
Thomas Rogers
Justin Ball
Svetlana Rudkivska
Post Communion prayer
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son shared at Nazareth the life of an earthly home:
help your Church to live as one family,
united in love and obedience,
and bring us all at last to our home in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.