Services in the 4 Marys Benefice
Please check our Facebook pages for any updates or email if you would
like to receive occasional updates by email.
Benefice Churches Open
All the churches in our benefice are open for visiting every day during daylight hours.
Church Services for December 2024
Sunday 1st December:
Advent Sunday
10am Stratford Advent
Communion
Sunday 8th December:
2nd Sunday of Advent
10am Higham Parish
Communion
Sunday 15th December:
3rd Sunday of Advent
10am Holton Family Carols & Readings for all
ages
Friday, 20th December:
Carols in the Pubs in Stratford
7.15pm The Anchor
8.15pm The Swan
Sunday 22nd December:
4th Sunday of Advent
11am Raydon Christmas Carols &
Coffee
with by seasonal refreshments
5pm SSM Carols by Candlelight for
all the family
followed by Mulled Wine
5pm Higham Carol Service
followed by Mulled Wine
Tuesday, 24th December:
Christmas Eve
11pm Holton Midnight Mass
(note 11pm starting time)
Wednesday 25th December:
Christmas Day
10am: Raydon Family Communion
10am: Higham Family Communion
Sunday 29th December:
Services in the Deanery at St Mary’s Church Hadleigh
8am BCP Eucharist
10.45am Eucharist
We provide a range of services, details are available from the following link.
Goodbye Family Hour – Hello Café Church
We had our last meeting on 24th November and we will be relaunching our monthly informal worship & breakfast gathering on 26th January 2025 in a different format. This will be a Café-Church style meeting with pastries, Cafetiere Coffee / tea and orange juice. We will reflect on a Bible reading, discuss a current topic, hear a ‘Thought for the day’ or may have the odd craft activity for the young or the young at heart.
We will begin at 9.30am with breakfast which will flow into a brief and informal time of worship.
Come and join us – we are looking forward to
seeing you
and to welcoming new faces
Benefice Bible Study / House Group
The House Group will next meet on Thursday, 23rd January 2025 at 2.30pm. We are currently looking at some of the minor prophets and we are planning to explore Obadiah in January.
Subsequent dates will be 27th February and 27th March.
Please get in touch with Judith, Sandy, Christine or Rev’d Manette if you would like to know more.
Prayer pointers for the Benefice
We pray for our farming communities at this challenging time, and we give thanks for the Agricultural and Rural Chaplaincy Team.
We pray for all those who are ill or in any way unwell, among them Eddie Castle, Nicky Bull, Steve Meech, James Stock, Daphne Horrex, Jim Lowe, Amanda Berry, Penny Watkins and Rosalind Field, and for the continuing recovery of HM the King and the Princess of Wales.
We remember all those who have recently died, among them Bob Mumford, and those whose anniversaries fall at this time. May they rest in peace and rise in glory. We pray for all who mourn. May they be held in God’s love and comforted in their grief.
Advent
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace and make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born,
to bear us to our birth, to touch a dying world with new-made hands, and make
these rags of time our swaddling bands.
Malcolm
Guite
Christmas Eve
Christmas hath a darkness brighter than the blazing noon,
Christmas hath a chillness warmer than the heat of June,
Christmas hath a beauty lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus, brought for us so low.
Earth, strike up your music, birds that sing and
bells that ring;
Heaven hath answering music for all Angels soon
to sing:
Earth, put on
your whitest bridal robe of spotless snow:
For Christmas
bringeth Jesus, brought for us so low
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
- The Rectory
- Hadleigh Road
- Raydon
- Suffolk
- IP7 5LH
07947 737789
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