My Dear Friends,

Jostein Gaarder’s wonderful book The Christmas Mystery tells the story of pilgrims from an ancient Advent Calendar making their way to find the Christ-Child. Their constant chant as they travel is ‘to Bethlehem, to Bethlehem’ and Rublev’s icon of the Nativity shown here does the same.

The background is the inhospitable world of the first century. Central to the icon is the Virgin Mother, in a cave which is the tradition of the East, on a red mattress the symbol of new life, the child Jesus alongside her in a coffin like cradle the swaddling clothes more like burial clothes.

Around her are the symbols of the Incarnation. Central at the top of the icon the Star that led the Magi signifying that this Child is for everyone. Opposite at the bottom the stump of the tree of Jesse the origin of the family into which he is born.

The angels are glorifying God and ministering to the shepherds announcing the Good News. Both groups are on the right hand side of the icon.

Below them in the bottom right hand corner are the midwives having washed the new born child indicating that his birth was the same as the rest of

humanity.In the opposite left hand corner Joseph is tempted by the Devil to deny the wife and child and to abandon them. Mary at the centre of the icon from her reclining position looks at Joseph as if trying to overcome his doubts and temptations.

A remarkable statement of the Incarnation which like the Christmas Mystery leads us and all pilgrims to Bethlehem ‘to see this thing which has come to pass which the Lord has made known to us.’

Wishing you all the joy and peace of this holy season as in heart and

mind we make our way to Bethlehem

Brian

Our Contributors

I am grateful to all the contributors to this issue of The Newsletter. In addition to the hard copy the issue is also on line on the Diocesan web site. Ed

Diocese of Swansea and Brecon

The Newsletter for Retired Clergy and their Families No. 68 Christmas 2014

From the Editor: Chancellor Brian H. Jones

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Family News

We send our congratulations and best wishes to:

Peter and Sue Williams who retire at the end of the year and will make their new home in Grovesend

Lyndon and Janet Taylor who retired in November and have made their new home in Alltwen

Geraint Hughes who celebrated his 80th

birthday in November and Brian H. Jones who will celebrate his in January.

Arthur Howells and Alan Meats who have both published books recently which are reviewed elsewhere in The Newsletter.

Andrew, Ann and Peter Jackson’s eldest son on his promotion to the rank of Captain, Royal Navy.

We send our best wishes and prayers to those who have been unwell recently hoping that they will make a speedy recovery.

In Memoriam Rita Williams

In a moving and sensitive address in Rita’s funeral liturgy Canon John Walters, her former parish priest, spoke of the huge contribution that Rita had made to the life of the Church in the Diocese over a long period of years.

Her proud boast was that she was born and brought up in the Nag’s Head in Morriston where her parents were the landlords, a home she shared with her sister and her brother Alban who was also ordained in the Diocese. After school she worked in a department

store in Swansea until she met and married Cynwyd Williams who served his title in the parish of Clydach. They immediately moved to his first parish in Ystradfellte where they spent their honeymoon. For Rita this was the beginning of a long ministry of support and sharing in f Cynwyd’s ministry.

There was a break from the parish ministry when Cynwyd was appointed General Secretary in Wales of the Church Missionary Society, and they moved to the Uplands in Swansea with their children.

After eight years in this ministry they began a long period of parochial ministry, in which Rita was very much involved.

In 1953 Cynwyd was inducted as Vicar of Llandeilo Talybont. A photograph of the time shows a group of ladies dressed in black with suitable headgear and in the front of the photograph a young, little lady – Rita. The photograph of the parish Mothers’ Union and Rita their Branch Leader!!! This was the formative period of her long ministry in the Mothers’ Union both on a parochial and diocesan level. One of her great prides was to have been elected a Diocesan Life Vice-President. Her involvement in the life of the parish filtered out into the community and she was appointed a local magistrate.

Cynwyd’s final appointment was to the vacancy in the Parish of Penllergaer leading up to his retirement in 1980. They retired initially to Blaenymaes and then in 1984 they returned to Pontardulais.

Canon John spoke of her many interests including Welsh rugby and wine, but dominating her whole life was a deep wisdom a, a profound faith reflected in her daily devotions. St. Paul wrote in the letter to the Corinthians ‘ be steadfast.. – that was Rita; in the letter to the Romans ‘don’t give up… that was Rita. We thank God for her life and for her witness to the God who called her. We commend her to the care and mercy of God and send our sympathy and prayers to her family .ED.

The Retireds’ Group

The Group meets on the second Tuesday of each month in Eastmoor at 10.0a.m.. Speakers recently have been Felicity Padley who spoke on the Irish Potato Famine and the migration to the United Kingdom and the Irish Community which grew up in Swansea around Greenhill and what is now St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Cathedral.

The speaker in the December meeting will be Judge Stuart Batcup and in January Canon John Walters. February will be our Quiet Day in Llangasty, details elsewhere in The Newsletter and in March Mal Pope broadcaster and musician will be our speaker.

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It was Christmas day in the Vicarage..

Whether as children brought up in a Vicarage or as members of a clergy family, most readers of this magazine will have rich memories of Christmases spent in Vicarages. Those of us who can recall eighty or more such Christmases recognise how much the celebration of the Nativity has changed over this period. During and immediately after WW2 rationing and other restrictions curtailed the celebration. Expectations were modest and custom dictated that the festival was limited to the day itself and the one or two days following.

The season of Advent dominated the worship of the Church and the life of the Vicarage for four long weeks. No flowers, no parties, the sombre themes of ‘last things’, advent hymns with lovely tunes but heavy thoughts, cold weather and, for children, the tedious waiting for the day to come. Each Sunday was counted and another candle lit. Readings from the gloomier prophets spoke of days of doom and only grudgingly of the coming Messiah. No carols were sung and no decorations appeared in church until after the fourth Sunday in Advent, even if that fell within a day or so of Christmas.

Shops were decorated early, if not as early as now. Shopping trips were more to do with ‘looking’ than ‘buying’, and window-shopping was the best pleasure of all. The unobtainable and unaffordable could at least be enjoyed at a distance and the unrealistic hope that Father Christmas would be over generous could be sustained for as long as possible. Each member of the family was careful to conceal any presents bought for their intended recipients, and mysterious parcels appeared on the tops of wardrobes to reassure us that at least someone would be getting something. In the home preparations accelerated as the day grew nearer. Plans were made, cards written, parcels sent. The places where the holly was in berry

that year were carefully noted. Nuts, apples and other fruit gathered in the autumn were checked and counted. Coloured paper, metal foil, pine cones and card were brought out of store and children began the exciting task of making decorations. Paper, coloured with crayon, cut, folded and glued together, made streamers and paper lanterns – I didn’t need Blue Peter to tell me how to make them. Long evenings in candle-lit kitchens, as near as possible to open coal fires, the crackly sound of a wireless in the background, younger children learned from those who had done it all before.

As well as decorations we made Christmas cards to give to family, friends and near neighbours. Last year’s printed cards were recycled by cutting off pictures and lettering and gluing these on to new card. Many presents were also home-made. Girls knitted and crocheted and made toffee and sweets. Boys made whistles and wooden toys. Wood, wool, straw, string, crayons and paints, glue made from flour and water – we had all the materials we needed.

Mental arithmetic and dictation filled each day at school right up to the end of term with hardly a mention of Christmas. “It only makes the children excited”, said one teacher. Once term ended gender dictated how we spent each day at home. Girls worked with mothers and grandmothers in the kitchen – a cake to be iced, pudding boiled, vegetables prepared, poultry killed and feathered. Time had also to be found to decorate the church with holly, fir and ivy and a few flowers put in old jam jars and placed on the window sills or hung from nails. Boys brought in fire wood and gathered holly, cut down a Christmas tree in the wood and brought it into the house early on Christmas eve so that adults could decorate it after the children had gone to bed.

For the Vicar there was the special task of making sure all was ready in the church. Altar frontal changed to white, wine and bread prepared, new candles in place, chalice and vessels polished and washed, surplice hanging ready, hymn numbers on the board. The Crib checked and complete apart from the baby to be placed there in the morning – and the Wise Men at a suitable distance from the manger, symbolising their late arrival. The Vicar did it all in those days and those quiet few moments alone in a cold church might have been the first rest he had had in some days. And it would be an early start in the morning.

Children tried to go early to bed as though to accelerate the dawn, hanging their stockings at the foot of the bed. Next day they were up first and in the cold light of morning emptied their stockings and ran downstairs to see the tree. The Vicar was in church for the 7 a.m. Holy Communion and then again at 8 a.m. Large numbers came, especially those who had to rush home afterwards to prepare the lunch, and the words ‘Yea Lord we greet Thee, born this happy morning…’ seemed so appropriate. The Vicar came home for breakfast to be welcomed by the family who had waited patiently for him to distribute the presents and

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see them opened. Soon he and the children returned to church for the 11 a.m. sung Morning Prayer, with the Te Deum which we had not sung for weeks, followed by a brief communion service for those too old to come to the early celebration. The choir was expected to be there but the congregation was largely made up of the elderly and fathers and children – sent to be out of the way while mothers worked in the kitchen.

Christmas lunch was always special. This was one of the few days in the year when poultry was served. Plum pudding followed with always the hope of discovering the silver thruppenny bit – before someone swallowed it. Home-made crackers, paper hats and even a glass of wine. An afternoon playing with toys was followed by a large tea at which the Christmas cake appeared and then all the family went to Evening Prayer in church. Not many came, but those who did had the joy of singing all the carols in Hymns Ancient and Modern (not many). Tradition dictated that as it was a happy day there should be no sermon – just more carols.

The rest of the festival followed the traditional pattern. Boxing Day saw the Hunt out in numbers and the excitement of trying to keep up with the hounds. Church each day of course for St Stephen, St John and Holy Innocents but time too for visits to family or welcoming others and on one afternoon soon after Christmas the Sunday School treat. What we had been denied before Christmas we now enjoyed for a whole week. New Year’s Day brought further joys before Twelfth Night and the feast of the Epiphany brought us back to what today would be called ‘Ordinary time’.

Are your memories similar to these? I am sure you will agree that for us this Christmas will be no different from all those we have already experienced and nor should it be. Our duty now is to make sure that our children and our community are able to enjoy the very best of a Christian Christmas so that together we may celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour.

Geraint Hughes + + + + + + + + + + +

From Kilvey to Khartoum

Llewellyn Gwynne was born on June 11th, 1863 the fifth of the seven children of Richard Gwynne a teacher in Kilvey School in Swansea. From there he went to the Swansea Grammar School (now Bishop Gore Comprehensive School) and one of the school Houses still bears his name.

At the age of nineteen in order to help out with the family finances after leaving the Grammar School, he worked for a short time as a class teacher in Beverley in Yorkshire without any training. During this period he fostered a vocation to the sacred ministry and ultimately trained for ordination in St. John ‘s College in Highbury – now St. John’s College, Nottingham – with links to the London School of Divinity. During his student days he was an accomplished footballer and played centre-forward for Derby County, he is still today included in the list of Derby County players on the club’s website.

He was ordained in Derby in 1886 and served curacies in St. Chad’s Church, Derby and St. Andrew’s Church in Nottingham, then in 1892 he was appointed Vicar of the Parish of Emmanuel in Nottingham. Gwynne was of the Evangelical tradition of the Church of England and his life’s work lay outside these islands. He is recorded on the St. John’s College honours board as being one of the first students of the college to enter the overseas mission field. During his student days he had followed with great interest the exploits of General Charles Gordon in the Sudan. After ten years as a parish priest he answered an appeal by the Church Missionary Society for missionaries to serve in the Sudan and was accepted by the Society.

He left London on November 2nd, 1899 and sailed to Port Said, and then to Cairo to seek government permission to travel to Khartoum, which was denied him because of the then civil disturbance in the area. Permission was eventually granted in December and he made his way to the Sudan where, apart from war service in World War 1, he would spend the rest of his life.

In Khartoum Gwynne went through a period of inactivity. Lord Kitchener of Khartoum restricted his missionary activity because of the fear of alienating the large Moslem community. After eighteen months he was permitted to begin work with the Coptic Church in Khartoum in the development of women’s education and opened his first school in June 1902. At the time Gwynne wrote:

‘last week we opened a school for girls and started with 13. The teacher is a colourful lady once a slave sold in the open market, but thanks to God and the American missionaries now a most earnest Christian and a very good teacher.’

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In 1905 there came the opportunity to open a mission station in South Sudan. With the help of the Governor of Mongalla Province, ,Angus Cameron, Gwynne and his team were able to set up the first C.M.S. station in South Sudan at Malek.Gwynne was appointed Archdeacon of the Sudan in 1905 and Suffragan Bishop of Khartoum in 1908. At the time the Sudan was part of the Diocese of Jerusalem. In 1911 he began the process of building a cathedral in Khartoum, Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter laid the foundation stone. The building was interrupted by World War 1 and the consecration did not occur for eight years.

In 1914 Gwynne was travelling in France and decided that he would join the Army Chaplain’s department which he did immediately, and began his military service in Flanders. Alan Wilkinson in his book The Church of England and the First World War writes;

‘the discrimination against Anglo-Catholics was not the only issue. There was also widespread criticism in Church circles that religious ministrations in the army were badly organised. The Chaplains and men in France needed episcopal oversight on the spot.’

In July 1915 Gwynne was appointed Deputy Chaplain General with special responsibility for chaplains and troops in France. He set about his task with enthusiasm providing opportunities for the training of chaplains in a central place in France and providing what amounted to a job description for the new chaplain recruits. He established a permanent centre for instruction and prayer to help chaplains to do their work properly, and for the purpose equipped a large house in St. Omer. It is a sobering thought that 170 chaplains lost their lives in the trenches, and there were several V.C.s amongst them.

At the time seven of the active chaplains were from the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield including one Fr. Barnes. Contemporaries of mine in St. Michael’s College Llandaff will remember Fr. Barnes who lived in the Community House of the Resurrection in Roath. Amongst the Chaplains from this Diocese was W.T. Havard, Vicar of Swansea and later Bishop of St. Asaph and St. Davids, At the end of the war Gwynne returned to his Diocese and the completion and consecration of the Cathedral in Khartoum.

The cathedral was consecrated by the Bishop of London and an account of the occasion from the Swansea County Archives speaks of ‘a vast congregation – an occasion that no one would forget. All races attended - Europeans, Africans Egyptians, Christians, Moslems, Copts and Armenians were there.’

The following year Gwynne was appointed the first Diocesan Bishop of Egypt and the Sudan and lived in Cairo. After the war Gwynne had received offers of dioceses in England which he had refused in order to continue his work in the Middle EastHis last visit to the Sudan was in 1943 and he retired as Bishop of Egypt and the Sudan in 1946 and lived in retirement in England until his death in 1957 at the age of 97, his ashes were buried in the Cathedral in Khartoum. Archbishop Cosmo Lang described him ‘as one of the saints of the Church of England of his day., An incredible person who gave of his missionary gifts for the benefit of the people of the Sudan where he was greatly loved. As far as I am aware there is no memorial to him in the city of Swansea. The display of poppies at the Tower of London entitled

‘The Blood Swept lands and seas of red,Where angels fear to tread’

the lines of a poem by an unknown soldier. I have included the photograph which Clare our daughter took from the viewing platform of the Shard, partly because we shall probably not see the like of it again, and partly because amongst those who are remembered there are those to whom Gwynne ministered including the chaplains who lost their lives, whom he prepared and guided in their ministry one hundred years ago.

Brian Jones.+ + + + + + + + + + + + + ++

OTHER CHRISTMASSES

Alan Johnson. This Boy. Corgi Books 2013. £7.99

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It may seem perverse to recommend as Christmas reading a book by a politician, especially one who is a self-proclaimed atheist. Alan Johnson was a cabinet minister in the Blair and Brown governments; his first book, though, has little to do overtly with politics and his atheism is simply mentioned in passing. It is a record of his upbringing, largely by his sister, in circumstances of extreme poverty in the London of the late 50s and early 60s. Johnson’s mother, Lily, fought through extreme poverty and chronic health to try to support her two children until her death when the author was fourteen. His father was a philanderer, usually absent from the family. The book’s heroine is Johnson’s sister, Linda, and he tells how she fought the authorities to keep them out of care and worked to pay off the debts incurred during their mother’s illness.

Where this book touches upon Christmas is in 1957, when Johnson was seven and Linda ten. Lily, their mother, was again in hospital and, Steve, their father disappeared on Christmas Eve. By paying a few pennies each week into a Christmas club Lily had been able to provide a very basic Christmas hamper. Although they never told her, the children were alone on Christmas day. There is something sadly comical about the ten year old Linda trying to roast a chicken, not realising that the plastic wrapping had to be removed first. Christmas six years later is a much happier affair.Johnson tells his story simply and elegantly with controlled sentiment but not a trace of sentimentality. The book seeks only to tell as it as he saw it and not to make any social or political points. The detail is all the more telling for this and Linda emerges as a young woman of strength and maturity beyond her years. This much praised book is a testament to the survivability of the human spirit and, incidentally, to the central role of Christmas as a secular occasion. Ultimately, this is an affirmative and optimistic book. Peter Phillips(Recently published Alan Johnson’s second book Please Mr Postman’ – Bantam Press. – Ed.)

The Little Book of Lent – Arthur Howells

An inspirational source of encouragement for Lent.

‘The Little Book of Lent’ is a powerful anthology of readings from spiritual writers for each day of Lent, with accompanying scripture and prayers to help guide daily reflections.

With extracts from a range of inspirational writers and theologians, including Desmond Tutu, Sheila Cassidy

and Rowan Williams, ’The Little Book of Lent’ guides you to deepen your prayer life in anticipation of Easter.

This book can be read on your own or with others, used either for self-reflection or to spark discussion and share insights on God’s truths. This edition would be perfect on which to base a Lent course or to use as a talking point for home groups.

Whether or not you choose to read the extracts multiple times or once straight through, this work will lead you to new heights in your Christian journey and personal walk with God. It is the ideal gift for friends, family or anyone else preparing themselves for the sacrifices of Lent.

The Book is available from Amazon and will be available on the day of its launch. Arthur has used the cover design to detail the arrangements for the launch.

Llwynderw Parish Hall, West Cross, Swansea on January 15th 2015 from 11,30a.m. – 1.0p.m. R.S.V.P please by January 5th – 01792 402123 r e Mail aghow@hotpoint.com - Ed.

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Valley Boy Goes West – Alan Meats

I am not one of those people who set out to write his memoirs as soon as he retired from parish responsibilities. My first book concerned the memories of a Victorian parson, Glanffrwd as he looked back on the way of life and characters of his

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upbringing in the nineteenth century, giving the reader an unique insight into an essentially rural society on the brink of diminishing with the advent of the coal industry. It was the catalyst for a huge upheaval in the cultural and social life of South Wales.

This led me to ponder on the huge changes that have taken place in society during the ministry of the clergy of my generation, the increasing secularisation of society, the marginalisation of the Church from society as a whole, together with the structure and mission of the Church compared with 50 years ago. Hence the decision to put together an autobiography that summarises the kind of contemporary upheaval which in fact our predecessors in Victorian times sensed was happening then. In the first few chapters I describe influences of home and school, how my faith was nurtured, how I began my career as a teacher and the circumstances which led eventually to my ordination. A chapter is alloted to each parish in which I served – Swansea and Brecon has two bites of the cherry - a chapter of my time as incumbent of Llandeilo Talybont ( 1975 -83) and also the story of how the ancient parish church of St. Teilo was relocated in the Museum of Welsh Life in St. Fagan’s.

For those who might have a vague idea of what life in a parish and vicarage is like, these memoirs may well be an eye-opener. For those who are more familiar with them, they will hopefully uncover something of the human heart that beats under the clerical garb.

Alan Meats

On the Nativity

A seventeenth century Anglican scholar preached before King James I at Whitehall on Christmas Day 1662. The preacher was the Bishop of Winchester and as was the conceit in learned circles at the time, played on the meaning of two words from his text ‘seeing’ and ‘coming.’

Three hundred and ninety years later another Anglican scholar preaching in Canterbury Cathedral on Christmas morning 2012, takes two words ‘stopping and seeing.’ His opening remarks on the 12% decline in the number of people describing themselves as Christians since last census ten years previously, still 59% of people said they were Christians. The census

cannot measure what those who do not claim to be religious think about religion. Faith is the response people make to what presents itself as a reality – a reality which makes claims on you.

The Bishop of Winchester after about eight pages of close reasoning on the prophecies relating to the coming of Christ asked his listeners what their response would have been to the signs of His coming. ‘it is not commended to stand looking up into heaven too long, not on Christ ascending much less on his star. For they sat not still gazing on the star. Their vidimus begat venimus their seeing made them come, come a great journey. Venimus is soon said, but a short word, but many a wide and weary step they made before they could come to say venimus, ‘Lo here we are come and at our journey’s end.’He chides the king and his listeners with Our fashion is to see and see again before we stir a foot, especially if it be to the worship of Christ. We would not make such a journey at such a time. No but fairly have put it off to the spring of the year, till the days longer and the ways fairer, and the weather warmer, till better travelling to Christ. Our Epiphany would surely have fallen in Easter week at the earliest!

Archbishop Rowan in his sermon takes the example of Moses and the Burning Bush a sign that makes us ‘turn aside and see’ that stops us short. Faith begins in the moment of stopping, you could say the moment when you could not just walk on as you did before. But even more challenging is something whose claims include change and even loss. He describes T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘the Journey of the Magi’ as the most haunting Christmas poem in the English language. The poet imagined the Wise Men back at home after their journey to Bethlehem ‘no loner at ease here in the old dispensation’ and wondering what they had witnessed was birth or death.

The first five lines of Eliot’s poems are in quotation marks, they are found , as no doubt you have guessed in Bishop Launcelot Andrews’ sermon before King James I. He reminds the king that the coming of the Magi was no summer’s progress: A cold coming they had at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially in a long journey in the ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, the very dead of winter. There remains nothing but to include ourselves and bear our part with them and with the Angels and all who this day adored him.

Archbishop Rowan again ‘yet the wise men can’t deny that they have seen what they’ve seen: they really made the journey and they really saw something that persuaded them that it had been worthwhile. Faith: a claim, a shock, a death a life… The wise men found what they were looking for= and it was not at all what they thought they had been looking for.

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Jesus comes to make humanity itself new, to created fresh possibilities for being at peace with God and each other, and he does this by summoning us to be with him.The census return suggests that many people still want to call themselves Christian, that also means there is a recognition that somehow this is where we should be , where it is natural to be in the company of this man, Jesus, listening to his words, turning aside to see deep into the mysterious events of his life, death and resurrection. To look at Jesus who asks us first to stop and reflect, to stop for a moment in the light that allows us to see ourselves honestly and to see the world differently. Adoration that wondering gaze at the child in the manger, is where Faith is born, and where faith is born, so is the new world of Jesus and his Spirit.

Hugh Jones.

“I saw eternity the other night,Like a great ring of pure and endless light”

Were we asked to name a Poet Laureate for our diocese there could be only one contender for that honour - the Breconshire poet Henry Vaughan the Silurist. Edward Williamson, a former bishop, delivering a broadcast lecture in 1953 on the poetry of Henry Vaughan, said of him: “For almost all his threescore and thirteen years he kept the noiseless tenor of his beneficent way in his own sequestered vale and among his own people”. He lived and died at Llansantffraed near Brecon and was buried there on April 23rd 1695. The inscription on his grave reads: “Quod in sepulchrum voluit. Servus inutilis. Peccator maximus. Hic Iaceo. Gloria. Miserere”. He must have written these words. No one else could have said: “Unprofitable servant, a very great sinner. Here I lie. Glory. Have mercy”. And the opening words: “In the grave he wished for”? Williamson suggests that this tells us that he wished to be buried outside the church rather than inside and in a humble grave.

That humble grave has recently undergone a £10,000 restoration. Money from the public and a grant from Brecon Beacons Trust has paid for repairs to the headstone and improved access to the grave at St Bridget's Church, Llansantffraed. The project was organised by the Brecknock Society and Museum Friends. The society's chairman, Dr John Gibbs, said: "We hope the grave will be a place of pilgrimage." He added: "Henry Vaughan is highly-regarded around the world. We are delighted with the work and it is a beautiful place to visit." Geraint Hughes

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The Retireds’ Quiet Day, Llangasty

As we did last year we have arranged a Quiet Day for the Retireds’ Group in Llangasty On Monday, 9th February, which will also be the February meeting of the Group.

The conductor for the day will be Fr. Mark Griffiths who is the Parish Priest in St. Gabriel’s in Swansea, and we are very grateful to Mark for agreeing to look after the day for us.

We shall follow the pattern that we followed last year beginning the day with coffee at 10.0a.m. From there on we will follow the pattern of the day with the Daily Offices, the addresses in the Chapel, the Eucharist at midday, a time for silence and fellowship at lunchtime. We found last year that his pattern was very acceptable especially the worship of the chapel, so many of us in retirement say the Offices on our own most of the time.

The cost of the day will be £25 which includes coffee, lunch and tea before we leave after Evensong at 3.30p.m.. Transport is not a problem, we shall share cars. I would be grateful to hear from those who intend coming for the day by February 1st in order to let Llangasty know the catering numbers. Also if people would let me know if they require a lift.

In preparation for the day we print the Daily Offices, the Propers for the Eucharist and bring booklets for the liturgy. All individuals need to bring is their own

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private reading, the library is well equipped for browsing!

We look forward to what we would expect to be a very worthwhile day of reflection, worship and fellowship. –Ed.

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The Retireds’ NewsletterEditor Chancellor Brian H. Jones125, Homegower House, St. Helen’s Road,Swansea SA1 4DWTel. 01792 923642E mail b.h.jones@outlook.comPlease send suggestions comments, corrections and any items of news about the Retired Clergy by March 1st, for

Printed and published at Swansea and Brecon Diocesan Centre

Cathedral Close, Brecon Powys LD3 9DP (01874 623716)

The Retireds’ NewsletterEditor Chancellor Brian H. Jones125, Homegower House, St. Helen’s Road,Swansea SA1 4DWTel. 01792 923642E mail b.h.jones@outlook.comPlease send suggestions comments, corrections and any items of news about the Retired Clergy by March 1st, for the Easter issue.

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