Sunday 25th March - Passion Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion and Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. BCP Matins, St Mary’s, Reed
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barkway and Reed, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch at The Rectory

Monday 26th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory

Tuesday 27th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway

Wednesday 28th March
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
9.30 a.m. Barkway School in church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 29th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer St Mary’s, Reed
10.00 a.m. Barkway School end-of-term service, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Friday 30th March
 
Saturday 31st March
9.00 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 1st April - Palm Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barley, Town House, Barley,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
All services to include blessing of palm crosses and reading of the Passion

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 2nd April
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 3rd April
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 4th April
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

Thursday 4th April - Maundy Thursday
11.00 a.m. Eucharist and blessing of oils, St Albans Cathedral
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, followed by silent Vigil until midnight, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Friday 6th April - Good Friday
10.30 a.m. All-age Service, recalling the events of the Passion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
1.30 p.m. Meditation on the Passion with hymns, St Mary’s, Reed
7.30 p.m. Stainer’s  Crucifixion St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Sunday 8th April - Easter Day
6.15 a.m. Sunrise service with Holy Communion and breakfast, St Mary’s, Reed
9.00 a.m. Easter Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Easter Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
12.00 p.m. Easter egg hunt, meet at Manor Farm, Barkway

Thursday 12th April
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway
4.15 a.m.  Barkway All-age worship Committee meeting, The Old Post Office

Sunday 15th April
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
6.00 p.m. Sogs of Praise service, St Margaet of Antioch, Barley

Wednesday 18th April
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group meets at Aylwins, Sandon

If you live in Barley you will have heard us ringing for services on Sunday mornings or practising on Tuesday evenings.Although you can learn bell ringing at specialist training centres, the vast majority of ringers, including all the Barley band, learnt and continue to learn at the weekly practices held in parish churches. In Barley we continue this tradition and are happy to teach ringing to anyone who is interested in this ancient art. You do not have to be physically strong, nor do you have to be a member of the Church, just come along one Tuesday to our practice. Naturally, if you have rung in the past and would like to start again, please come and say hello.Further Details:Practice nights: Tuesday 20:00 – 21:00 at St. Margaret of Antioch Church, BarleySunday ringing from 10:00 – 10:30 following the service pattern

Tower Captain: Ian White 01763 848705Email: ian_white@tinyworld.co.uk

The Bells

Barley has a ground floor ring of six bells. The recorded history of the bells starts in 1552 when there were 3 bells. By 1700 two more had been added to give a small ring of 5 bells. Then in 1807, “by voluntary subscription of the Rector and Parishioners”, the bells were recast by the Whitechapel Foundry into a ring of five, the back bells we see today. Lastly in 1921, the ring of six was completed by the addition of a new Treble, again cast by Whitechapel. The bells are mounted in an ancient oak frame and are well maintained and ring easily on plain bearings.

Some Links

Barley tower is a member of the Hertford County Association of Change Ringers (Bishop’s Stortford District).

We work closely with our fellow ringers in the neighbouring village of Barkway. Barkway bellringers’ website

Sunday 18th March - Mothering Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday Family Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday service, St Mary’s, Reed

Monday 19th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Prayer Group, Westfields, Barley

Tuesday 20th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. Deanery Synod, Therfield Village Hall

Wednesday 21st March
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.15 a.m. Interment of ashes, Betty Hall, Barley churchyard
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 22nd March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer St Mary’s, Reed

Friday 23rd March
 
Saturday 24th March
9.00 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
3.00 p.m. Interment of ashes, Leonard Curtis, Barley churchyard

Sunday 25th March - Passion Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion and Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. BCP Matins, St Mary’s, Reed
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barkway and Reed, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch at The Rectory

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 26th March
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory

Wednesday 28th March
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course

Thursday 29th March
10.00 a.m. Barkway VA First School Easter service, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Sunday 1st April - Palm Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barley, Town House, Barley,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
All services to include blessing of palm crosses and reading of the Passion

Monday 2nd April
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 3rd April
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 4th April
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

Thursday 4th April - Maundy Thursday
11.00 a.m. Eucharist and blessing of oils, St Albans Cathedral
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, followed by silent Vigil until midnight, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Friday 6th April - Good Friday
10.30 a.m. All-age Service, recalling the events of the Passion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
1.30 p.m. Meditation on the Passion with hymns, St Mary’s, Reed
7.30 p.m. Stainer’s  Crucifixion St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Sunday 8th April - Easter Day
6.15 a.m. Sunrise service with Holy Communion and breakfast, St Mary’s, Reed
9.00 a.m. Easter Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Easter Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
12.00 p.m. Easter egg hunt, meet at Manor Farm, Barkway

Exodus 2.1-10; 2 Corinthians 1.3-7; Luke 2.33-35

One question that always perplexes people, Christian and those without a faith, is why does God allow such suffering to happen in the world. It’s a question that has been around for all time - certainly we see it coming up in the Old Testament time and time again. We only have to look around our world to see why this is a question that so many of us ask.

We see poverty and devastation. We see young men murdering each other with guns, leaving behind families and friends in a state of utter grief. We see men and women involved in conflict and oppressing others. We see fear in the lives of people who have been burgled or raped or attacked and we wonder how on earth God allows people to destroy each other so easily.

In fact, those situations are easier to give an answer to. God has made us not as robots but as people with a choice to follow the ways of love or to go against them. Our love for God can only be real if it is something we have chosen. A robot cannot love properly. A

nd how different that power of God’s is from the power of many human leaders who feel threatened by the thought that others might not do as they say! I suspect their motivation is power and not love for their people.

But we have a God who loves us so much and who wants real love in return that built into creation was the option that those people who were made might not then follow the ways of love that God so desires and lives by.

It’s an explanation that can offer a solution to some of the suffering in the world. God allows humans to beat each other up and cause each other pain because we have not been created as puppets who can only do the right thing. We have been given choice and responsibility, and sadly, some fail to live up to this.

But, what about the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the natural disasters and the accidents? What about disease and innocent children left without parents, and so on?

These questions are so much harder to answer. I don’t like being confronted by the questions of people who see them as a reason for not worshipping God. How can you worship a God that allows these things to happen, they ask. A recognition is implicit in that question that God is all-powerful and that God could do things differently.

I don’t like being faced with those questions because I feel any answer I give is inadequate and not what they are looking for. We live in a world that is fallen, that is not the perfect world of God’s creation. Sin has caused destruction and devastation through the world, and creation has become a broken and distorted thing.

There is little else we can say in response to these questions other than that our world has become distorted and decayed through the power of sin.

We, as Christians, have hope - a hope that when Christ comes again, God’s creation will be restored to its former glory. We think of those passages in Revelation that speak of a new heaven and new earth where there will be no mourning and crying and pain and where death will be no more. And we live in this world because we place those promises alongside the destruction and chaos that we see.

In a sermon following the tsunami the Archbishop of Canterbury quoted a former Archbishop of Wales speaking at the time of the Aberfan disaster. This Welsh archbishop said these words: “I can only dare to speak about this because I once lost a child. I have nothing to say that will make sense of this horror today. All I know is that the words in my Bible about God’s promise to be alongside us have never lost their meaning for me. And now we have to work in God’s name for the future.”

Perhaps there really is nothing we can say that will make sense of such tragedy. Our faith is about far more than just being a crutch in times of difficulty. A faith that has all the answers is a faith that is unwilling to grow and develop and change.

These questions of suffering will not go away, but sometimes we may have to accept that in this world we have no answer to them.

Rowan Williams, in that same sermon, said this: “The extraordinary fact that belief has survived such tests again and again - not because it comforts or explains, but because believers cannot deny what has been shown or given to them.

“They have learned to see the world and life in the world as a freely given gift; they have learned to be open to a calling or invitation from outside their own resources, a calling to accept God’s mercy for themselves and make it real for others; they have learned that there is some reality to which they can only relate in amazement and silence.

“These convictions are terribly assaulted by all those other facts of human experience that seem to point to a completely arbitrary world, but people still feel bound to them, not for comfort or ease, but because they have imposed on themselves the shape and life and the habits of the heart.”

What we can know is that God will be with us in the suffering. I’ve said before how much I am humbled by watching Christians who live in poverty radiate joy because they know that God is with them in their troubles. Simeon recognised when he saw the child Jesus that God would not leave us to suffer alone but would be in the midst of that suffering.

That recognition as he talks to Mary that she will watch the suffering of her son reminds us that God knows what it is to suffer. Christ suffered and can identify with us in our sufferings. That is one of the enormous differences between the God of Christianity and the God of other faiths - we have a God who suffers for the sake of his people.

In today’s epistle reading Paul is reflecting too on suffering. If you read the rest of this letter from Paul to the Corinthians, you will become aware of the sufferings that Paul had faced for the sake of the Gospel: he speaks of being afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, in danger from rivers, bandits, hungry and thirsty, sleepless nights and under daily pressure because of his worry for the churches.

But in the midst of his sufferings, he has recognised that God is there providing comfort and consolation. It is often through our hard times that God shapes us and develops us. For when times are good, it is much easier to forget about God. Hard times teach us and shape our character. It’s a bit like the entrepreneurial attitude that there is no such thing as failure - only learning opportunities.

And Paul gives another reason why our sufferings may not be such a bad things after all, for we can use them in service of others. As Christ’s sufferings brought us life, so too will his consolations. And our sufferings can bring consolation to others. God consoles us so that we can bring consolation to others.

Those who help others who are suffering most are those who know what it is to have suffered. So, though we may not be able to answer the why of suffering, we may be able to use suffering in a positive way.

In a New Year’s Day message in The Times on January 1st 2005, Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi, wrote this: “The simplest explanation is that of the 12th-century sage, Moses Maimonides. Natural disasters, he said, have no explanation other than that God, by placing us in a physical world, set life within the parameters of the physical.

“Planets are formed, tectonic plates shift, earthquakes occur, and sometimes innocent people die. To wish it were otherwise is in essence to wish that we were not physical beings at all. Then we would not know pleasure, desire, achievement, freedom, virtue, creativity, vulnerability and love. We would be angels — God’s computers, programmed to sing His praise.

“The religious question is, therefore, not: ‘Why did this happen?’ but ‘What then shall we do?’ The religious response is not to seek to understand, thereby to accept. We are not God. Instead we are the people He has called on us to be his ‘partners in the work of creation’.

“The only adequate religious response is to say: ‘God, I do not know why this terrifying disaster has happened, but I do know what you want of us: to help the afflicted, comfort the bereaved, send healing to the injured, and aid those who have lost their livelihoods and homes.’

“We cannot understand God, but we can strive to imitate His love and care.”

In those words, I hear also echoes of the words of Jesus to love God and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, and the words of Paul “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of all mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.”

Sunday 11th March - Lent 3
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Sung Eucharist, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Monday 12th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory

Tuesday 13th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway

Wednesday 14th March
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
7.30 p.m. Barley VC First School Governors’ meeting
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 15th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer St Mary’s, Reed
7.30 p.m. Alaric Fund AGM, Crossways, Barley

Friday 16th March
 
Saturday 17th March
9.00 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 18th March - Mothering Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday Family Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday service, St Mary’s, Reed

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 19th March
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Prayer Group, Westfields, Barley

Tuesday 20th March
8.00 p.m. Deanery Synod, Therfield Village Hall

Wednesday 21st March
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course

Saturday 24th March
3.00 p.m. Interment of ashes, Leonard Curtis, Barley churchyard

Sunday 25th March - Passion Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion and Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. BCP Matins, St Mary’s, Reed
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barkway and Reed, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch at The Rectory

Monday 26th March
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory

Wednesday 28th March
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course

Thursday 29th March
10.00 a.m. Barkway VA First School Easter service, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Sunday 1st April - Palm Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barley, Town House, Barley,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
All services to include blessing of palm crosses and reading of the Passion

Monday 2nd April
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 3rd April
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 4th April
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

BARKWAY, BUCKLAND, REED AND BARLEY READINGS

April 2007

*plus Liturgy of the Palms outside church Luke 19.28-40** instead of sermon

May 2007

17 May Ascension Day service at Reed 8.00 p.m.Daniel 7.9-14; Psalm 93; Acts 1.1-11; Luke 24.44-53

June 2007

* to be confirmed by the leader of the service

Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18; Philippians 3.17-4.1; Luke 13.31-35

How do we decide whom to trust?

There are a number of ways in which we might do this.

We might make a decision based on our personal experience of a particular person or company. If we receive our post regularly and our letters reach their destination, we might trust Royal Mail.

If we have a satisfactory response when we take our broken-down car to the garage, we might go back there.

If we have had good service from a person in the past or know that what they have told us is truthful, we are likely to trust that person.

If we call in a plumber and two days after he or she has gone, the system breaks down again, we might lose trust in them and try someone else next time.

If our e-mails constantly fail to reach their destination, we might change service provider. If a friend lets us down by always failing to show up for an arranged meeting, we might begin to lose trust in them.

If people share things with us that then turn out to be untrue, we begin to lose our faith in their judgement.

We might trust someone because a friend or acquaintance has told us that they are reliable. When you move to a new place, it is usual to ask around about who are the good plumbers or builders or doctors and so on. When I moved here, I made decisions about doctors and vets partly on the advice I was given by other people.

We might trust something because of other knowledge we have. If we know that a neighbour is a reliable person to entrust our house with when we go on holiday, we might then assume that they are trustworthy in other spheres of life.

We might read in a newspaper statistics that show how many times flights are late for particular airlines and choose for or against a particular airline. Statistics about schools have become very important in recent years. If we know how a school has done in the past year, we make assumptions about how it will perform in the future.

And where we read information might also aid our decision about whom to trust. If we read something in a newspaper, we are inclined to believe it - though having attended press conferences when I worked for the Church Times that were also attended by national newspaper journalists, I have become somewhat cynical about how the truth can change in the quest for a decent story - but perhaps we might be less inclined to believe something that is clearly part of a propaganda leaflet put out by those of a particular persuasion.

Ultimately, though, however much information we have about something, we then have to take a risk and make a decision. Very few decisions involve no risk at all, because by choosing one person or thing we are often not choosing someone else.

It was Jesus who said: “Whoever is not for me is against me.”

Sometimes decisions about whom to trust are very important ones. No marriage can be properly fulfilling if the partners do not trust each other. And our faith comes from a decision to trust God.

Our decision to trust God will be dependent on what we know of God.

We learn about God in a host of different ways. We might have personal experience of God’s love and grace. We might have experience of trusting God for ourselves in difficult times in the past.

We might have learnt about God from other people of faith and seen that they were different because of their trust in God. We might have learnt about God through our Bibles, from a Sunday-school teacher who was trustworthy in other areas, and so on.

Throughout the Bible, there are reminders for the Jewish people about how God had been faithful in the past when they were wandering away from God or becoming discouraged.

Abraham (then still known as Abram) made the decision to trust God long, long ago. Aged 75, he was called by God to leave his home in Haran and travel to a country that God would show him. We don’t know about Abram’s relationship with God before this point, but he must have had some basis for his trust, since he went as God had told him.

God led him and brought him to a new land. In today’s reading we eavesdrop on another conversation between God and Abram. Abram is finding it hard to trust at this point. God had promised descendents, but here he is, old and without children. God, without it seems getting annoyed with Abram, shows him compassion. He takes him to look at the stars, and reiterates his promise of descendents - so many there will be that you won’t be able to count them.

Something in the encounter enabled Abram to keep trusting. “He believed and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Something in the way God dealt with him caused him to have faith.  We see in this story the compassion of God.

In that odd ritual involving animals chopped in half, we see God binding himself in a covenant. It’s a variation on a cultural form of oath-taking. Normally, it seems, both parties would walk through the animals as a sign that they were binding themselves to the promises they had made - a life or death oath. Perhaps the animals reminded the people what might happen to them if they broke their promise. In this case, it is only God who binds himself, the sign of this being the smoking pot and flaming torch.

We see a God who wants nothing in return, who is willing to make promises and assurance based only on his own character and not on the response of others. There is no sense from God that I’ll do this if you do that. These promises are unconditional.

This story is a theme that is taken up by Paul in the Letter to the Romans. It’s something that Paul sees as being at the heart of the Gospel. He creates a whole argument around the fact that it was Abraham’s faith (Paul calls him Abraham not Abram) and nothing else that made him righteous. There was nothing Abraham could do to change things. Everything depended on God.

God was asking Abram to trust him. In showing him the stars, in confirming verbally that he would fulfil his promises, in binding himself by the terms of a covenant and sealing that through the ritual, God was offering himself to Abram.

Many years later, we see this happening again in Jesus. Our Gospel reading points towards Jesus’s death. Even the Pharisees - not noted for their friendship towards him - are warning Jesus to go away. But he doesn’t and he won’t.
If God’s promises are to be fulfilled, God in Christ must face the death that is to come.

We all know the next part of the story. Abram did eventually have a son with his wife Sarah, even though he had tried to hasten God’s promises through a son with Hagar, his wife’s slave-girl. He became the ancestor of many people as promised.

And in Christ’s resurrection, more promises are fulfilled, and the faithfulness of God is seen.

God’s promises have been proved true in the past. The nature of God and his character remain, so we too can trust in God, the God of compassion and faithfulness, the God who expects us only to believe for us to be declared as righteous.

As we continue our journey through Lent, it is the fulfilment of these promises in the resurrection that we look forward to.
Lent is not something in itself but a period of wilderness leading to new life and resurrection.

Through the story of Abraham, through the life of Christ, we too can see how trustworthy God is. And in those words of Jesus to Jerusalem, we see how deep is God’s longing for us to recognise his faithfulness and compassion: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

Those words, I believe, are not just for the people of Jerusalem, but for all of us too who have become the children of God through Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday 4th March - Lent 2
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion with Junior Church, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 5th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory

Tuesday 6th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway

Wednesday 7th March
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 8th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer St Mary’s, Reed
1.15 p.m. Reed First School visit to St Mary’s, Reed
7.30 p.m. Barley Church Times study group, The Manor, Barley

Friday 2nd March
 
Saturday 3rd March
9.00 a.m Morning Prayer St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 11th March - Lent 3
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Sung Eucharist, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 12th March
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory

Wednesday 14th March
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course

Sunday 18th March - Mothering Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday Family Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday service, St Mary’s, Reed

Monday 19th March
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Prayer Group, Westfields, Barley

Tuesday 20th March
8.00 p.m. Deanery Synod, Therfield Village Hall

Wednesday 21st March
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course

Saturday 24th March
3.00 p.m. Interment of ashes, Leonard Curtis, Barley churchyard

Sunday 25th March - Passion Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion and Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. BCP Matins, St Mary’s, Reed
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barkway and Reed, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch at The Rectory

Monday 26th March
2.30 p.m. Benefice Lent Study Group, The Rectory

Wednesday 27th March
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course