Chaplain's Newsletter
St. George's Venice and Christ Church Trieste
Dear People of St. George’s (near and far),
I hope you are enjoying this weekly update. As always, I am very grateful to Sally Bennett for sending it out to all of you. If you have any news of your own that you would like to go in this update, please send it!
THIS SUNDAY, March 26, we observe the 5th Sunday in Lent and the beginning of Passiontide.
The readings for Sunday: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
Hymns: #469, I heard the voice of Jesus say; #174, Breathe on me, Breath of God (to the tune of 248, Carlisle); #305, I come with joy, a child of God; 496, Lead us Heavenly Father, Lead Us
Preacher: The Very Rev. Lucinda Laird
ANNOUNCEMENTS
LENTEN study opportunities continue!
PRAYERS Would you like to add a name to the prayer list? If you or someone you love is sick, in any kind of difficulty, has died, or wants to offer thanks for something, please send the name to Mr. Philip Jones at philip.g.jones@gmail.com Names will remain on the list and be mentioned in the Sunday intercessions for four (4) weeks; after that you will need to make another request if you want to continue.
HOLY WEEK AND EASTER
NEXT SUNDAY IS PALM SUNDAY!
10:30 - Joint Blessing of the Palms in Campo S. Vio with the Clergy and Congregation of the Church of Santa Maria del Rosario(I Gesuati) We will continue with a procession into the church and Holy Eucharist.
Maundy Thursday, April 6 – There will be a parish potluck Maundy Thursday supper in the church at 6:30 pm. We will share a simple meal, wash each other’s hands (rather than feet – this makes better sense in the 21st century!), hear the story of the Last Supper, strip the altar and leave in darkness. PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU WISH TO PARTICIPATE!!!! (lucindarlaird@gmail.com)
Good Friday, April 7 – Good Friday service, 3:00 pm PLEASE NOTE TIME CHANGE. The church will be open from 2:00 - 3:00 pm for prayer and meditation, and the Chaplain will be available.
EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 9 – The holiest and most festive day of the year! (NOT Christmas – we are Easter people). 10:30 am Holy Eucharist
Don’t forget that there are wonderful services and music all over Venice during Holy Week. Some of you may wish to mark the week by attending a service each day. I, for one, plan to go to San Marco for at least one service, and other churches as well.
You may well want to go to the Scuola Grande dei Carmini and hear the Venice Music Project on Wednesday night of Holy Week:
THE TENEBRAE BY F. COUPERIN Tenebrae Lessons by François Couperin, written for Holy Week for two sopranos.
HELP NEEDED DURING HOLY WEEK: If you can help with any of these, please contact me at lucindarlaird@gmail.com.
(The Rev.) Lucinda Laird, Chaplain
CHAPLAIN'S NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2015
Dear Friends,
Since this is my final 'Chaplain's Newsletter' I hope you will forgive a little self-indulgence as I try to say what St. George's Venice and Christ Church Trieste have meant and given to me over the past five years. Both have taught me much and I am sincerely grateful to the communities in and around both places.
Little house in Dorsoduro
Of course it is St. George's that has provided me with a delightful little home and by paying the bills the means to be able to live in Venice throughout the time that I have been here. Thanks so very much to those who have generously provided this.
God's Houses in Campo San Vio, Venezia and Via San Michele, Trieste
St. George's has also even more importantly provided a church around whose altar the people of God have gathered weekly with me to say and sing the praises of our God. There too, to join in Our Lord Jesus Christ's continuing work of saving and redeeming a lost world with its lost souls, as we have celebrated His Eucharist where his eternal sacrifice of love and healing, reconciliation, forgiveness and peace is made available to us all. Though necessarily on a less regular scale that has also of course been true of Christ Church Trieste.
A Venetian rainbow of people
Because the Chaplain lives in Venice and therefore is part of the multi-coloured kaleidoscope that makes up this vibrant and magical city, he inevitably is engaged on a pretty much daily basis with the many elements and interests that make Venice the fascinating mix of communities that make up the whole. This stretches from hands-on involvement with both formal and informal groupings of English speaking-Italian folk to the strongly forged Ecumenical scene including especially the link with our local 'parish church' of Santa Maria del Rosario (The Gesuati) and the lively and very active ecumenical Council of Churches.
The chaplain of course and by a long chalk cannot and does not do this alone, the links with so many individuals and groups outside the confines of our own congregations are made by the lay members of the church. Sometimes by personal friendship, by hospitality and oft-times by their own involvements with various circles of Venetian society, with the Universities, colleges, Circulo, Lunch clubs, Choirs etc. as well as with artists and musicians found throughout this city.
Team work at the heart of everything in Venice and Trieste
What makes all this possible is the fact that though relatively small in number we have been blessed at St. George's with people at the core who together with the Chaplain have discovered the joys (and human nature being what it is, just occasional 'pit-falls'!) of working and ministering together as a team. That is and must remain the foundation of any real Church's life – without it a church simply flounders and then dies. With it 'the sky's the limit'.
Christ Church Trieste, though with an even smaller number of core people also operates as a team, though with inevitably less direct input from the Chaplain. It is the appreciation of the fact that Jesus did not leave behind him a one-man band but a team (12 Apostles and innumerable disciples) with each appreciating the particular gifts and contributions of the others, that makes a church grow in depth and strength. Domination by individual personalities makes for quite the opposite. “Love one another as I have loved you” is the way Our Lord puts it.
It has been such a happy privilege to have been for five years on the pilgrimage road (to heaven,we hope) with you in Venice and Trieste and I thank you all both individually and corporately for by God's good grace, making it possible. Ties of true friendship and fellowship in The Lord will I know remain and I expect and hope that you will seek me out in London. I also hope that I can some day return as a visitor to this unforgettable part of La Bella Italia.
Meanwhile “That was the week that was” !
“Lift up your heads O ye gates and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors”
Unbelievable in many eyes that the Bronze doors, panels, memorial lamp and the North facade of the Church were all magnificently restored in time for the very memorable service of Rededication and Remembrance on November 11th at 11.00. The hugely generous responses for the appeal, formally launched only last Easter made that possible. In this regard the City of Venice, the Venice in Peril fund and the Hamish Parker Trust provided large grants to add to the sums given by so many individual members of the congregation and by friends everywhere. I hope pictures of the event will soon be posted on our Church website. The presence of His Excellency Mr. Christopher Prentice, British Ambassador to Italy along with British Honorary Consul of Venice Mr. Ivor Coward and that of the Mayors of Calvene, Giavera, and many of the other Comunes where the cemeteries containing the mortal remains of the British and Commonwealth dead of WWI are situated along with the representative of the Mayor of Venice was testimony to the enduring and historic friendship between the United Kingdom and Italy.
The ceremony was an even greater testimony and sign to the need for all nations and peoples to 'beat their swords into ploughshares'.A marvellous message was sent from Francesco, Patriarch of Venice and formally read out by his representative. There was full participation by the local Parish priest, Don Raffaele Muresu. After the Chaplain of St. George's had censed the rededicated doors and panels Don Raffaele did the same. This was then followed by Don Raffaele's censing of the Italian war memorial on the outside wall of St. George's and Fr. Howard then doing the same. Inside the Church the Act of Remembrance was then perfomed at the Memorial Lecturn, with the reading of names of some of the British and Commonwealth dead, buried in the cemeteries named on the bronze panels and inscribed in the 'Liber honoris' kept in the church. Soloists Marija Jovanovic (also Organist) and Liesl Odenweller provided beautifully appropriate songs and the 'Last Post' was sounded immaculately by Italian trumpeter, Giovanni Montalto.
A mountain of delicious sandwiches and other goodies, the single-handed handiwork of Jane Gorlin accompanied by appropriate liquid victuals followed and enabled a good hour and a half of conversations, introductions and much photography to take place in a very convivial atmosphere.
Arrivederci Venezia e Trieste
Saturday November 14th saw yet another memorable event take place in the Church, a 'Farewell Concert' for Fr. Howard. The church was packed with friends, members of St. George's and from the wider communities – social and ecumenical and the atmosphere became electric from the very first musical item performed by the concert organiser Simon Allatt. The programme and participants are worthy of record and I will attempt to attach a copy of it to this Newsletter though again I expect it will also be posted on the Church website. Suffice it here to say that the concert was of outstanding excellence and that the participants were all either members of or connected with St. George's Church. What a line up of talent those present experienced. A simply wonderful 'send off' for yours truly.
The concert was then followed by a reception at the Patronata (Parish Hall) of Santa Maria Del Rosario, at the kind invitation of the Parish Priest Don Raffaele and organised via the good offices of Deacon Guiseppe Baldan who was present at both the concert and the reception. The reception was organised beautifully by Caroline Jones and Geraldine Ludbrook, helped by members of the St. George's core team. It was enlivened by the singing (impromptu) of the Ensemble Vocale Venezia, who had performed earlier in the concert, as well as by glorious food and a seemingly endlessly flowing stream of Prosecco!
After a moving and amusing speech by Churchwarden David Newbold the Chaplain was presented with a beautiful painting of St. George's Church whilst the artist, our good friend Geoffrey Leckie, looked on! Plaudits were swiftly and deservedly forthcoming from every side. Truly a treaure to keep.
On Sunday 15th after St George's off to celebrate the Eucharist in Trieste and afterwards to enjoy a terrific supper party with the best home-made pizzas I've ever tasted – made by a heart surgeon, so they must have been healthy! And a delicious, original recipe home-made soup – made by a senior executive of the Assicurazioni Generale – so no danger that the soup was not 'fully covered!' who also happens to be the Surgeon's wife, was held at their home for myself and church members. A framed Photograph of the Church and a beautifully illustrated volume on Trieste were presented to me.
So for sure - “That was certainly a very lovely week that was!”
“Rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say 'rejoice' “
Sunday November 22nd will be my last officiating as Chaplain of St. George's. It is the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ as Universal King, the last Sunday in the current 'Church Year'. It seems appropriate to be leaving as we celebrate all that Christ has done and continues to do for this world and for each one of us.
Although I cannot deny that there will be an element of …... well some “sweet sorrow” at this parting the new Church Year (YEAR C for those who need to know!) that begins on the following Advent Sunday, promises for all of us new beginnings and with the God who in Jesus said “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” we shall find new doors opening and new opportunities to find ourselves with Him alongside us.
With my love and blessings and a huge 'THANK YOU'
Fr. Howard
The Venerable Howard Levett. Chaplain St. George's Venice and Christ Church Trieste 2010 – 2015.
Dear People of St. George’s (near and far),
I hope you are enjoying this weekly update. As always, I am very grateful to Sally Bennett for sending it out to all of you. If you have any news of your own that you would like to go in this update, please send it!
THIS SUNDAY, March 26, we observe the 5th Sunday in Lent and the beginning of Passiontide.
The readings for Sunday: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
Hymns: #469, I heard the voice of Jesus say; #174, Breathe on me, Breath of God (to the tune of 248, Carlisle); #305, I come with joy, a child of God; 496, Lead us Heavenly Father, Lead Us
Preacher: The Very Rev. Lucinda Laird
ANNOUNCEMENTS
LENTEN study opportunities continue!
- Bible Study in Lent with Gilly Wiscarson and Lucinda Laird. Tuesday afternoons, 16:30-17:45, by Zoom. We will be looking at the readings for the coming Sunday. Contact Gilly Wiscarson for further information.
- Lenten study of Paintings of the Last Supper, led by Chris Wiscarson, Friday evenings 18:00-18:30, on ZOOM. Respond to Sally Bennett for the Zoom link.
PRAYERS Would you like to add a name to the prayer list? If you or someone you love is sick, in any kind of difficulty, has died, or wants to offer thanks for something, please send the name to Mr. Philip Jones at philip.g.jones@gmail.com Names will remain on the list and be mentioned in the Sunday intercessions for four (4) weeks; after that you will need to make another request if you want to continue.
HOLY WEEK AND EASTER
NEXT SUNDAY IS PALM SUNDAY!
10:30 - Joint Blessing of the Palms in Campo S. Vio with the Clergy and Congregation of the Church of Santa Maria del Rosario(I Gesuati) We will continue with a procession into the church and Holy Eucharist.
Maundy Thursday, April 6 – There will be a parish potluck Maundy Thursday supper in the church at 6:30 pm. We will share a simple meal, wash each other’s hands (rather than feet – this makes better sense in the 21st century!), hear the story of the Last Supper, strip the altar and leave in darkness. PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU WISH TO PARTICIPATE!!!! (lucindarlaird@gmail.com)
Good Friday, April 7 – Good Friday service, 3:00 pm PLEASE NOTE TIME CHANGE. The church will be open from 2:00 - 3:00 pm for prayer and meditation, and the Chaplain will be available.
EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 9 – The holiest and most festive day of the year! (NOT Christmas – we are Easter people). 10:30 am Holy Eucharist
Don’t forget that there are wonderful services and music all over Venice during Holy Week. Some of you may wish to mark the week by attending a service each day. I, for one, plan to go to San Marco for at least one service, and other churches as well.
You may well want to go to the Scuola Grande dei Carmini and hear the Venice Music Project on Wednesday night of Holy Week:
THE TENEBRAE BY F. COUPERIN Tenebrae Lessons by François Couperin, written for Holy Week for two sopranos.
HELP NEEDED DURING HOLY WEEK: If you can help with any of these, please contact me at lucindarlaird@gmail.com.
- Readers for the Passion reading from Matthew on Palm Sunday at 10:30 am.
- A few people to help set up and clean up on Maundy Thursday
- Readers for the Passion reading from John on Good Friday.
(The Rev.) Lucinda Laird, Chaplain
CHAPLAIN'S NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2015
Dear Friends,
Since this is my final 'Chaplain's Newsletter' I hope you will forgive a little self-indulgence as I try to say what St. George's Venice and Christ Church Trieste have meant and given to me over the past five years. Both have taught me much and I am sincerely grateful to the communities in and around both places.
Little house in Dorsoduro
Of course it is St. George's that has provided me with a delightful little home and by paying the bills the means to be able to live in Venice throughout the time that I have been here. Thanks so very much to those who have generously provided this.
God's Houses in Campo San Vio, Venezia and Via San Michele, Trieste
St. George's has also even more importantly provided a church around whose altar the people of God have gathered weekly with me to say and sing the praises of our God. There too, to join in Our Lord Jesus Christ's continuing work of saving and redeeming a lost world with its lost souls, as we have celebrated His Eucharist where his eternal sacrifice of love and healing, reconciliation, forgiveness and peace is made available to us all. Though necessarily on a less regular scale that has also of course been true of Christ Church Trieste.
A Venetian rainbow of people
Because the Chaplain lives in Venice and therefore is part of the multi-coloured kaleidoscope that makes up this vibrant and magical city, he inevitably is engaged on a pretty much daily basis with the many elements and interests that make Venice the fascinating mix of communities that make up the whole. This stretches from hands-on involvement with both formal and informal groupings of English speaking-Italian folk to the strongly forged Ecumenical scene including especially the link with our local 'parish church' of Santa Maria del Rosario (The Gesuati) and the lively and very active ecumenical Council of Churches.
The chaplain of course and by a long chalk cannot and does not do this alone, the links with so many individuals and groups outside the confines of our own congregations are made by the lay members of the church. Sometimes by personal friendship, by hospitality and oft-times by their own involvements with various circles of Venetian society, with the Universities, colleges, Circulo, Lunch clubs, Choirs etc. as well as with artists and musicians found throughout this city.
Team work at the heart of everything in Venice and Trieste
What makes all this possible is the fact that though relatively small in number we have been blessed at St. George's with people at the core who together with the Chaplain have discovered the joys (and human nature being what it is, just occasional 'pit-falls'!) of working and ministering together as a team. That is and must remain the foundation of any real Church's life – without it a church simply flounders and then dies. With it 'the sky's the limit'.
Christ Church Trieste, though with an even smaller number of core people also operates as a team, though with inevitably less direct input from the Chaplain. It is the appreciation of the fact that Jesus did not leave behind him a one-man band but a team (12 Apostles and innumerable disciples) with each appreciating the particular gifts and contributions of the others, that makes a church grow in depth and strength. Domination by individual personalities makes for quite the opposite. “Love one another as I have loved you” is the way Our Lord puts it.
It has been such a happy privilege to have been for five years on the pilgrimage road (to heaven,we hope) with you in Venice and Trieste and I thank you all both individually and corporately for by God's good grace, making it possible. Ties of true friendship and fellowship in The Lord will I know remain and I expect and hope that you will seek me out in London. I also hope that I can some day return as a visitor to this unforgettable part of La Bella Italia.
Meanwhile “That was the week that was” !
“Lift up your heads O ye gates and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors”
Unbelievable in many eyes that the Bronze doors, panels, memorial lamp and the North facade of the Church were all magnificently restored in time for the very memorable service of Rededication and Remembrance on November 11th at 11.00. The hugely generous responses for the appeal, formally launched only last Easter made that possible. In this regard the City of Venice, the Venice in Peril fund and the Hamish Parker Trust provided large grants to add to the sums given by so many individual members of the congregation and by friends everywhere. I hope pictures of the event will soon be posted on our Church website. The presence of His Excellency Mr. Christopher Prentice, British Ambassador to Italy along with British Honorary Consul of Venice Mr. Ivor Coward and that of the Mayors of Calvene, Giavera, and many of the other Comunes where the cemeteries containing the mortal remains of the British and Commonwealth dead of WWI are situated along with the representative of the Mayor of Venice was testimony to the enduring and historic friendship between the United Kingdom and Italy.
The ceremony was an even greater testimony and sign to the need for all nations and peoples to 'beat their swords into ploughshares'.A marvellous message was sent from Francesco, Patriarch of Venice and formally read out by his representative. There was full participation by the local Parish priest, Don Raffaele Muresu. After the Chaplain of St. George's had censed the rededicated doors and panels Don Raffaele did the same. This was then followed by Don Raffaele's censing of the Italian war memorial on the outside wall of St. George's and Fr. Howard then doing the same. Inside the Church the Act of Remembrance was then perfomed at the Memorial Lecturn, with the reading of names of some of the British and Commonwealth dead, buried in the cemeteries named on the bronze panels and inscribed in the 'Liber honoris' kept in the church. Soloists Marija Jovanovic (also Organist) and Liesl Odenweller provided beautifully appropriate songs and the 'Last Post' was sounded immaculately by Italian trumpeter, Giovanni Montalto.
A mountain of delicious sandwiches and other goodies, the single-handed handiwork of Jane Gorlin accompanied by appropriate liquid victuals followed and enabled a good hour and a half of conversations, introductions and much photography to take place in a very convivial atmosphere.
Arrivederci Venezia e Trieste
Saturday November 14th saw yet another memorable event take place in the Church, a 'Farewell Concert' for Fr. Howard. The church was packed with friends, members of St. George's and from the wider communities – social and ecumenical and the atmosphere became electric from the very first musical item performed by the concert organiser Simon Allatt. The programme and participants are worthy of record and I will attempt to attach a copy of it to this Newsletter though again I expect it will also be posted on the Church website. Suffice it here to say that the concert was of outstanding excellence and that the participants were all either members of or connected with St. George's Church. What a line up of talent those present experienced. A simply wonderful 'send off' for yours truly.
The concert was then followed by a reception at the Patronata (Parish Hall) of Santa Maria Del Rosario, at the kind invitation of the Parish Priest Don Raffaele and organised via the good offices of Deacon Guiseppe Baldan who was present at both the concert and the reception. The reception was organised beautifully by Caroline Jones and Geraldine Ludbrook, helped by members of the St. George's core team. It was enlivened by the singing (impromptu) of the Ensemble Vocale Venezia, who had performed earlier in the concert, as well as by glorious food and a seemingly endlessly flowing stream of Prosecco!
After a moving and amusing speech by Churchwarden David Newbold the Chaplain was presented with a beautiful painting of St. George's Church whilst the artist, our good friend Geoffrey Leckie, looked on! Plaudits were swiftly and deservedly forthcoming from every side. Truly a treaure to keep.
On Sunday 15th after St George's off to celebrate the Eucharist in Trieste and afterwards to enjoy a terrific supper party with the best home-made pizzas I've ever tasted – made by a heart surgeon, so they must have been healthy! And a delicious, original recipe home-made soup – made by a senior executive of the Assicurazioni Generale – so no danger that the soup was not 'fully covered!' who also happens to be the Surgeon's wife, was held at their home for myself and church members. A framed Photograph of the Church and a beautifully illustrated volume on Trieste were presented to me.
So for sure - “That was certainly a very lovely week that was!”
“Rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say 'rejoice' “
Sunday November 22nd will be my last officiating as Chaplain of St. George's. It is the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ as Universal King, the last Sunday in the current 'Church Year'. It seems appropriate to be leaving as we celebrate all that Christ has done and continues to do for this world and for each one of us.
Although I cannot deny that there will be an element of …... well some “sweet sorrow” at this parting the new Church Year (YEAR C for those who need to know!) that begins on the following Advent Sunday, promises for all of us new beginnings and with the God who in Jesus said “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” we shall find new doors opening and new opportunities to find ourselves with Him alongside us.
With my love and blessings and a huge 'THANK YOU'
Fr. Howard
The Venerable Howard Levett. Chaplain St. George's Venice and Christ Church Trieste 2010 – 2015.
