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Transcript © 2003 Hubmaker. All rights reserved.
Reproduction by any means strictly prohibited.
Tarleton Rectory
March 15th 1941
My dear Friends,
Mothering Sunday, this year, has a very special, and much wider,
significance for us.
Our
Motherland has nurtured and reared us, and has given us of her best.
Some of her sons and daughters have left home to seek their fortunes
in lands afar off, in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa,
but she is still their Mother and they her children, and we their
brethren, for a child does not cease to belong to the home merely
because it has gone father afield to seek a living. To others, such
as those who dwell in India, Burma, Central Africa and the Islands
of the Pacific she has been a veritable foster mother. And now,
evil forces from without are seeking to destroy our Home and rob
us of our Motherland.
It
was fitting, therefore, that the King, as head of this great family,
should call upon all his faithful subjects to make intercession
to Almighty God on Mothering Sunday on behalf of our Motherland.
And all who value the privilege of being members of this great and
kindly Empire will assuredly do so.
The
Archbishop of Canterbury, as the Patriarch of our Mother church,
has voiced the King's desire, and, at the end of his appeal, says
"Everywhere, of course, the centre of all our worship and prayers
and thanksgivings will be the Holy Eucharist."
Such
a reminder was to be expected from the Metropolitan of our Mother
Church, for the Holy Eucharist is not only a perpetual memorial
of the supreme sacrifice inspired by Love, it is also the greatest
act of worship that the redeemed can offer their Redeemer; for it
is the willing obedience to His command "Do This in remembrance
of Me." It is even still more than this, for it is the means
whereby the creature can link himself to the Creator, the Source
of all real Life.
This
is what our Lord meant when He said, "As the living Father
hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth Me, even
he shall live by Me". Read again the sixth chapter of St. John's
Gospel where all this is explained very fully.
There,
as the Archbishop says, everyone should be present at Holy Communion
on this day. It is the family Service.
I
have already written to all the lads away reminding them that their
parents will be in the family Church at home at 8 o'clock on Sunday
morning and asking them to make their Communions at the same time
wherever they may be if it is at all possible. Thus ,we shall all
meet in the most sacred Heart of Jesus our Lord; and where else
would we meet on such a day.
As
we come to the end of the day upon which our thoughts have been
fixed upon our Empire, our Country, our Village and our Home, we
shall assuredly desire to finish it in our Father’s House
and return thanks for the blessings that the membership of each
one of these has brought to us.
I know
the very great pleasure that it has given us all to have our own
Bishop with us on such an occasion; for he is the Head, the Father
of our Diocesan family. The Bishop will preach at Evensong, as you
will see from your Card, and will lead us in our acts of praise
and intercession for God’s continued blessing upon us and
ours. It would be impossible to find a more suitable finish to such
a day.
So come, as complete families, let not one be absent; to the family
Communion at 8 in the morning; and then come again in the evening
to the family prayers and thanksgiving.
With
every blessing I am able to bestow,
Ever your affectionate brother,
L. N. FORSE. |
