Letter from the Rectory
PARISH
OF LLANDUDNO, NORTH WALES
July 2007
July often seems to be a month when we welcome more groups than usual
from outside our parish family to services or events in our churches
and July 2007 will be no exception to this trend.
On Sunday 8th we will welcome members of the Sea Cadet Corps and others
to join our celebration of ‘Sea Sunday’. On the same day members of the
Llandudno Festival Committee will come to mark the opening of this
year’s Festival and later in the week we will be hosting two of the
Festival Concerts. On Sunday 22nd the new Mayor, Councillor Alun
Barrett, and members of the Town Council will be coming for a ‘Mayor’s
Sunday’ service (the Revd Jane Allen, our Vicar, is Mayor’s Chaplain
this year) and on the following day the Cologne New Philarmonic Chamber
Orchestra will be giving a concert.
Add to all this at least two baptisms, a wedding, and the blessing of a
marriage, our regular Trinity Players’ Concerts and the large number of
visitors who attend our normal services – and you can see how many
people and organizations will be passing though our doors.
All this reminds us that as a Christian community we have a
responsibility to care for and to serve the community and world in
which we are set. For instance a civic occasion such as Mayor’s Sunday
enables us to help our local community to celebrate its civic life and
institutions and also to remind those in civic life of the sovereignty
of God and of their need to serve with integrity and for the good of
the community.
Sea Sunday reminds us of our debt to those who work at sea so enabling
us to travel by ferry or on cruises and to use the many items
which they bring to us from all over the world in container ships etc.
Seamen often face great physical danger, are frequently away from loved
ones for considerable periods of time, and sometimes work on
un-seaworthy vessels or for unscrupulous employers. Living beside the
sea as we do, behoves us to be especially concerned for seafarers and
to support Christian organizations such as the ‘Mission to
Seafarers’ who care for seafarers in the name of Christ.
By celebrating the Llandudno Festival and hosting concerts of various
kinds we show that as a Church we wish to celebrate the cultural life
of our community and the world, to rejoice in God’s gifts to us of
music and literature etc. And in welcoming many who come to baptisms,
and marriages and other similar events we share in the celebration of
significant moments in the lives of many families as well as hopefully
conveying to them God’s love shown in the sacramental acts in which
they come to take part.
In all these ways and in many others we show that we are a parish which
cares for the world of which we are part and wants to celebrate its
life. I hope you all enjoy all the events of July but please do your
bit to make sure that all who come through the doors of our churches,
for whatever reason, feel welcome and hopefully experience something of
the love of God for them.
Fr John.