Stories you will love!

My Dear Friends, 

I hope that something wonderful happens for you this week, just because life is tough and folk are feeling low.

Before I moved out here to Spain I was the Vicar of St Mary Magdalen and St Denys in Midhurst, and Rector of All hallows Woolbeding. 

Midhurst is a very picturesque town nestling in the South Downs and was made part of the South Downs National Park during my time.
I was not only the Vicar, but also the Town Crier, and I had the wonderful job of proclaiming to the folk of Midhurst that the South Downs National Park had been Designated on April 1st2010.

So with all my dramatic regalia on, and hat, bell and parchment, I walked down the steps of the church into the grounds to speak to the assembled crowd of dignitaries.
I managed to trip over something, and fell flat on my face smashing my glasses into my nose, tearing the skin and immediately my face was the size of Belgium, with blood everywhere!
But not to be daunted, and with the help of some lovely bystanders, I managed to get up, clean myself, gather myself and proclaim that the South Downs National Park was officially open, and that Midhurst was part of it. Not sure how much was heard, through my smashed up face. I was then whisked off to hospital to have my good looks restored.

The point of this little story is just to set the scene for a much greater drama some 1700 years earlier. Our church was dedicated to Mary Magdalen, whom you all know, and St Denys! Lesser known, and an interesting combination.

Denys became a priest and in 245 Fabian, the Bishop of Rome, consecrated him and six others as missionary bishops to work in Gaul (France) where many Christians had suffered terribly during the persecutions set in motion by the Roman Emperor Decius.

Denys arrived in Paris as its first bishop with two companions, the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius. They settled on an island in the Seine and built a church there. From there they went out preaching the gospel. The local pagan leaders incited the people to force the Roman governor, Fescenninus, to stop their teaching. When Denys and his companions refused to stop, they were seized, tortured and beheaded on the hill of martyrs’ ‘Montmartre’ on October 9th 258.

The brilliant story is that after Denys was beheaded, he bent down, picked up his head, tucked it under his arm, and walked the six miles to the place of his burial, preaching as he went.
Imagine the fun we used to have keeping that part of our Partronal Festival on October 9th.
One year I got my friend Stephen, who really is quite short to dress up as a much taller guy, and we made a costume so that he looked like he was carrying his own head. That was part of our procession. Sadly I couldn’t persuade him to preach as he went through the town.

The story may well be some urban myth, but I love things like this not so much for the facts, or ‘interpretation’ of them, but for the meaning. Denys was so full of the Gospel, that nothing and nobody was going to stop him telling of the great things that God had done. And he wasn’t bitter, and he wasn’t angry – he was full of the love of the Lord.

Sadly I can’t find a record of what he was saying, but wouldn’t it be great if he used as his text

 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

And

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I know it has been a tough few months, but as the old saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Tomorrow will be a brighter day.

Bless you, Bless you, Bless you,

Fr Marcus