The vicar welcomes you all to the very first pets' service held in St. Hilary's
Miniature Church! With the kind permission of the Blue Cross animal
charity we have used their own pets'service leaflet, "St Francis of
Assisi Day Animal Service" as a basis for our own one.
See how things went below....
Tom and Adele have been given the VERY
responsible job of handing out the Blue Cross pets' service leaflet to
all the visitors and animals when they arrive.
Look who ELSE is also going to do their bit and give out some
leaflets too!
Well done Esme and Ernest, the local pair of mallards from the
village pond near by!
Look who has
arrived? It is none other than Ben, with one of Ambrose's free
range chickens in a basket and Adele, with her pet tortoise asleep in
its box! Her tortoise is still in hibernation so we hope that
nobody's loud singing or talking wake him up during the service! However
Adele has written "Do not disturb" on her
tortoise's box and hopes everyone reads it and takes note!
Magnifi-Cat inspects the two new arrivals VERY carefully........and
is very glad that they are NOT cats!
Now WHERE has
young Priscilla Jane been playing this morning? It looks
suspiciously like she has visited the local village pond and fished out
some tadpoles!
Priscilla Jane tells Ben and Adele that she thought that it would be
lovely to have God bless some tadpoles. Little did she realise
that, when she fished these tadpoles out of the pond and put them in her
jam jar, the two parent frogs would notice and jump out and follow her
to make sure that their babies were not going to come to any harm.
Alice and her
young sister, Megan, have brought their handsome Bassett Hound, Henry,
to church to be blessed by the vicar!
Doesn't he look a lovely and friendly pet dog?! Alice and Megan
are understandably VERY proud of him. Henry is a very obedient and
well behaved dog too so they know he will be good and not bark once
during the service.
It is nearly time
for the first hymn which is "Morning has broken"!
Phoebe is to play for this pets' service and she is very
nervous as you would understand. She is taking great care to make
sure she plays no wrong notes during this important first hymn.
However, Phoebe is even more nervous than usual today because Adele
has asked her to take temporary care of her pet tortoise. Let us
hope that the organ playing the first hymn does not wake the poor
sleeping tortoise up!
The
vicar has asked Ambrose to bring something VERY special up to the
pulpit in order to show the children and congregation!
Can you guess what it is? It is a fossil that Ambrose and his
father dug up a few years ago. You can clearly see an imprint of a
prehistoric dinosaur on it! This creature would have lived many
many years ago before God created men and women!
The vicar told the children that God made and loved the dinosaurs too
when he made them all of those many years ago.
He thought it was good to remind the children how wonderful
God was in the variety of creatures He had made since He created the
earth.
Alice is reading
the second lesson. This second lesson is taken from Genesis
Chapter 8 verses 1-19. It is the story of Noah's Ark and the
children love this story every time it is read to them. This
reading tells of how God let the water recede and Noah was told to send
a dove out to see if there was any dry land and, after sending the dove
out three times, it does not return.
Sue, the mother cat, and her kitten have been brought to church by
their owners and they are enjoying playing around the lectern whilst
Alice is doing the reading.
Can you see someone else in this picture? It is naughty Sepp,
Homer's pet rat. She has climbed up the lectern to get a birds'
eye view of Alice as she is reading the lectern.....NAUGHTY Sepp!
The vicar has got a lovely surprise for the children during the
sermon......find out what it is below........
The vicar has
surprised the children and has brought along a lovely toy Noah's Ark to
show the children during his sermon to them and the animals. He
shows them all the different animals that it has.........two
elephants..........two giraffes..........two lions.............and more!
He
explains to the children that God sent the big flood to punish all the
people for their naughtiness in not obeying His word. However God
decided to save Noah and his family and when the flood receded, promised
that He would never again send such a big flood as a punishment.
The vicar went on to tell them all about the patron saint for animals
and birds, St. Francis of Assisi. He also reminded them that the
bells in the bell tower are also dedicated to St. Francis so animals and
birds are very precious to God as well as people.
Oh dear....has anyone noticed an animal that has fallen over on the
pulpit that belongs to the ark? Poor Tom! He had been asked
by the vicar to assemble the ark and all the animals....but must have
knocked the elephant over and forgotten to put him upright again.
The vicar forgave him though for not noticing because he had done a
great job otherwise. And as the vicar told him...nobody is
perfect.
It has come to the end of the service and
the animals have begun to come up to the altar rail to be blessed.
Before the vicar said the final blessing he said this prayer taken
from the Blue Cross service leaflet..
"Help us to reverence all life.
To value every single creature in the world,
Every sparrow that has ever lived and who ever will live is yours.
That is how you know when one dies.
You value everything to which you have given life
And whose life you sustain.
Help us to love and care for everything on earth,
Just as you do, because we are all yours.
Have you noticed someone fast asleep on the kneeler?
This poor
young mother cat is plainly exhausted after playing with her little
kitten! As you can see the kitten is going to try and waken her up
so that they can carry on playing!
A little white mouse is being very brave and checking out the kitten
and its' mother..........we hope that the mother cat doesn't wake up and
see the mouse.........Fortunately the kitten is much more interested in
playing with his mother to notice the mouse behind him.
We strongly encourage everyone to visit the website of The
Blue
Cross and donate if they have a heart to. We know that all
donations will be gratefully received and put to good use in the care
and support of needy animals, birds etc. Thank you folks!
Thanks to sister Catherine for
the loan of the bassett hound, chicken in the basket, tortoise in a box,the
pair of cats and their kittens and the Noah's Ark! The bassett hound, cats and their kittens are
also by Sarah Schiff and the chicken basket is by C and D Crafts. The
Noah's Ark is from Warwick Miniatures.
Again many thanks to Catherine for this fossil! Catherine
made it herself too!
Collect (Prayer) for 4th May 2008
The Sunday after
Ascension Day
O God the King of glory, you have exalted your
only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: we beseech
you, leave us not comfortless, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us and
exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before, who is alive and
reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
This site is dedicated to Hilary Doreen Davies who departed this life 26
November 2003 aged 71 after 23 years of chronic illness with strokes, cancer and
arthritis. St Hilary's Church is our tribute to a brave lady who was
mother to Sarah, Catherine, the late Rachel, the late John and wife to the late
Owen Williams Davies.
