May, 2026
Dear Friends
CHRIST IS RISEN, ALLELUIA! is the great acclamation of Easter, as we celebrate the triumph over death and evil. Christians always stand for hope – even in the darkness we believe that God is there, looking after us, giving us courage. The world may be a frightening place, full of wars fuelled by egos, but God knows every one of us and loves us. This is the message of Our Lord – not even death can hold him from coming to love us and hold us.
The Easter season runs from from the Sunday of Easter to Pentecost, seven weeks later. Like many of our festivals, there are historical layers of meaning. Easter is also the Passover, the time when the Angel of Death passed over the Jews and their escape from the land of Egypt into freedom. It is also the start of the harvest time, the time of the offering of the first fruits of the harvest.
Pentecost for us is the giving of the Holy Spirit and the start of the Church, but for the Jews it is also the giving of the Law to Moses from God, and also the completion of the harvest. So Easter is the start of the harvest, the start of the escape from bondage in Egypt, and the start of the resurrected life for us in Christ. Pentecost is the completion of the harvest, the the giving of the Law on how to live as a Jew, and the giving of the Spirit for us to live our lives as Christians.
We will be keeping Pentecost here on Sunday 24 May. In Rome they scatter red rose petals from the oculus of the dome of the Pantheon into the congregation – we are not quite as ambitious here, but we try and wear a little red to rejoice on the day.
St George’s Day
My thanks to the many cooks for the lunch for St George’s Day, and for our guest preacher, Fr Rodney Fopp of the Diocese of the Murray and a lecturer at St Barnabas’s College. Unfortunately the weather was not fine enough for outside dining but we had a good social time together.
Archbishop of Canterbury
The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, was visiting Rome this week to meet Pope Leo XIV. It is customary now for the new Archbishop to visit Rome to meet the Pope. Last time it was Archbishop Welby visiting Pope Francis – both of them were new in the job then! So much of ecumenical relationships is just keeping in touch and understanding each other. Sadly, within our own denomination we now have a group of bishops who are forming a breakaway Anglican church, called GAFCON, the Global Anglican Future Conference. Now, I am a priest who is not always happy with our present church structures or bishops (especially certain archbishops), but I prefer to remain within a church rather helping to create more schisms. It is always better to be positive and to stand for something, rather to stand against something, and sometimes these alternative churches are fonder of ranting against someone rather than for what they stand.
But getting back to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Rome. During Vatican II in the 1960s there was a opening of the Roman Catholic church to ecumenical relationships and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, took up an offer to visit Pope John XXIII in 1960, the first archbishop of Canterbury to visit since the Reformation. He was heavily criticised at the time by some within the Evangelical movement, and not everyone in Rome was happy with the idea either – so much so that the Vatican office deliberately had no photographers on hand, so we have no photo of the two leaders together. There is a story that the Pope said he looked forward to the Anglicans one day rejoining the church, but Archbishop Fisher corrected him (he was fond of correcting people), and said it was not a question of re-joining, but growing into a new body. Since that time the two leaders have regularly met. At St George’s we pray for the Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Orthodox church, every mass, as a sign that we still seek union with our separated Christians. In May between Ascension and Pentecost we also join in prayers of the national church for re-union. By a strange series of circumstances, I am in possession of a book signed by Archbishop Fisher. He visited Australia several times, as his son was a teacher out here, and during a visit to Adelaide in 1950 signed an antique book called “An Exposition of the Creed” the fifth edition of 1683. This was possibly a present by or to him, but it is now in my possession, a very fine old book.
Gift to South Sudan
The parish recently gave $1000 to help Bishop William Deng Deng of the Diocese of Aweil in South Sudan. Until recently Bishop Deng was the Rector of St Mary’s down the road from us on South Road. He visited me before he departed to catch up and I gave him a mitre from our collection as well as the donation. He sends his thanks and will send us some photos later. We also donated $1000 to the Picket Fence Community Centre at St Mary’s.
Parish Lunch
Our next parish lunch will be for the Ascension on Thursday 14 May at 1 pm at the Goodwood Park Hotel. Please let me know if you wish to attend so I can book.
God Bless,
Fr Scott
History Photo
This photo shows the baptistry around the late 1940s. At this stage the heavy font cover had been built into a permanent structure raising it high above the font. This was later removed in the late 1990s and the original plan restored.
By the side of the font there are two bench chairs – these were the original choir stalls near the altar that were later removed to this position. At some stage they were removed completely from the church and their present whereabouts are unknown.
The two pictures at the back were moved about ten years ago to the Lady Chapel where they are still.
You can see the wooden chairs that occupied the nave of the church – in the 1950s they were replaced with the present pews. The last of the chairs are now by the wall of the church and many of them now need re-caning again – if anyone knows someone who could do this let me know.
Above the font there is a small statue of Our Lady with the infant child. This was replaced at some stage with the Christchild.
The floor of the aisle is covered with linoleum – later it was covered with a red carpet and traces remained when we polished the floor a few years ago. This lino was nailed to the floor, which explains the nail marks one can see in the aisle today.
Beyond Deuteronomy – A Sermon for Easter
Joshua and the Garden City
Fr Thomas Plant SSC 5 April 2026
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed, alleluia!
Come, you who have kept a full Lent since Ash Wednesday, who have observed the fasts, deepened your prayers, given alms and grown in the image of Christ!
Come, you who came late to the journey, but stood with the crowds on Palm Sunday at the gates and laid your garments at the King’s feet, baring your souls for re-creation!
Come, you who joined the new Passover the night before Our Lord died, who passed through the waters to Gethsemane, who watched and waited in the garden!
Come, you who knelt at the Cross on Good Friday and witnessed the Atonement and the victory!
Come, you who come only today for this holy day of Resurrection: for even the workers who arrive at the eleventh hour receive their reward.
On our journey through Jerusalem this week, we have seen Our Lord live out the Torah: the hints of Genesis in the olives and the palms, the Exodus crossing of Maundy Thursday, on Good Friday the sacrifice of Leviticus and (though I did not mention it then) the Bronze Snake of Numbers uplifted on wood for healing from the serpent’s poison. Today, Easter Day, takes us to Deuteronomy, the final book of Torah — and beyond.
For the Torah ends unfulfilled. Moses dies before he can reach the Promised Land, looking out over the Jordan which he will never cross. Moses has to hand over his leadership of Israel to someone else, someone who gives his name to the next book of the Bible: Joshua. His name means “God saves.” And in Greek, that name is Jesus.
What Moses could not accomplish, Joshua, that first Jesus, does. He leads Israel through the Jordan to the Promised Land. But it is a land not made to last. The tribes fight, the kingdom gets broken, Israel and Judah are conquered over and over again. Jerusalem is built only to be razed, rebuilt, and razed again.
Today, the new Jesus – who is also the new Adam, the new Moses – fulfils what His ancestors foreshadowed. He leads not just His kinsfolk, but all people, across the waters of death and into a Kingdom that will never end.
In so doing, He fulfils all of the Torah. The Passover lamb freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt; the Lamb of God offers all people freedom from death and sin. The patriarchs ate the manna bread and yet died; our Lord gives Himself as bread which endures to eternal life. The High Priest on Yom Kippur made sacrifice and entered the Holy of Holies annually to cleanse his people of a year’s sin; our true High Priest pleads His sacrifice in heaven, the sacrifice which cleansed the sins of the whole world, once and for ever. He becomes for us the Way to God’s Presence.
The old Adam crossed from Eden to the wilderness. The new Adam leads us back to something greater even than Eden. The Bible starts with a garden, but ends with a garden city, the City of God. This is the true and new Jerusalem, where there is no need of sun or moon, because it is radiant with the light of Christ; where there is no temple, because God and the Lamb are themselves the temple; and where nothing of this world, this life, this body is lost, but all is brought to its intended perfection, our garments of skin transfigured into garments of light.
But now we are in another garden: the Easter garden outside the tomb. In the early dark, St Mary Magdalene sees the stone rolled away, a barrier removed like the torn veil of the Temple; inside, a deeper darkness, dark as the dazzling cloud on Sinai. She dares not enter, but runs to fetch St Peter and St John. From outside, the Beloved Disciple glimpses discarded garments within, linen like the High Priest’s robes. But Peter, as though taking up that mantle, is the first to enter this Holiest of Holies, where God’s Presence had lain. When they leave, Mary looks inside, and sees two angels, like the cherubim above the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, who enthroned God’s Presence there. And turning, she is first to meet that Presence face-to-face.
She thinks He is a gardener. And she is not wrong. Adam was the gardener of Eden; the Risen Lord is the gardener of the new creation, the Garden City of God. The seed of the Garden City is borne by the Spirit from the tree of Eden to Ararat and Sinai and Tabor and Sion, to Gethsemane and Golgotha. Now in the nearby garden, outside the tomb, the Gardener offers us His fruits. New grain rises from dead earth to make the Bread of Life. New vines press wine into new skins. The pressed olive yields oil to light the city, to cleanse its citizens, to anoint new kings, new priests, new gardeners to govern it and offer up its fruits.
My head reels at the scale of all this: thousands and thousands of years, innumerable stars and planets, all arrayed perfectly for the birth and life of our little garden world. And behind all the mathematics and harmony and order needed for it all to exist, mind unimaginable, uncontainable, the Logos, the Word of God. He is the Gardener who walked in Eden. And now, He walks out of a tomb. All of space and all of history are somehow in this one man. He is the King of Glory, He is the High Priest, and He wants to grab us by the hand and drag us from Golgotha to the Mount of Olives to ascend with Him into communion, oneness, with the Father of Lights beyond all worlds and rule with Him forever.
What we do here today may seem nothing in the eyes of the world. We may be few, our services this week ignored by our neighbours. But it is of cosmic importance. We stand in the garden at the empty tomb as a priestly kingdom. We have been granted entry to the Holy of Holies. At this and every Eucharist, we stand side-by-side with St Peter, St John, St Mary Magdalene and the holy angels, ushering heaven into earth. We are doing the Word’s work of re-creation. We are being formed more and more closely into His image, until He can say to us, “ye are gods,” because we too are gardeners and builders. We go out to fix the broken edifices of our society, to fertilise the charred ground, to bring family, parish and nation under the reign of the King of Glory. The seeds we sow may be tiny, but God gives the growth.
So come. The King is here, in Word, Bread and Wine, in sister and in brother. He is here to stay. He lives, and offers His life to the world. He offers it through you.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed, alleluia!
Services
Sunday Services
8.00 am Mass
10.00 am Solemn Sung Mass
Weekday Services
Monday Fr Scott’s Day Off
Tuesday 10.00 am Mass,
followed by gardening.
Wednesday 8.00 am Mass
Thursday 12.00 noon Mass
Friday 8.00 am Mass
Saturday 8.00 am Mass
May
1 PHILIP AND JAMES, APOSTLES AND MARTYRS
2 Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher of the Faith, 373
3 EASTER 5
4 English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation Era
8 Julian of Norwich, Mystic, Teacher, c1417
10 EASTER 6 – Rogation Sunday
11 Holy Abbots of Cluny
12 Gregory Dix, Priest, Monk, Scholar, 1952
17 ASCENSION
16 Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877
19 Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, Restorer of Monastic Life, 988
20 Alcuin of York, Deacon, Abbot of Tours, 820
21 Helena, Protector of the Holy Places, 330
24 PENTECOST
25 The Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk at Jarrow, Scholar, Historian, 735
26 Augustine, First Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
26 John Calvin, Reformer, 1564
28 Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089
30 Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
30 Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
30 Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist in Central Africa, 1933
31 TRINITY SUNDAY
June
1 Justin, Martyr at Rome, c165
1 Laying of Foundation Stone of Rectory 1907
2 THE VISIT OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY TO ELIZABETH (FROM 31)
3 Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 & Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, 1977
3 John XXIII, bishop of Rome, reformer, 1963
5 Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754
6 Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945
7 CORPUS CHRISTI
8 Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Non-Juror, Hymn Writer, 1711
9 Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597
9 Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymn Writer, Teacher of the Faith, 373
11 BARNABAS, APOSTLE AND MARTYR
13 Antony of Padua, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1231
14 PENTECOST 3
15 Evelyn Underhill, Spiritual Writer, 1941
16 Richard, Bishop of Chichester, 1253
18 Bernard Mizeki, Apostle to the MaShona, Martyr, 1896
19 Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu (holy man), Evangelist, Teacher of the Faith, 1929
21 PENTECOST 4
22 ALBAN, FIRST MARTYR OF BRITAIN, c209
24 THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
27 Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher of the Faith, 444
28 PENTECOST 5
29 Consecration of Augustus Short as first bishop of Adelaide and inauguration of the See of Adelaide 1847
30 PETER and PAUL, APOSTLES AND MARTYRS (from 29)
Our website
Address for correspondence
The Parish of St George the Martyr,
The Rectory
34 Angus Street
Goodwood, SA, 5034
Email: stgeorges8@bigpond.com
Consider giving to the church; our bank details are as follows.
For regular and general offerings:
Anglican Parish of St George the Martyr
BSB 105-033 Account 151 992 640
For mission offerings and special projects (e.g. Lent, disaster relief):
St Georges Association for Education
BSB 105-033 Account 151 259 040
You may donate anonymously, but please note a purpose – e.g. ‘regular offering’, ‘overseas mission’, ‘Lenten giving’.
St George the Martyr Anglican Church, Goodwood 