Roger Scoones' Monthly Dialogue
Rev Roger Scoones
Rev Roger Scoones is Rector of St Mary's Parish Church, Stockport and is a well known figure in the local community.
July at St Mary's 2009
July used to be a month full of weddings, at least when I was a young
man. This month we welcome our ONLY wedding of the year at St Mary’s!
Paul & Ceri are entitled to be married in the Parish Church of their
choice under a new law which allows couples to be married in a Church
with which they have a strong family association. I’m sure it will be a
very happy family day for all concerned, but I wish more couples would
decide to get married and come to Church to do so. It’s not just that we
are a lovely Church, it’s that the Marriage Service in Church is so
beautiful and meaningful too. It’s what memories are made of!
St Mary’s is looking particularly fine in the Summer sunshine, with
two aspects of its tower full restored, and the hand carved and restored
pinnacles standing out against clear blue skies. At ground level too,
the Church and which surrounds the Church is kept in very good condition
by
Stockport M.B.C. the local
authority. It’s a big responsibility for them, but they see St Mary’s as
a flagship for their cemeteries & parks team of workers, because we are
situated right in the centre of a busy town. Flowerbeds are kept fully
stocked, bushes are pruned, and most important of all the grass is cut
regularly. What it pity it was for me, then, to see the Churchyard full
of beer cans last Monday morning! July in Manchester may be a sunny and
warm month to sit outside and have a beer, but it’s never right to abuse
a churchyard in this way.
There is no doubt, this country has a problem with litter. Nowhere was
it more obvious than in St Mary’s Churchyard on that day. Empty boxes,
and beer cans strewn across the grass. I wondered what a little party of
Children from Chernobyl must have thought of our way of life, as they
picked their way through the rubbish in our otherwise beautiful
Churchyard.
July is of course a “holiday month” and just as we expect people to
leave us for holidays abroad so we expect to receive visitors from
around the world as they come to visit Stockport. As the oldest building
by far in the town, we hope that visitors will find not only a place of
great historic interest, but also of spiritual significance, to them
personally, a place of peace and calm, of
comfort, and especially of a sincere Stockport “Welcome”!
During the winter months people are always complaining about the cold in
St Mary’s – even when we have the heating on. So I was very amused in
June on a very hot day, when someone said to me “how lovely and cool it
was in Church”. Oh for longer English Summers! And more Weddings!
Rev. Roger Scoones
Rector of St Mary’s
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