This week’s Sunday Service will celebrate Plough Sunday and be led by Rev Lindsay Yates. The sermon will be by Rev Will Adam.
The Vicar’s Sunday afternoon sermon on the Baptism of Christ will be uploaded at 2pm.
Plough Sunday is the traditional celebration of the beginning of the agricultural year. Its celebrations involve bringing a plough into a church with prayers for the blessing of the land. It is traditionally held on the Sunday after Epiphany, the Sunday between 7 January and 13 January. Work in the fields did not begin until the day after Plough Sunday, i.e. Plough Monday. Although farming has changed over time, Plough Sunday is seen as a way of celebrating farming and the work of farmers.
The service will come from from Octagon Parish which lies in the west of Sussex in the South Downs National Park. It is a farming community with eight beautiful churches. In mediaeval times, an octagon was considered to be halfway between a circle (God) and a square (earth). It was the place where heaven and earth came into contact. That is why pulpits and fonts are often octagonal in shape.