20 March 2022
10:00 | 
Posted by
Dr Platts |
A beautiful morning for the third Sunday in Lent and the first day of Spring. This morning Father Luke the Archdeacon was with us to celebrate Matins at 10 am. We sang the Venite, Psalm 26, the Benedicite in the setting by Lloyd, and the Choir sang the Jubilate Deo in the setting by Stanford. Father Luke spoke about the Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy, describing how the Jews were told to designate themselves as the People of God, and the New testament reading from St John, where Jesus explains that we can show in our lives the grace given to us by Our Lord, both important aspects of our consideration of our Christian life during Lent.
In our Prayers we asked God's care and love for the people of the Ukraine and of Russia.
There was coffee after the service in the rooms.
Due to unforeseen circumstances we were not able to hold our Treasure Hunt, so it has been postponed until after Easter.
Sunday School made some Daffodils
The Churchyard in the spring sunshine
8am Holy Communion
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
A reading from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians.
I do not want you to be unaware,
brothers and sisters,
that our ancestors were all under the cloud,
and all passed through the sea,
and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
and all ate the same spiritual food,
and all drank the same spiritual drink.
For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them,
and the rock was Christ.
Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them,
and they were struck down in the wilderness.
Now these things occurred as examples for us,
so that we might not desire evil as they did.
Do not become idolaters as some of them did;
as it is written,
“The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.”
We must not indulge in sexual immorality
as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did,
and were destroyed by serpents.
And do not complain as some of them did,
and were destroyed by the destroyer.
These things happened to them to serve as an example,
and they were written down to instruct us,
on whom the ends of the ages have come.
So if you think you are standing,
watch out that you do not fall.
No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.
God is faithful,
and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
but with the testing he will also provide the way out
so that you may be able to endure it.
Luke 13:1-9
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.
There were some present who told him about the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way
they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
No, I tell you;
but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.
Or those eighteen who were killed
when the tower of Siloam fell on them—
do you think that they were worse offenders
than all the others living in Jerusalem?
No, I tell you;
but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Then he told this parable:
“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard;
and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.
So he said to the gardener, ‘See here!
For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none.
Cut it down!
Why should it be wasting the soil?’
He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year,
until I dig around it and put manure on it.
If it bears fruit next year, well and good;
but if not, you can cut it down.’”
10am Matins
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
6 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
John 17:1a, 11b-19
1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
11 Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
