14 May 2023
10:00 | 
Posted by
Dr Platts |
This morning our worship reflected the festival of Rogation Sunday. Named from the Latin word Rogare the verb to ask, this is the day on which we ask God's blessing on the crops, and animals, and all of the natural world. We mark this by a Rogation walk, as is traditional at St Marys, around the area. At each stop we had a bible reading, a prayer and a verse of a Hymn. We blessed the Barn in Church Farm Lane, the cows in the field beyond the churchyard (Many thanks to Chris and Caroline Spiby) The fish at 'Russets' and the beautiful garden next door. We then had a short, said eucharist in the Glebe field and blessed everyone, including the dogs who had accompanied us on our walk. The weather stayed dry and we had a cup of coffee afterwards in the rooms!
This Thursday is Ascension Day, there will be a Eucharist at 7:30 to celebrate!
8 am only
Acts 22:22-31
A reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said,
‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.
For as I went through the city
and looked carefully at the objects of your worship,
I found among them an altar with the inscription,
“To an unknown god.”
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and everything in it,
he who is Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in shrines made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything,
since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth,
and he allotted the times of their existence
and the boundaries of the places where they would live,
so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though
indeed he is not far from each one of us.
For “In him we live and move and have our being”;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”
Since we are God’s offspring,
we ought not to think that
the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone,
an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance,
now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
because he has fixed a day
on which he will have the world judged in righteousness
by a man whom he has appointed,
and of this he has given assurance to all
by raising him from the dead.’
1 Peter 3:13-22
A reading from the first letter of Peter.
Who will harm you
if you are eager to do what is good?
But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.
Do not fear what they fear,
and do not be intimidated,
but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.
Always be ready to make your defence
to anyone who demands from you an account
of the hope that is in you;
yet do it with gentleness and reverence.
Keep your conscience clear,
so that, when you are maligned,
those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ
may be put to shame.
For it is better to suffer for doing good,
if suffering should be God’s will,
than to suffer for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,
the righteous for the unrighteous,
in order to bring you to God.
He was put to death in the flesh,
but made alive in the spirit,
in which also he went
and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison,
who in former times did not obey,
when God waited patiently in the days of Noah,
during the building of the ark,
in which a few, that is,
eight people, were saved through water.
And baptism, which this prefigured,
now saves you—
not as a removal of dirt from the body,
but as an appeal to God for a good conscience,
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God,
with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
John 14:25-21
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate,
to be with you for ever.
This is the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees him nor knows him.
You know him, because he abides with you,
and he will be in you.
I will not leave you orphaned;
I am coming to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me,
but you will see me;
because I live, you also will live.
On that day you will know that I am in my Father,
and you in me, and I in you.
They who have my commandments and keep them
are those who love me;
and those who love me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’
10 am Rogation walk and readings.
