Dear People & Friends of St. Clements,
I’m writing this just a few hours before I fly from Prague to Bucharest. From Thursday 22nd – Sunday 25th September in Bucharest, along with Jack Noonan, I will be attending the annual Eastern Archdeaconry Synod. This brings together the clergy and elected lay representatives from the Anglican Chaplaincies that are scattered across the Eastern Archdeaconry of the Diocese in Europe. Our Archdeaconry stretches from Poland, the Czech Republic & Austria eastwards including all the former Soviet Union (except the Baltic States), all the former Yugoslavia, together with Greece & Turkey.
Following the Synod meeting, I am taking the remaining two weeks of my Annual Leave and will be back on duty on Wednesday 12th October. However, I will be briefly back in Prague from the evening of Monday 26th September for the following 24 hours when I will hopefully be able to pick up & answer any urgent email.
As I wrote in my Weekly Message last week, whilst I am at the Synod Meeting & on leave, your Locum Chaplain will be my former colleague from the UK, Rev’d Kathy Ferguson. From the evening of Thursday 22nd September when she arrives, until the morning of Monday 10th October when she flies back, Kathy will be living at the Chaplaincy Flat. She will be the Celebrant & Preacher on the three Sundays, 25th September, 2nd October & 9th October at our 11am Sung Eucharist. If you want to contact Kathy during her time here, you can either phone the Chaplaincy Flat 233 310 266 or email her kathy(at)oerle(dot)co.uk . She will also have the Chaplaincy mobile 737 039 082 once I’m back from Bucharest though she says she prefers email to text/sms messages!
Kathy will also be leading the next two Tuesday evening sessions which are entitled Ways into Prayer. These will be held on Tuesday 27th September & Tuesday 4th October 6.30-8.00pm in the small meeting room on the first floor of Klimentská 18. Kathy writes as follows about these two evening sessions.
Back in the days when I was an unpaid curate in Mid-Wales, a friend and I had the idea of running a course on prayer, open to all the churches in our little town. She was a Methodist minister and I of course am an Anglican, so from the very beginning we drew on the insights of varied Christian traditions to compile the material. The 4 session course was much appreciated and out of it came a monthly prayer group which met for many years. Much later, when I was working with Ricky, I reworked the material for a longer 6 session course for our weekly fellowship groups and again it seemed to work very well.
Therefore when Ricky emailed me to tell me about your Tuesday evening meetings and ask whether I would lead a couple during my stay, he suggested I could take the subject of prayer and draw on the material we had used before. I will be very happy to do this and thought it might be helpful to give some idea of what format the sessions will take. We will start with an introductory discussion on our experiences of prayer, the things that work for us and the difficulties we encounter. Then I will talk for a while on some aspect of prayer, with plenty of opportunity for questions and comments. Finally we will do some actual praying or meditating, using some of ideas and techniques previously discussed. Obviously, in two meetings, I can’t cover all the ground I covered in the longer courses, but I hope the will give you both a chance to talk about prayer and also to explore some ways into prayer which may prove helpful to you in your personal prayer life.
And a reminder that on…….
Thursday 22nd September 7.00 – 8.30pm – Chez Hellam, Namesti Interbrigady 949/3, Praha 6
Reliable or Rubbish: What is the Point of the Bible? The third session of our course on the basics of Christianity – The Relevance of Faith in a Modern World
The pattern of the evening is Food – Talk – Discussion. As food is being provided, it is very helpful to let David Hellam david(at)hellam(dot)net or Tel. 722 223 097 know you are planning to come. He will also happily explain how to find the venue. The nearest tram stop is Zelena using Tram 8.
More details about the course including the subjects of the following sessions can be found here .
I cannot end this message by saying that I look forward to seeing you on Sunday &/or Tuesday or Thursday because I won’t be there! But don’t use my absence as a reason not to come yourselves!
Best wishes
Ricky
