Dear People & Friends of St. Clement’s,
Right at the beginning of the service, the Palm Gospel from Mark 11. 1-11 will be read, Palm Crosses will be distributed and blessed, and this will be immediately followed by a Palm Sunday procession. So please do try to be on time for the beginning of the service, otherwise you will miss out! Please also remember that the clocks go FORWARD one hour on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Go to bed early on Saturday evening and, before doing so, adjust your clocks, watches, mobile phones etc.The supporting readings will be Isaiah 50. 4-9a, together with the wonderful Christological passage Philippians 2. 5-11. There will be parallel Children’s Ministry and following worship, Coffee Hour in the hall on the third floor of Klimentská 18.
Services for the rest of Holy Week & Easter
Maundy Thursday 2nd April at 19.00 – Sung Eucharist commemorating the Last Supper.
Good Friday 3rd April at 19.30 – Devotional Service with a reflection on the cross of Christ by Jack Noonan.
Please note the different starting times for these two services. Our host congregation do not have a service on Maundy Thursday but do have one on Good Friday evening at 18.00. Hence we have to start half-an-hour later on Good Friday.
Holy Saturday 4th April at 14.27 – Mini pilgrimage to Ládví
Full details can be found in either the PS at the end of this message or on the noticeboard at the back of the Church
Sunday 5th April at 11.00 – Sung Eucharist for Easter Day
Sunday 5th April at 17.00 – Easter Day service of Holy Communion; ‘The Upper Room’, corner of Jezuitská and Mozartova, Brno.
Annual Church Meeting
A further reminder that our Annual Church Meeting will take place following worship, on Sunday 19th April 2015. At the ACM, two Churchwardens, one Archdeaconry Synod rep, together with up to nine ordinary Church Council members, will be elected. In order to vote or to stand for election, your need to be a member of our Church Electoral Roll (CER). The current CER is displayed on the noticeboard at the back of the Church. If your name appears there, you need to do nothing!
If you are not on the CER but would like to be, then application forms are available in a folder pinned to the noticeboard at the back of Church. To apply, you need to be baptized and a member of the Church of England or any of the other Anglican or Old Catholic Churches in full communion with the Church of England & be normally resident in the Czech Republic. Or, you need to be baptized and be a member in good standing of a Church which subscribes to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and to have ‘habitually attended public worship’ with us for at least the last six months, and be normally resident in the Czech Republic. New applications to join the CER, must be completed and handed in no later than Easter Day, Sunday 5th April.
Finally for this week…..
Copies the new Spring edition of the European Anglican magazine, together with a colourful Review 2014-15, will be available FREE at the back of Church from Palm Sunday morning onwards.
With best wishes for Holy Week & Easter
Ricky
Walking outside the Box – a mini pilgrimage to Ládví
14.27 Holy Saturday 4th April 2015 – 5km – 2 hours approximately.
God gave us a day between the death and resurrection of Jesus. Let`s walk & consider that.
Itinerary:
Red `C` line> Ládví metro station>Bus stop just outside:`Bus 103 to Březiněves`
14.27 Depart on bus 103 to stop Ďáblice.
14.40 Depart Ďáblice; walking via the zamek, pond and fire station of Old Ďáblice; then up Květnová Lane through the pre-war suburb to Ďáblicky Háj. This is a large green wooded heath, from which there are some magnificent views over North Bohemia, and we`ll visit the observatory and survey tower on our 2km way over it. From the tower we pick our way down the forest paths for the last 0.5km to the main road at the South edge of the heath. On the other side if this road is the object of our pilgimage…
16.00 The Memorial to Those who Resisted Fascism.
Today’s place of reverence is an architecturally arranged part of the northern section of a former extensive military shooting range built in 1890. During the Nazi occupation it was isolated by barbed wire and nobody living nearby was allowed to open their windows or leave their houses between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. After the assassination attempt on Heydrich; 463 men and 76 women were executed here within 33 days including outstanding scientists, artists, politicians, soldiers, and four representatives of the Czech Orthodox Church who had provided asylum to the Czech parachutists in Prague`s St`s Cyril & Methodius Church. According to incomplete lists, more than 755 persons were executed here in the period between 30 September 1941 and 7 May 1945. An inscription on a concrete wall here reads;
“Stop for a while … our blood entered this soil but we have arisen again.”
16.15 Leave for the final kilometre walk through a neat modern park with swimming pool; finishing at the Cafe Satori, for a beverage of choice and a natter for those who fancy it, and conveniently sited adjacent to Ládví metro station for those who must depart.
Jesus had the miraculous power to understand exactly who and what every person he met was, even enemies, and still love them. We don`t have that power, but we are still to love them. How? Why? We pass through a pre-war suburb and park, evidence of the kind of folk Czechs were. Think of the Czechs you know and the Czech history you know. Were the people who were executed here betrayed by their own people, even if only by the turning of backs when the finger pointed. Jesus was betrayed and done to death by conservative, expedient, pragmatic, and selfish motives. What do you know of German people and Nazi history? These 755 people were killed by Germans within Nazi rule. Can we understand them enough, should we try to empathise and forgive the weak and bad in them enough to love them all? That is one tall order for any human being. But fully human Jesus seems to do it.
