Dear People & Friends of St. Clement’s,
After a wonderful and very well attended Palm Sunday service, a reminder of what is happening at St. Clement’s tonight, and over the following three days.
Tonight at 19.00 – Sung Eucharist for Maundy Thursday commemorating the Last Supper.
We will hear the story of the institution of the Passover from Exodus 12. 1-14, together with the teaching of St. Paul regarding what Jesus taught at the Last Supper from 1 Corinthians 11. 23-26. Our Gospel reading will be John 13. 1-17 & 31-35 describing how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and gave them a new commandment, ‘that you should love one another, just as I have loved you’.
Tomorrow at 19.30 – A Devotional Service for Good Friday
Our Biblical readings will be Isaiah 52: 13 – 53: 12, the ‘Suffering Servant’, the penitential Psalm 22. 1-11, together with the whole of the passion narrative from the Gospel of John 18.1 – 19. 42. During the service Jack Noonan will give a reflection on the cross of Christ.
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 at 14.27 – Mini pilgrimage to Ládví
This is being led by Gordon Truefitt who writes as follows.
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 pilgrimage…
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.
Sunday 5th April at 11.00 – Sung Eucharist for Easter Day
Please join us to celebrate the triumph of Jesus Christ over sin & death. As will be the case on every Sunday between Easter Day and Pentecost, our first reading will come from the Acts of the Apostles. Our reading on Easter Day will be Acts 10. 34-43, where Peter preaches about the death & resurrection of Jesus to the household of Cornelius. The second reading will be 1 Corinthians 15. 1-11, the first part of a great chapter on resurrection. Our Gospel reading will pick up from where we will left off on Good Friday evening – John 20. 1-18.
During the service, I will be baptising an adult, Radka Houšková. There will NOT be parallel Children’s Ministry, but following worship, there will be Coffee Hour in the hall on the third floor of Klimentská 18. After Coffee Hour, I will be off down the D1 for…..
Sunday 5th April at 17.00 – Easter Day service of Holy Communion; ‘The Upper Room’, corner of Jezuitská and Mozartova, Brno.
Two other things to note…..
Easter Day morning is the last opportunity to return a completed application form to join the Church Electoral Roll, before our Annual Church Meeting on Sunday 19th April 2015.
After conducting worship in Brno on Easter Sunday evening, I shall be taking my post-Easter break and will be on annual leave until Saturday 11th April.
Wishing you a happy and blessed Easter
Ricky
