Dear People & Friends of St. Clement’s,

This week, I want to start by reminding everybody what I wrote last in last week’s Weekly Message – that this coming Sunday, things will be a little different, both in our worship and at Coffee Hour.

Sunday 8th March at 11.00 – Sung Eucharist – International Women’s Day & ‘Celebrating the Gifts of Women’
At the suggestion of Church Council member, Stephen Weeks, with International Women’s Day falling on a Sunday in 2015, we are going mark it. With the exception of me, everybody else taking part in the service will be female. Our preacher will be Rev’d Dr Karen Moritz and we are going to use a set of Bible Readings suggested by her Presbyterian Church (USA), that ‘Celebrate the Gifts of Women‘. These will be Ruth 1. 7-22, together with Psalm 139.1-14. The Gospel reading will be Luke 1. 39-56. There will still be parallel Children’s Ministry and following worship, Coffee Hour in the hall on the third floor of Klimentská 18.

At Coffee Hour, there will be a sale of items, (pottery,  baskets, handbags and many others), made by the residents of Domov sv. Rodiny, the only home for mentally  and physically disabled people run by the Roman Catholic Prague Archdiocese. The home have recently renewed their contact with Pastor Eva Halamová who has invited them to attend refreshments following the Czech service and they will then remain in the hall for Coffee Hour that follows our service. Long-standing Church members will remember that this used to happen once a year until about five years ago. Please make sure you have some cash with you to support this worthy cause!

Then on next Tuesday……

Tuesday 10th March – 18.30-20.00 in the small meeting room on the first floor of Klimentská 18.
Our five week Lent Course continues. In this year of the 600th anniversary of the martyrdom of Jan Hus, our Lent course is looking at various aspects of the Bohemian Reformation. After two most enjoyable & well-attended sessions, this coming Tuesday our topic will be:

Reformation and Counter-Reformation
The presenter will be the American Roman Catholic priest based here in Prague, Father William Faix OSA. Speaking with Father William early today, he is very much looking to joining us on Tuesday evening and seeking to answer questions & entering into discussion with us. It should be both an educative & enjoyable evening.

Venue: Small meeting room on the first floor of Klimenská 18. If the outside door of Klimentská 18 is locked, please press the bell marked Kancelář & we’ll buzz you in! As we normally do on Tuesday evenings, the last twenty minutes of our time will be spent saying Evening Prayer together.

A reminder the details of the final two sessions:

17th March        Jan Hus and the Bohemian Reformation from the Perspective of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
Presenter: Hana Tonzarová

24th March        The legacy of the Bohemian Reformation Today.
Presenter:  Dr. Peter Moree.

Saturday 14th March
Next Saturday afternoon will be our first Mini Pilgrimage: ‘Outside the Box‘ from Zakolony to Okoř , visiting the 9th c. Rotunda at Budeč where the future King and Saint Wenceslas was tutored by his grandmother Sv. Ludmila.  The 6km walk is easy going, through pleasant country very close to Prague, and the weather forecast is warm and sunny.  There’s a bit about the general idea of `Outside the Box` at the end of this message.  Full details for this mini-Pilgrimage are available from: gordontruefitt(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk – or call /text 606 190 604

Annual Church Meeting
A 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.

Finally for this week……
Yesterday, I managed to pick up from the Post Office, copies of the brand new March-June ICS News, together with a separate Prayer Diary. Copies will be available free at the back of Church on Sunday.

And you might enjoy this video which I hope applies to St. Clement’s too

Best wishes

Ricky

Walking outside the Box – mini pilgrimages for Lent 2015

“You should get out more often!” is often good advice for our general physical and psychological well being. But our spiritual well being, particularly our personal relationship with God, sometimes needs an airing too.

The Box in this instance is Church. We all have a need to go there, each for our own reasons, and it supplies what we need to a great extent be it, English language, a community of people who are to some extent like minded, but who are also refreshingly varied and different , a theology and liturgy that we are comfortable with and can relate to, or we are assured of by the authority of Apostolic succession. Teaching that broadens our understanding of our faith by discovering possible connections between seemingly unconnected biblical events and experiences, and then relating that to it’s significance in today`s world. We also have `magic moments` when we are conscious of the Holy Spirit’s presence with us there.

All wonderful; and we should be extremely grateful that we are so privileged. But the more you get out of being [in]the Box, the more your soul should itch for something more. It’s not ungrateful, it is you soul re-awakening to it’s need to grow into a true and perfect relationship with God. And one of the time honoured ways of dealing with an `itch` is to get out and walk.

Christian discipleship is following Jesus who, though he was often in the Box of a Sabbath, seems to have been walking about most of the other six days of the week. Sometimes alone, sometime in company with his disciples, sometimes with hordes of people. Alone, he talked with God; his disciples talked with him. Always he gave them something to think about. Something that suggested a very different perspective on the nature of God from the one they had learnt in Schule. A God who was nearer, loving and personal. He always gave them something that sparked their souls, something that sprouted personal possibilities the more they thought about it as they walked along.

So before we set out on one of our mini-pilgrimages you will get a little `thought bubble` which I hope pops with intriguing possibility and gives you lots to mull over as you march along.

We have five proposed mini-pilgimages to date. The first three are doable in a half day as they are quite close. The last two are a bit further away and would need at least eight hours including traveling time on public transport.

  1. From Kbely to St Václav Church founded in 970 in Prosek.
  2. The Památnik protifašistického odboje in Ďáblice. Route ?
  3. From Okor to the Rotunda at Budeč and the route to it from Zakolony. It has pilgrim mileage with it’s adventurous Christian pioneering foundation in the 9th century, and as the place where the future King and Saint Wenceslas was tutored by his grandmother Sv. Ludmila.  So a strong 1st. runner.
  4. Srbsko to Sv.Jan pod Skalou.
  5. To Sternberk Castle to the Monastery of Sv. Prokop at Sazava.

Sv. Prokop of Sazava

Procopius of Sazaba, OSB Abbot (RM)
Born in Bohemia; died March 25, 1053; canonized by Pope Innocent III in 1204; feast day formerly July 4. Procopius studied in Prague where he was also ordained. He became a canon, was a hermit for a time, and then was founding abbot of the Basilian abbey of Sazaba in Prague. Procopius is one of the patrons of Czechoslovakia (Benedictines, Delaney). In art, Saint Procopius lets the devil plough for him. He may be portrayed (1) as an abbot with a book and discipline, devil at his feet; (2) with a stag (or hind) near him; (3) with SS Adelbert, Ludmilla, and Vitus (patrons of Prague); or (4) as a hermit with a skull and a girdle of leaves (Roeder). This Russian icon shows Saint Procopius together with Nicetas, and Eustathius

Monastry website: