God s Impression on our Hearts

Transcription

1 The Newsletter of All Saints Cathedral Parish Bathurst and St Barnabas Parish South Bathurst Sunday 18 March 2018 Fifth Sunday In Lent J God s Impression on our Hearts eremiah contains quite a few references to the human hears, most of them unfavourable. Specifically, the heart is devious above all else; it is perverse who can understand it? (Jer17:9) In biblical thought, the heart was not simply the seat of emotion but also of volition: it knows and wills as well as feels. When we learn that The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen; with a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts (Jer17:1), we realise that a significant cardiac intervention will be required for health to be restored. In today s passage we learn of the treatment plan: it is nothing less than a new covenant. Instead of a law chipped out on tablets of stone, a more delicate keyhole procedure is proposed. The law will be skilfully inscribed on the heart of each of God s people. As a result they will all know God, a word that indicates the intimate personal knowledge shared by two parties who are committed wholly to one another in relationship. How is your heart bearing up today? Robust or fragile; tender or broken? Sometimes it can be difficult to remember that God has written his law of love on our own hearts, but just remembering that can help to soften it. St Irenaeus advises, Offer to him your heart in a soft and tractable state lest you lose the impression of his fingers. Helen Orchard Psalm 119 (9-16) How shall the young keep their path pure: unless they hold to your word? I have sought you with my whole heart: let me not stray from your commandments. I have treasured your words in my heart: that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, Lord God: O teach me your statutes. With my lips I have been telling: all the judgements of your mouth; Lord, May all that we do this day, from morning until night, begin with your inspiration, and continue with your powerful help. May our work this day be rooted in love and mercy, that we might love you, and love our neighbours, as perfectly as you love us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen Diocesan Prayer Diary We worship on the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri people and we honour and pay our respects to elders past and present. And I find more joy in the way of your commands: than in all manner of riches. I will meditate on your precepts: and give heed to your ways; For my delight is wholly in your statutes: and I will not forget your word.

2 Prayers THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION PRAY for Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui The Most Revd Paul Kwong Archbishop of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui & Bishop of Hong Kong Island. THE AUSTRALIAN CHURCH The Diocese of North West Australia with Bishop Gary Nelson, clergy and people. IN OUR DIOCESE Youth and children s ministry in the diocese: Mainly Music and Messy Church; and for those involved in safe ministry training and those who deal with Professional Standards Matters, including Rev'd Peter Barnett and Philip Gerber. Pray for the Professional Standards Committee and the Chair, The Rev d Margaret Finlay. IN OUR PARISHES Give thanks and pray for those involved in music in our churches and for those who show the beauty of human creativity in our lives. BAPTISM Caius Hudson Parish Calendar 18 MAR Cathedral AGM 24 MAR LLM Ministry Day 25 MAR Pub Lunch 25 MAR Harvest Fest. F. Valley 27 MAR Holy Week Reflection 31 MAR Bunnings BBQ 10 APR Cello With Love 14 APR AWA 12 MAY Autumn Fair Parish News OILS EUCHARIST, LLM AND MINISTRY DAY The day will be held on Saturday 24 March at Holy Trinity Orange from 9.30am with coffee for a 10am start. The theme for the day is Praying With Compassion, Praying For Healing and will be a day for all Clergy and Lay People. Cost is $25 and is pay on the day. To attend please register online: BUNNINGS BARBEQUE The first BBQ for 2018 is at Bunnings, on Saturday 31 March. Please consider assisting. Despite the at-times hard work involved, there is laughter and conversation with the other staff and members from the Community. The BBQ at Bunnings provide us with one of our major fund raising opportunities for our Church. A roster will be developed during March. FOOD PANTRY The Food Pantry is currently in need of a variety of non perishable items. If you can assist with the supply of any of the following items: cereals; tinned - soups, vegetables, tuna, tomatoes; packets of pasta; tomato paste; cups of 2minute noodles; long life milk, it would be greatly appreciated. PUB LUNCH The next pub lunch will be on Sunday 25 March at the George Hotel at 12 noon. Please contact Noelene Steel on by Friday 23 March, if you wish to attend. FITZGERALDS VALLEY HARVEST FESTIVAL Harvest Festival will be held at St Stephen s Fitzgeralds Valley on Sunday 25 March at 2pm. Following church service, afternoon tea will be provided at nearby Butterlea. An auction of produce will take place to raise funds for repairs to the church windows. Contributions to the produce auction will be most welcome. All welcome. MU Holy Week Reflection Fr. James will lead a reflection during Holy Week - Tuesday, 27 March at 7.30 pm in the Abbott Room you are very welcome to join MU members and friends as they walk the Holy Week Journey! Christine Hurford PFLAG A support meeting for parents & families of Gay & Lesbian people will be held on Monday, 20th March. This group offers help, support and information to families and friends of young people in our community. Our members have a common goal of keeping families together, and our common bond is that someone we love and care for is lesbian or gay. Phone Tony & Bernadette Sutton for information of meeting time & location. MUSIC NEWS Cello With Love will be presented by Renat and Hila Yusupov (Uzbekistan Australia) in All Saints Cathedral on Tuesday 10 April from 7.30pm. Cello masterpieces including: Bach, Paganini, Massenet, Caccini, Haydn, Saint-Saens, Monti. National melodies of Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Israel and many more. Tickets are on sale from or alternatively at the door on the evening. For more information phone ABM MONEY BOXES AND GOOD FRIDAY ENVELOPE We are now more than half way through Lent and an appropriate time to look at our Lenten Rule and giving to Missions. The ABM Money Boxes can be returned the Sunday after Easter but also can be used to support the Parish ABM Project for this year. Please be generous in your support of the Good Friday envelope. Boxes and Envelopes are on the table in the Bell Tower. Lorraine Clarkson - ABM contact person

3 Today s Readings in Context Jeremiah 31:31-34 In a time of deep despair, Judah, exiled from its homeland, despaired of its special election by God. Jeremiah realized that God's faithfulness was going to be revealed in a new and different Covenant, at a level deeper than anyone had yet imagined. Hebrews 5:5-14 When Jews expelled those who believed in Jesus, this letter assured Hebrew Christians that, in Jesus, they have something and someone superior to everything they enjoyed in their ancestral religion. Today the author shows that Jesus, even a suffering Jesus, makes obsolete the mediation of angels, and is a priest superior to the priests of Judaism. John 12:20-33 Some early Christians were likely to renounce Jesus if threatened with persecution. Saint John's gospel gives us this portrait of Jesus meditating on his own suffering and that of his disciples. Finding God s Traces.. God made a covenant with us. The word covenant means coming together. God wants to come together with us. In many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible, we see that God appears as a God who defends us against our enemies, protects us against dangers, and guides us to freedom. God is God-for-us. When Jesus comes a new dimension of the covenant is revealed. In Jesus, God is born, grows to maturity, lives, suffers, and dies as we do. God is God-with-us. Finally, when Jesus leaves he promises the Holy Spirit. In the Holy Spirit, God reveals the full depth of the covenant. God wants to be as close to us as our breath. God wants to breathe in us, so that all we say, think and do is completely inspired by God. God is God-within-us. Thus God s covenant reveals to us to how much God loves us. On Good Friday at 3pm the Cathedral will be presenting a Tableau of Passion of Jesus in the style of a 15th Century Miracle Play. It will start with a reading of selected poems from an anthology by Clive Sansom entitled, The Witnesses. These witnesses are all characters mentioned to a lesser or greater extend in the Bible, who meet Jesus during His lifetime in a variety of situations. Each poem is about the experience every one of them has had during their interaction with Jesus. Through the poet, each character is brought to life reflectively, humorously, angrily, sadly, indignantly, tragically according to the circumstances of the encounter, telling the story as if it had all happened within living memory. The poetry readings will be immediately followed with a Choral Performance by an augmented Cathedral Choir of John Stainer s Crucifixion. CLERGY PARISH OFICE WARDENS All Saints Cathedral SERVICES MONDAY 19 MAR 8.30AM TUESDAY 20 MAR 1.00PM WEDNESDAY 21 MAR 8.30AM THURSDAY 22 MAR 8.30AM FRIDAY 23 MAR 10.00AM Followed by Morning Tea SATURDAY 24 MAR 6.00PM SUNDAY 25 MAR 9.00AM Fitzgeralds Valley 2.00PM Very Rev James Hodson Dean Rev Rosie Wynter Assistant Priest Honorary Clergy Rev Carla Archer Rev Bob Date Rev Margaret Voerman Rev Clare Percival Rev John Clarkson All Saints Parish Office 3 Church Street Bathurst PO Box 258 Bathurst 2795 E: cathedral@bathurstanglican.org.au W: allsaintscathedralbathurst.com.au Account Name: All Saints Cathedral BSB: Acct No: If you wish to give by Direct Giving these are the deposit account details. Graham Leatherland Chris Percival Sue West St Barnabas Parish SERVICES Sundays 10am St Joseph s Convent Chapel Perthville Tenison Woods Ave. 3rd Thursday 10:30am- Senior s Service & Morning Tea St Paul s YETHOLME - (Porter s Lane) 1st Sunday-11:45 am St Peter s ROCKLEY 1st Sunday 9.30am Rev Rosie Wynter Wednesdays 10:30am Koinonia Bible Study St Barnabas Parish Hall St Barnabas Parish Office 3 Church Street Bathurst PO Box 258 BATHURST NSW 2795 E: saintbarnabas1878@gmail.com Emergency contact: Lew Hitchick Bev Walsh Maureen Arnold

4 A READING FROM THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH ( ) The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. FOR THE WORD OF THE LORD Thanks be to God A READING FROM THE HEBREWS (5.5-14) So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, You are my Son, today I have begotten you ; as he says also in another place, You are a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. FOR THE WORD OF THE LORD Thanks be to God A READING FROM THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN ( ) Glory to you Lord Jesus Christ Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say Father, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, An angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered, This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. FOR THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ NEXT WEEK S READINGS The Palm Gospel Mark 11:1-11 Isaiah 50:4 Psalm 31 (9-18) Paul to Philippians 2:5 The Passion According to Matthew DIOCESE OF BATHURST AWA 50 years ago AWA was formed in the Diocese of Bathurst. Over the years many women have given (and continue to give) many hours of unselfish service to their parishes. In conjunction with the shortened AGM, we will have a celebratory lunch and guest speaker on Saturday, 14 April in St John the Baptist Anglican Church Wellington. Book the date - More details to follow. L Clarkson

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