Notices from St Peter's
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Notices from St Peter’s Week beginning SUNDAY 13th JUNE, 2021 THE SECOND SUNDAY after TRINITY Worship at St Peter’s this week: 10am Morning Worship via Zoom (Sunday) 10am Holy Communion in Church 10am Morning Worship via Zoom (Wednesday) Zoom services are recorded and available to watch through the website or our YouTube Channel – St Peter’s Chellaston Vicar: Revd BJ Facey, Tel: 704835, [email protected] Church website: www.achurchnearyou.co.uk Email: [email protected] Church Hall: [email protected] 1 HOLYHABITS Whole-church discipleship approach Serving Sharing Resources Fellowship Breaking Bread Eating Together Together Eating Bible Teaching Worship Prayer Gladness and Generosity Making more Disciples The Holy Habits Prayer ‘Endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us…’ Gracious and ever-loving God, we offer our lives to you. Help us always to be open to your Spirit in our thoughts and feelings and actions. Support us as we seek to learn more about those habits of the Christian life which, as we practise them, will form in us the character of Jesus by establishing us in the way of faith, hope and love. Amen The fellowship of the believers – Acts 2: 42 - 47 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. 2 Booking a seat in Church Spaces in church are still limited due to social distancing restrictions. If you would like to book a seat please contact Rachel on: 07732337717 or [email protected] Face masks must be worn and you will be asked to gel your hands and avoid gathering and chatting to people inside the building or around the church door. Thank you. Giving For information on giving to St Peter’s please email Carol or BJ ([email protected]) #Serving Serving is a Christlike way of living. Jesus himself came as one who served (Matthew 20:28). Throughout the history of the church, Christians have grappled with how to live out the good news of Jesus that the kingdom of God is both here and yet to come. Our calling as followers of Jesus is to proclaim the good news by living on earth as if in heaven. Every act of love, justice and peace is a taste of how God’s world is to be. We live this calling personally in our daily work and in our local communities. In exploring this habit, it will be important to both honour and support those who serve day by day in all sorts of ways. We live this calling corporately as churches, for example through youth and children’s work, care for older people, Street Pastors, debt advice or refugee welcome centres. Exploring this holy habit will give you the opportunity to celebrate what is being done and consider what God may be calling you to do. We live this calling in partnership with others, with other churches, with people of peace in the community and with other groups – including other faith groups who are committed to serving the common good. As you explore this habit, be mindful of those you partner with or could partner with. 3 Serving is best when it is mutual and reciprocal. We need to beware of patronising do-gooding culture and seek a Christlike way of serving that is glad to honour others by receiving as well as giving. Reflections The church believes that it has a message of hope and good news to share with the whole world – the transformation offered by and through Jesus Christ. The new life that Jesus brings to individuals will be seen both in active membership of the Christian church and in a life of mission and serving that mirrors Jesus’ own life. How the message of good news is shared effectively through our words and deeds in the 21st century is one of the biggest challenges for the church today. This is why we must continue to practise the Holy Habit of Serving as we reach out to others. As Christians, we are part of a tradition that seeks holiness wherever we are and whatever we are doing. As such, our theology of Christian serving is an expression of our understanding of God’s desire for a just world and our common calling as the people of Jesus to be agents of that divine yearning. What does serving means in your context. Who is today’s ‘all’ in Acts 2:45? Does serving always involve sacrifice? What are the marks of Christian serving? What is the link between serving (in all senses of the word) and ministry? Michael Pettit St. Cyricus anD St. Julitta 16th June As recorded in The Golden Legend* Cyricus (also known as Quiricus) was the son of Julitta, a noble lady from Iconium in Lycaonia (modern central Turkey). According to various accounts which appeared later, including writings in a letter of the sixth century, Julitta fled with her three months old child, Cyricus, from Lycaonia, when the persecution of Christians under Maximinium - the Roman Emperor - broke out there. They fled to Isauria and then continued south to Tarsus in Cilicia [where St. Paul came from]. During her travels she hid her noble birth but not her faith. 4 In order to escape the persecution of Christians at that time, she took refuge in Tarsus with the child and remained there for three years. She was recognized as a Catholic and reported to the authorities, and brought before the tribunal of the prefect Alexander. Because her two servants took flight, she had to take her small son with her to see him. Julitta was expected to then pray to the heathen idols; but when she refused, the prefect, Alexander took the child from her arms and ordered her to be whipped raw with thongs. She continued to refuse. At the sight of his mother’s tortures, Cyricus began to cry out loud and shed tears. Alexander, who was holding the child on his lap, tried to quiet him with caresses and kind words. But the small child refused these comforts and scratched Alexander’s face with his nails, crying out: “I am a Christian!” They both suffered martyrdom in Tarsus: Julitta’s child, after scratching the face of Alexander, was thrown by him down some stone steps. Julitta, herself, was later beheaded. The veneration of the two martyrs was common in the West from earliest times as is shown by the early date of a chapel dedicated to them in the Church of Santa Maria Antiqua at Rome, as well as by testimony from early Gaul writings. Their relics are said to have been brought to the monastery of Saint-Amand (Elnonense monasterium) in the Diocese of Tours (Roman Catholic diocese in France). Dates are imprecise but these events happened around the turn of the third century. Mother and son are particularly venerated by the Assyrian Church of the East. The name “Cyricus” is from Cyrus (Persian) which means bestowing care. “Julitta” means youthful and has the same roots as the better known “Julia”. *The Golden Legend (13thC plus later additions) is a book compiled by a Dominican Monk scholar called JacoBus de Varagine. It is a collection of biographies of the lives of saints and other holy people. Such collections are known as hagiographies. READINGS anD COLLECT FOR SUNDAY AND WEDNESDAY SunDay Collect Lord, you have taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth; send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you. Grant this for your only Son ; 5 Jesus Chris’s sake, who is alive and regains with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen Psalm 92: 1 - 8 1 It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, 2 proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, 3 to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp. 4 For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what your hands have done. 5 How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts! 6 Senseless people do not know, fools do not understand, 7 that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed for ever. 8 But you, Lord, are for ever exalted. 2 Corinthians 5: 6 – 10, 14 - 17 6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.