SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT
March 5, 2023
GLORY BE TO JESUS CHRIST! GLORY FOREVER!
LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.
PREVIEW OF SUNDAY’S READINGS
THE LESSON: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
IN our Epistle lesson St. Paul holds out a vision for Lent as a time for spiritual growth, and holiness and wholeness of life. Here St. Paul lifts up chastity as the virtue opposed to sexual lust and immorality. But chastity, properly understood, is the virtue opposed to sloth or laziness wherein we experience the brokenness of our vision of life and a scattering and breakdown of our spiritual energies (of which lust is a prime example)and which we seek to recover through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
THE HOLY GOSPEL: Matthew 15:21-28
In this Gospel lesson we encounter a woman who shows us what it means to preserve in faith and prayer in Lent and in so doing attain victory over the demonic powers that oppress us.
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.
PRAYER PILGRIMMAGE WITH JESUS group meets after church today.
REFUGEE COMMITTEE meets after church today.
PARISH LIFE NOTES
CUTHBERT: A MYSTICAL SHORT FILM FOR NOW.
Join us this Wednesday after evening prayer to watch and reflect on a short film by Oliver Murray, a recent convert to Christianity, on St. Cuthbert, the celebrated 7th century monk, hermit and wonderworker in the Kingdom of Northumbria, The film not only lifts up St. Cuthbert as an example of someone who “fought and conquered in the fight:” against the world, the flesh, and the devil, but offers us a fresh and compelling vision of the Christian faith which is able to confront the secular materialism of our age.
LENTEN LECTIONARY STUDIES with Men’s Group on Wednesday at 9.30 a.m. and Women’s Group Thursday at 10.00 a.m.
WORSHIP THIS WEEK
Morning Prayer
- Tuesday, Thursday, Friday at 8:30 am
- Wednesday at 9.00 a.m.
Evening Prayer
- Wednesday at 5:30 pm. followed by a light supper & discussion in the Upper Hall.
Lenten Study groups
- Men’s Group – Wednesdays at 9.30 following Morning Prayer (fasting breakfast included!)
- Women’s Group – Thursdays at 10.00 a.m.