Wednesday 1 April 2020

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Despite the fact that we cannot meet together, I am very aware of the love of the church community and the way people are supporting one another through phone calls, messages and prayers. Thank you to those of you who sent appreciative messages about the material for the service last Sunday, and thank you again to David for his sermon and to Richard for his intercessions.

We have now had the last of our Lent sessions on the Psalms but the material is still on the website. Thank you to Fiona for organising the zoom online meetings.

We are looking at having more opportunities to 'meet' one another online, through zoom. The Thun group will hopefully meet this Thursday evening. The Men's Bible study group will meet again at 10.45am on Sunday. Please let me know if you want to take part in either of these meetings.

From this coming Sunday we are hoping to organise a 'coffee time' twice a week for people to 'meet' online to chat and actually 'see' each other. We plan to hold this at 10am on Wednesdays and 11.30am on Sundays (so that people can use the worship material first and then chat afterwards as we would do on a 'normal' Sunday). Our first 'coffee time' will be this Sunday at 11.30am. If you would like to take part please email event(at)stursula.ch You will then receive some (easy) instructions of how to join the zoom group. (It really is easy!)

There is a variety of new material on the website, including some poems by Canon Alan Amos who is now retired, living in Dorset, but who has a link with Holy Trinity Geneva and (in normal times!) spends a fair bit of time in Switzerland. The poems are here.

There is also a poem by Malcolm Guite about Julian of Norwich, whom I mentioned last week, here.

You might also enjoy reading the Diocese in Europe faith daily blog here.

I want to ask you to pray for Archana who is unwell. She is suffering from bad headaches. Let us pray together for healing, strength and encouragement for her.

As we pray for ourselves, our families, our community, and our country, let us also look further afield and remember those parts of the world which are least equipped to deal with this virus. Let us particularly pray for the people of India and many countries in Africa where there are far fewer doctors and medical facilities and where many people do not have access to clean water and live in overcrowded conditions. If the virus takes hold in these places the consequences could be catastrophic. Let us pray for God's grace and mercy for all people everywhere.

I leave you with a prayer:

Loving God, as your Son healed the sick
and brought good news to the needy,
be with us this day.
Loving Jesus, as you taught us to
'do unto others as you would have them do to you',
be with all medical staff this day.
Loving Spirit, your gift is healing,
bring your healing fire to our homes, our hospitals,
our country and our world,
but most of all, be with us this day. Amen
(from the Diocese of Carlisle)

Let us remind ourselves that God is with us every day; that he is before us, behind us, beside us and within us, and nothing and noone is beyond his love.
I will be in touch again soon.

With love in Christ,
Helen