Wednesday 14 February 2024

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I want to say a very big THANK YOU to Sue and all the team who helped with the Clean Up Day, last Saturday. We got a huge amount done! Also a big thank you to Lilian, Tick, Angie, Prilly and team for the super pancake event to mark Shrove Tuesday last night.

TODAY is Ash Wednesday which is a very special day in the life of the church. We will be marking today, the beginning of Lent, with a Eucharist at 6.30pm. The liturgy is rather different. If you have never been to an Ash Wednesday service before please do come along and see what happens! During this special service there will be time for self-examination and confession and reflection on how we will use this period of Lent. We will also include the traditional ashing when we receive the sign of the cross in ash on our foreheads, reminding us of our sin and mortality, but also of the life and forgiveness there is in Christ.

Lent Programme: Let Us Pray
During Lent, we will be providing opportunities to discuss and explore different forms of prayer.

This will include:

Online Discussions, 7.30pm, Tuesday Evenings

• 20th February: Daily Prayer in the Church of England: introduction to Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer
• 27th February: Introduction to lectio divina (meditative prayer on Scripture)
• 12th March: More details to follow*
• 19th March: More details to follow*

* I have various ideas but it depends on the response to the previous sessions

Praying Together (online)

• Morning Prayer, 8am, Monday - Thursday mornings (beginning Wednesday 21st February
• Night Prayer (Compline) concluding our Tuesday online discussions (beginning Tuesday 20th February)

Green Lent
If you want to try to live more simply during Lent and find ways to positively engage more with creation and help to protect the environment, then you might be interested in these ideas from A Rocha (one of the charities we support at St Ursula's). https://arocha.org.uk/go-green-for-lent/

House Groups
Thank you again to those of you who have sent in your questionnaires expressing your interest in house groups. For those of you who are interested but have not yet done so, it's not too late! Please return your questionnaire to the church office, or give it to me in person as soon as you can. I am attaching a copy of the handout (distributed at the Open Forum) which gives more information, and also the questionnaire.

Prayer and Reflection
As we begin Lent, I conclude with some challenging and encouraging words about prayer for us to ponder.

'There will be in our prayer both joyful recognition of God's gifts in us and honest avowal of our misuse of them. Prayer must not be a monologue; we must also listen to God. His word is always loving, but it can speak to us the unpalatable truth. The half-conscious meanness, the self-deception or rationalization, the inconsistency between our belief and our lives: these are shown up in the light of his presence...Regular prayer brings refinement of conscience and a new awareness of sin.

Our frailty does not disqualify us from prayer. The falls which leave me ashamed and humbled, the weakness which betrays me into betraying God and the general slum my inner life seems to be when I survey it in his presence: all these I can directly bring to him. They are his business, because they are part of my poverty and he delights in the poor. He invites me down from my shaky ladder of pretence, as Jesus invited Zacchaeus down from his sycamore tree, and like Zacchaeus I have everything to gain by accepting the invitation. Down on firm ground I can let him love me as I am.

Willed resistance is another matter, because prayer and love spring from the will. If I am withholding the obedient love I know he wants, I cannot be simultaneously surrendering my will to God in prayer. Mercifully he waits, and his patient love can bring me to the point of wanting (or wanting to want to want) him to help me change my 'No' into a 'Yes'. This too is poverty of spirit.'

(Maria Boulding)

With love in Christ,
Helen