These are resources for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost) on Sunday, August 23, 2020. The resources are gathered from a variety of sources and, while assembled mainly for The Anglican Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, on the island of Crete in Greece, others may find them useful.

I will be away next week from the chaplaincy to try and rewrite my dissertation. As a result, I will be taking a one-Sunday hiatus from producing these resources.

“The Drawing of Moses from the River”, a fresco c. 235 CE at the Dura-Europos Synagogue, now in the National Museum of Damascus. Dura-Europos was a Roman border town, just above the Euphrates in what is now the eastern Syria, close to Iraq. The city passed back and forth between the Roman Empire and its eastern foes, until it was taken by the Sassanian Empire in 256-257 CE; it was abandoned and buried by sand, which led to the remarkable preservation of paintings in many buildings. 

Read

The readings appointed for Sunday, August 23 2020 are Exodus 1:8-2:10, Psalm 124, Romans 12:1-8 and Matthew 16:13-20. At St Thomas’s we will use the first reading, the psalm, and the gospel, omitting the second reading from Romans.

Share

You can join us via Zoom by clicking the link below, or enter the information at right into your Zoom app: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Password: 010209:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85044839927?pwd=TkQ1cHEzNUNjSjVCNTNJVUJwSkZaQT09. Once again, things went fairly well last Sunday with only some minor technical problems!

If you are unable to join us in person, or cannot join us via Zoom, then you can simply do it all yourself – read the lessons and pray the prayers below, as well as listen to the recorded sermon, and intersperse it all by clicking on the links to the hymns.

If you are in Crete you can join us in person. We meet this coming Sunday, August 23 2020 at 11:00 am EEST at the Tabernacle of the Church of St Thomas, Kefalas. We have revised our protocols around the pandemic:

Protocols for St Thomas’s in the Pandemic

• Anyone attending a service or activity at the Anglican Church of St Thomas must wear a mask.
• Visitors are welcome, but if you have been here less than two weeks we will ask that you sit outside the church, and maintain social distancing.
• Before entering the church please was your hands or use hand sanitizer.
• Social distancing is practiced – so individuals or families must stay at least 1.5 metres from another individual or family. Seats are set out this way in the Tabernacle, so please do not move them.
• If you are a regular, please take the books home with you and bring them back next time – the hymn book, the service booklet, and the psalter. If you are a visitor, please just leave them on the chair, and someone will collect them and wipe them down. 
• A maximum of 18 persons may be in the Tabernacle. Any more than that will have to sit outside.
• We sing – but we request that you do so softly!
• Communion will continue to be offered to the people in one kind only, the consecrated bread. Communion will be brought to congregants.
• While we do provide coffee, and tea after the service, we ask that people keep their distance while getting their refreshments, and that they might take them outside immediately afterwards.

We recognise that these protocols are changing as we learn more about how to live with the Covid-19 pandemic; thank you for your patience!

Reflect

I will do my best to post the sermon promptly after preaching it.

God willing, on Saturday August 22 I will have a text version or a recording of Fr Leonard Doolan’s sermon for Sunday August 23.

In the meantime, in relation to the gospel reading, you can read the congregation’s response last Advent IV to the question Jesus asked: “But who do you say that I am?”

Pray

Collect
O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(or)

God of glory, the end of our searching,
help us to lay aside
all that prevents us from seeking your kingdom,
and to give all that we have to gain the pearl beyond all price,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Intercessions (Litany 36 from Common Worship | Daily Prayer)
O Lord, answer us in the day of trouble,
send us help from your holy place.

Show us the path of life,
for in your presence is joy.

Give justice to the orphan and oppressed
and break the power of wickedness and evil.

Look upon the hungry and sorrowful
and grant them the help for which they long.

Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad;
may your glory endure for ever.

Your kingship has dominion over all
and with you is our redemption.

I bid your prayers for the Church.

• for Robert Innes & David Hamid, our bishops;
• for Justin Welby our archbishop, Stephen Cottrell the Archbishop of York, and the General Synod of the Church of England;
• for the churches and peoples of Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal (World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer Cycle);
• for the Church of the Province of South East Asia and The Most Revd Melter Tais – Archbishop of South East Asia & Bishop of Sabah (Anglican Cycle of Prayer); and
• (from the Prayer Diary of the Diocese in Europe) give thanks for:
  • for the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, and the leadership of Archbishop Bernd Wallet.
  • Pray for the Evangelical Lutheran Churches of Iceland, Latvia, and Lithuania.
  • London:
    • Chancellor: Mark Hill;
    • Registrar: Aiden Hargreaves-Smith;
  • Brussels:
    • Communications Director: Damian Thwaites.

I bid your prayers for those in leadership:

• • For Katerini Sakellaropoulou, President of Greece, and
    • Kyriakos Mitsotakis the Prime Minister of Greece;
  • for Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other realms, and also Governor of the Church of England;
    • and Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of her British government;
  • for the leaders of all nations, and for all in authority.
• I bid your prayers for this village of Kefalas and all the villages and homes in the Demos of Apokoronas here on the island of Crete;
  and for the cities, towns, and villages from which we come.

I bid your prayers for the safety, health and salvation of:

• those who travel by land, air, or water,
  and for all medical staff testing and tracing tourists;
• the sick and the suffering,
  remembering the over six and a half million active cases of the novel coronavirus, and mourning with the families of the 800,000 who have died in the pandemic;
  and also remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
• prisoners and captives,
  especially the over one million Uigers being held in detention in China;
• the people of Lebanon, as they recover from the massive explosion in Beirut and the collapse of the government in that country;
• the peoples of Syria and Yemen in the midst of horrific civil wars;
• the peoples of Belarus and Hong Kong as they demonstrate for political freedom and liberty; and
• refugees and migrants,
  especially those on Lesvos and in other camps in Greece

Sing