These are resources for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost) on Sunday, September 13, 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.

Read

The readings from scripture appointed for this coming Sunday are: Exodus 14:19-31, Romans 14:1-12, and Matthew 18:21-35. After the first reading from Exodus the responsorial psalm is Psalm 114, or one can read a portion of the Song of Moses and Miriam, from Exodus 15.1b–3,6,10,13,17 (or, alternatively Exodus 15:1b-11,20-21).

At St Thomas’s we will use the first reading fro Exodus, the Song of Moses and Miriam, and the gospel from Matthew 18.

Share

If you are in Crete, you will already know that in the Prefecture of Chania (which includes Apokoronas and Kefalas), gatherings of more than nine (9) persons are still forbidden. As we have for the past two Sundays, we will not be meeting in person.

BUT, you can join us via Zoom!

Click this link, or enter the information at right into your Zoom app: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Password: 010209. My thanks to Frances Bryant-Scott for being the Zoom host last Sunday.

If you do not want to join us via Zoom, then you can simply do it all yourself – read the lessons and pray the prayers below, and intersperse it all by clicking on the links to the hymns.

Reflect

I will do my best to post the sermon promptly after I preach it on Sunday

Fr Leonard Doolan of St Paul’s Athens sent me a prerecorded sermon for tomorrow, but I have been unable to upload it; I will see what I can do in future weeks.

Pray

Collect
Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
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)

Merciful God,
your Son came to save us
and bore our sins on the cross:
may we trust in your mercy
and know your love,
rejoicing in the righteousness
that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Intercessions
For the unity of the Church in witness and proclamation of the Gospel;

• 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 Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay (World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer Cycle);
• for the Anglican Church of South America and The Most Revd Gregory James Venables, Presiding Bishop & Bishop of Argentina (Anglican Cycle of Prayer); and
• (from the Prayer Diary of the Diocese in Europe) give thanks for:
  • Pray for the Serbian Orthodox Church, and for Robin Fox as Archbishop of Canterbury’s Apokrisiarios to the Patriarch of Serbia.
  • Pray for the autocephalous Orthodox churches of Eastern Europe and the Baltic.
  • Pray for Ben Gordon-Taylor (Liturgy Officer);
  • John Newsome (Spirituality Advisor) and our team of Spiritual Directors; and for John also in his role as Area Dean;

let us pray to the Lord: Lord, hear our prayer.

For the peace and stability of all peoples
and for the leaders of the nations; especially for

• Katerini Sakellaropoulou, President of Greece, and
  • Kyriakos Mitsotakis the Prime Minister of Greece;
• Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other realms, and also in her role as Governor of the Church of England;
  • and Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of her British government;
• In the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission;
  • Charles Michel, President of the European Council; and
  • Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy;
• the peoples of Belarus and Hong Kong, as they demonstrate for democracy; for the people across the world marching for fair treatment from security forces and police;
• for advocates of Indigenous rights and the adoption and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
• prisoners and captives, especially the over one million Uigers being held in detention in China;
• and the people of Lebanon, as they recover from the massive explosion in Beirut and the collapse of the government in that country;

let us pray to the Lord: Lord, hear our prayer.

For places of work, education and leisure;
remembering especially students in Greece as they return to school;
those who travel by land, air, or water,
and for all medical staff testing and tracing tourists;
for those in quarantine;
let us pray to the Lord: Lord, hear our prayer.

For a blessing on our homes;
for our relations and friends and all whom we love;
let us pray to the Lord: Lord, hear our prayer.

For the sick and suffering and all who minister to their needs;

• remembering the over 7 million active cases of the novel coronavirus, and mourning with the families of the over 900,000 who have died in the pandemic;
• and also remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
• the over 79.5 million refugees and nearly 4 million stateless person, remembering especially the crucial situation of Greece;

let us pray to the Lord: Lord, hear our prayer.

Let us commend ourselves, and all for whom we pray,
to the mercy and protection of God. Amen.

Sing

This song goes with our reading from Exodus.

An alleluia from the Iona Community for use before the gospel reading.

And, now, a Bluegrass Gospel version of a song from India.

A string quartet plays Ben Johnston’s “String Quartet #4 (Amazing Grace)” – microtonals ahead!