These are worship resources for The Sunday Next Before Lent, 2021. 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 Sunday Next Before Lent is known in the Anglican Church of Canada and in the United States’ The Episcopal Church as The Last Sunday after Epiphany. The theme and the readings are the same: the Transfiguration of Christ (known in Greece as The Metamorphosis). The readings appointed by Common Worship and the Revised Common Lectionary are: 2 Kings 2:1-12, Psalm 50:1-6, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, and Mark 9:2-9.

In the Anglican Church of St Thomas, Kefalas we are in a different liturgical zone, observing Easter with our Orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters on May 2 instead of April 4. As a result, this coming Sunday for us will be The Fifth Sunday Before Lent, and not The Sunday Next Before Lent, and the reading will be 2 Kings 5.1-14, Psalm 30, 1 Corinthians 9.24-27, and Mark 1.40-45. The Order of Service for this Sunday may be downloaded here:

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Please join us by clicking this link or by entering the following into your Zoom application: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Passcode: 010209. This will be a Zoom-only service — we may start having Zoomed service in the church in the next few weeks, involving the leaders in the church with three or four congregants, and the rest of you joining in remotely on your computers.

Reflect

Eric Symes Abbott, Dead of Westminster Abbey from 1959 to 1974, first preached these Seven Meditations on the Transfiguration in the late 1940s.

Fr Leonard Doolan of St Paul’s Church in Athens has the following pre-recorded sermon:

Pray

Collect
Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(or)

Holy God,
you know the disorder of our sinful lives:
set straight our crooked hearts,
and bend our wills to love your goodness
and your glory
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Intercession
That this and all our days
may be full of your praise:
All  we pray to you, O Lord.

That you will keep us this day without sin:
All  we pray to you, O Lord.

That we may walk before you
in the paths of righteousness and peace:
All  we pray to you, O Lord.

That you will bless your people
and lift them up for ever:
All  we pray to you, O Lord.

That you will guide and protect us by your Holy Spirit
and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting:
All  we pray to you, O Lord.

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

in communion with Thomas and with all your saints,
entrusting one another and all our life to Christ:
All  we pray to you, O Lord.

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

Biddings
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;
• we remember our beloved in Christ in other denominations, especially the leadership in:
  • The Orthodox Church: Vartholomaĩos, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; and Irinaios Athanasiadis, Archbishop of Crete; and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece in Athens;
  • The Roman Catholic Church, especially Pope Francis, and the bishop for Crete, Petros Stefanou;
  • our relationship of full communion with the churches of the Porvoo agreement, especially The Church of Sweden, the Rev. Björn Kling, and Thomas Petersson, Bishop of Visby with oversight of the Church of Sweden Abroad;
  • the Greek Evangelical Church, the independent Greek Pentecostal churches, and the various Lutheran, Reformed, and other Protestant churches ministering to foreign populations;
• we pray especially for congregations that have been obliged to cease in-person services, and give thanks that we are able to gather over the internet;
• for the churches and peoples of Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland (World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer Cycle);
• in the Anglican Communion, we pray for the Anglican Church of Canada, and its primate, the Most Rev. Dr. Linda Nicholls, and the National Indigenous Archbishop, the Most Reverend Mark MacDonald (Anglican Cycle of Prayer);
• (from the Prayer Diary of the Diocese in Europe) pray for:
  • for the Rev Frances Hiller (Bp David’s Chaplain);
  • Bishop David in his capacity as Warden of Readers;
  • the Director of Reader Ministers, Paul Wignall;
  • for all those training to be Readers in the diocese;
  • for Clare Amos, the Director of Lay Discipleship; and
    for the work of the Friends of the Diocese in Europe, and its Secretary, Jeanne French.

I bid your prayers for the leaders and people of the nations; especially

• 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;
• For the United Nations and its work, and its Secretary General, António Guterres;
• For the peoples of the United States, and for their new President, Joe Biden and their new Vice-President, Kamala Harris; the Congress and the federal courts; and the state governors, legislatures, and state court systems;
• the peoples of Myanmar, Belarus, Hong Kong, Russia, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Bolivia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Thailand as they continue to demonstrate for democracy and justice;
• for the maintaining of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and between Russia and Ukraine, North and South Korea, and for a final, just resolution to their conflicts;
• for peace and justice between Palestinians and Israelis;
• 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 Uygers being held in detention in China;
• the over 79.5 million refugees and nearly 4 million stateless person, remembering especially the crucial situation of Greece, and the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”);
• for a lessening of tensions between Turkey and Greece; and
• for peace in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ethiopia.

I bid your prayers for the sick and suffering and all who minister to their needs;

• remembering the over twenty-five million active cases of the novel coronavirus, and mourning with the families of the over 2.38 million who have died in the pandemic;
• for the 1.8 million people in the UK with active cases of covid-19, the over 115,000 who have died of it there, and the 12,400 active cases here in Greece, and the families of the over 6056 dead here;
• remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
• all those having issues with mental health;
• those suffering from addiction, and those in recovery;
• those who have been affected severely by the economic effects of the pandemic, especially in food services and tourism;
• and giving thanks for the efforts of researchers in finding vaccines, and for the rollout of vaccines across the world.

Sing