Lent and Easter 2021

Scripture and Music

Journey to Easter

Congregational Lent Reading - Week Four

St Columba's Church · Peccantem Me Quotidie

SCRIPTURE & PRAYER
Prepared by the Congregational Prayer Group
St. Columba’s, Pont Street, & St. Andrew’s, Newcastle.
Sunday 14th March 2021, Fourth Sunday of Lent

Opening Prayer
Dear Lord, as we journey with you through this solitary and sombre season of Lent, help us to acquire the gifts of compassion and empathy to enable us to help those whose burden is so much heavier than our own.

Scripture Reading: John 3 14-21
¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Companion poem Celtic cross, Maurice Lindsay
The implication generations made
This symbol of their lives, a stone made light
By what is carved on it, the plaiting masks
But not with involutions of a shade
What a stone says, and what a stone cross asks.

The stone remains, and the cross to let us know
Their unjust hard demands as symbols do
But on them twine and grow beneath the dove
Serpents of wisdom, whose cool statements show
Such understanding that it seems like love.

Prayer
Dear Lord, we pray to you in this time of Lent, a solitary and thought-provoking time every year but even more so this year. We pray that our faith may be strengthened in breadth and depth. Teach us to learn by example to put our trust in thee and to support those whose burden is heavy. We pray for the minister and people of Colston Milton who have so little and yet offer such a shining example of faith and trust. As we make our own journeys through Lent, help us to be aware of the journey you made so many years ago, knowing of the agony on the cross which awaited you. Help us to help those around us who also have unavoidable sad paths to tread - those who have received a diagnosis of a fatal physical disease, or those who have been told of progressive dementia. Help them and their loved ones to bear these heavy burdens, comforted by the knowledge that you are there for them and have also walked such sad and difficult paths.

Departing Prayer
Teach us good Lord to serve thee as thou deservest
To give and not to count the cross
To fight and not to heed the wounds
To toil and not to seek for rest
To labour and not to ask for any reward
Save the joy of knowing that we do thy will
We ask you to bless and keep us all till we meet again
Amen.

Opening Hours

The office is open from
9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m,
Monday to Friday.

There is a 24-hour answering machine service.

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Find us

St Columba’s is located on Pont Street in Knightsbridge in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The Church is within easy reach of three London Underground stations – Knightsbridge (Piccadilly Line), South Kensington (Piccadilly, Circle and District Lines) and Sloane Square (Circle and District Lines).

	St. Columba's Pont Street London SW1X 0BD
	+44 (0)20-7584-2321
	office@stcolumbas.org.uk

Getting here by tube

Knightsbridge Station

Take the Harrods exit if open (front car if coming from the East, rear car if coming from the West). Come up the stairs to street level, carry on keeping Harrods on your right. Turn right into Basil Street. Carry straight on into Walton Place with St Saviour’s Church on your left. At the traffic lights, St Columba’s is to your left across the street. If the Harrods exit is closed, take the Sloane Street exit, turn right into Basil Street. Carry straight on past Harrods with the shop on your right, into Walton Place as before.

South Kensington Station

Come up the stairs out of the station and turn left into the shopping arcade. Turn left again into Pelham Street. At the traffic lights at the end of Pelham Street cross Brompton Road, turn left then immediately right into the narrow street of Draycott Avenue. After just a few yards turn left into Walton Street. Carry on walking up Walton Street until the traffic lights at the corner of Pont Street. Turn right and after a few steps you will be at St Columba’s!

Sloane Square Station

Cross over the square into Sloane Street. Walk along Sloane Street until the traffic lights at the corner of Pont Street. Turn left into Pont Street. St Columba’s will then be in sight.