Service Sheet for Sunday 7th September 2025 – Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Celebrant Fr Benjamin Drury

Welcome to our Liturgy of Holy Communion (Sung Mass)

Processional: 76 (Breslau) Take up thy cross, the Saviour said

Responsorial Psalm: Ps.90

Gradual: 386 (St. Botolph) O Jesu, King most wonderful

Offertory: 333 (Michael) All my hope on God is founded

Communion: 288 (Diva Servatrix) God everlasting, wonderful and holy

Recessional: 420 (Wolvercote) O Jesus, I have promised

All are welcome to stay for refreshments after the liturgy.

Please remember that the chaplaincy in Athens neither receives funding from the British Government nor from the Church of

England. All donations are, therefore, very gratefully received.

 

A reading from the Book of Wisdom (9: 13-18)

What man indeed can know the intentions of God? Who can divine the will of the Lord?

The reasonings of mortals are unsure and our intentions unstable;

for a perishable body presses down the soul,

and this tent of clay weighs down the teeming mind. It is hard enough for us to work out what is on earth, laborious to know what lies within our reach;

who, then, can discover what is in the heavens?

As for your intention, who could have learnt it, had you not granted Wisdom

and sent your holy spirit from above?

Thus have the paths of those on earth been straightened and men been taught what pleases you,

and saved, by Wisdom.

The Word of the Lord: Thanks be to God

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 90: O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to Philemon (9-10, 12-17)

This is Paul writing, an old man now and, what is more, still a pris- oner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for a child of mine, whose father I became while wearing these chains: I mean Onesimus. I am sending him back to you, and with him – I could say – a part of my own self. I should have liked to keep him with me; he could have

been a substitute for you, to help me while I am in the chains that the Good News has brought me. However, I did not want to do an-

ything without your consent; it would have been forcing your act of kindness, which should be spontaneous. I know you have been de-

prived of Onesimus for a time, but it was only so that you could have him back for ever, not as a slave any more, but something much bet- ter than a slave, a dear brother; especially dear to me, but how much more to you, as a blood-brother as well as a brother in the Lord. So if all that we have in common means anything to you, welcome him as you would me.

The Word of the Lord: Thanks be to God.

 

Gospel acclamation: Alleluia, alleluia! I call you friends, says the Lord, because I have made known to you

everything I have learnt from my Father. Alleluia! The Lord be with you. And also with you.

+ A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke (14: 25-33)

Glory to you, O Lord.

Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned and

spoke to them. ‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too,

he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

‘And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had

enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and

then found himself unable to finish the work, the onlookers would all start making fun of him and saying, “Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish.” Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider

whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who advanced against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace. So in the same way, none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up all his possessions.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, O Christ

The setting of the Nicene Creed is on page 562 in the New English Hymnal.

 

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we

desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but

through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer Collect: Twelfth Sunday after Trinity)

Church Open: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Services: Unless noted, liturgies are followed by refreshments

 

Monday 8th September: 7 p.m.; Low Mass (Nativity of the B.V.M.)

Wednesday 10th September: 10 a.m.; Low Mass

Sun. 14th September: 10 a.m.; Sung Mass: Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Wednesday 17th September: 10 a.m.; Morning Prayer (BCP)

Coffee Morning: Thursday, 11th September (10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.)

Study group & pilgrimage walking group: details from Fr. Benjamin

Harvest Festival: Saturday, 18th October (Kokotos Estate, Stamata)

Christmas Bazaar: Sunday, 23rd November (Caravel Hotel)

 

Donate electronically by scanning the QR code;

the Church does not receive any

funding from the Church of England

or the British Government and is reliant

on the goodwill of congregants and visitors. We thank you for your support.

 

Priest Chaplain: Fr. Benjamin Drury frbenjamindrury@gmail.com;

Home tel.: 210 72 14 906.

anglican@otenet.gr (Church e-mail address)

Deacon Christine Saccali : (Day Off: Friday)          697 737 7655

Church of Sweden: Fr. Bjorn Kling  694 6072428

Facebook @AnglicanAthens                   www.anglicanchurchathens.gr