Sunday, second in Lent – The mass began with the singing of the processional hymn “All my hope on God is founded”.

The priest-in-charge, Father Stephen Drakeley, as president of the mass, then greeted the congregation before leading the prayers of penitence and confession.

Jill Pardon read the Old Testament lesson, Genesis chapter 12 v 1-4. This tells how Abram (not yet called Abraham) at God’s command left his family home and his country to start a new life in a strange country. This was followed by Linda Thomas reading Psalm 121 “I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from where my help is to come.”

The New Testament lesson, part of Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 4 v 1-5 and 13-17, was read by Paul Jenkins. The apostle comments of the actions of Abraham as described in Genesis reasoning that the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham through the law, but through faith.

The gospel proclaimed by Fr Stephen was John chapter 3 v 1-17 – Nicodemus asks questions, the answers to which would have been strange to him, an example being re-birth. This was the example Fr Stephen took for the subject in his address focussing on the words “The wind blows where it chooses, you know not where it comes from or where it goes.”

Prayers were led by Father Ian Froome and Maureen Roberts; chalice administrators at the eucharist were Jane MacLennon and Helen Bancroft; servers for the mass were Jane and Jacob Clarke; sidespersons Hazel and Russell Bennett; organist was Matthew Seaton who after the singing of the recessional hymn “To God be the glory,” played as a voluntary “Sortie in eb” by Lefebvre Wely in memory of Daphne Campbell.