Linked Index: please click to go to the selected sections

1. Lenten and Easter Schedule
   
2. Dates of Future events
   
3. ST George's annual charity Ball
   
4. How you can help
   
5. Chaplain´s Corner
   
6. Some thoughts on Lent and Easter
   
7. Lenten Recipes

Lenten and Easter Schedule:

Wednesday, 1 March: Ash Wednesday and beginning of Lent.

Sunday, 26 March: 3rd Sunday in Lent/Mothering Sunday

Sunday 9 April: Palm Sunday

Thursday 13 April: Maundy Thursday

Friday 14 April: Good Friday

Sunday 16 April: Easter Sunday

Sunday 23 April: Patronal Festival followed by the AGM

DATES OF FUTURE EVENTS

The following dates for future events have been suggested by the Fund Raising Committee and agreed with the Chaplain.

Spring Jumble Sale Sat 1st April
Ball Friday 21st April
AGM & pot-luck lunch Sunday 23rd April
Bazaar Sat 10th June
Harvest Festival Sunday 8th October
Autumn Jumble Sale Saturday 28th October

Please enter these into your diaries.

ST GEORGE’S ANNUAL CHARITY BALL

This will be held on Friday April 21st, at the Meliá Madrid Princesa.

This year promises to be an even more special event, since it actually coincides with the Queen’s real birthday; believe it or not, as we trip the light fantastic in Madrid, she will be celebrating her eightieth birthday. Some of the more gifted members of the congregation will no doubt be putting together an informal tribute to Her Majesty.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Apart from actually joining us at the Ball, and buying raffle tickets to sell to all your friends, we need help in the following ways:
• identifying new sponsors - some of you must work for companies which might help sponsor the ball, either by buying advertising space in the program, or by giving a cash donation, or by contributing products or services for the raffle);
• telephoning potential sponsors to encourage them to support us; we always write to them, but follow-up action is vital;
• helping collect raffle prizes – some companies deliver, but by no means all, and we shall need people with cars to help collect the prizes.

Please telephone:
Sue Roll for tickets and reservations – 91 350 9389
Gill Watling if you can volunteer time to help in any of the above ways - 91 416 4087 or 667 678 661.

Chaplain´s Corner

The forty-day season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and during it we journey with the World-wide Church towards the mystery of Holy Week and the celebration of new life at Easter.

Lent is marked with a change in the liturgical colours and focus of our worship. Traditionally, it was common for the church hangings and even the vestments to be made of sackcloth – a reminder of the Jewish custom of signalling mourning or contrition by wearing sackcloth and ashes. Today most churches use purple, the colour of royalty, as a reminder that we must prepare for the coming of Christ our God and king at Easter.

But what is Lent really about? Traditionally Lent has been a season for soul-searching and repentance a time for reflection and taking stock.

In Spanish we use the phrase, “ha perdido el norte” when we speak of someone who has lost his/her way, whose life is filled with confusion and chaos. This phrase is most likely of nautical origin when sailors depended on sighting the North Star in the night sky in order to calculate their position and direction of travel. Lent is about “la búsqueda de nuestro norte” the search for direction, literally, our guiding light. It is a gift and a God-given moment to examine and assess our lives, our goals, and our relationships in the light of God’s will for our lives, and his purposes and hopes for Creation. Our guiding light is Christ and so it is no coincidence that during this season we seek to imitate his 40-day long fast in the wilderness prior to the start of his mission.

The processes whereby we may participate more fully in Lent are as ancient as God and Israel’s journey together. They involve: Fasting (which is about disciplining our “appetites” and “drives” helping us to shift our focus from self to community), Repentance (which involves confession and reparation for sin and is about getting our relationships in order thus building up the Body), and Almsgiving (which is about our trying to keep faith with the biblical concept of Jubilee, a vision that profoundly questions/challenges an economy that favours the rich at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable and the immigrant and is thus a “sacrament” or sign of our Kingdom citizenship).

We are blessed at St. George’s that we gather citizens from many different nations. Our worship is enriched by the many accents and traditions that we represent. This diversity challenges us to step outside our individual cultural “bubbles” in order to discover and celebrate God’s creative, redeeming and sustaining love for His world.

I wonder if this Lent we might all consider adding a fourth discipline, a commitment to get to know, understand and thus value those “who are not like us”? I believe firmly that Christ came to make God’s hope for the reconciliation of humanity a reality. May this Lent draw us in to rediscover the light of our guiding light, Christ the Morning Star.

In Him,
Padre Ian

"FOR OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN" ( Mark 10 v.14)

At Easter-time little five-year-old Erin loved to hunt for the chocolate eggs her father would hide behind the bushes in their garden. Last year, Erin's tiny basket was full of different-sized eggs. She took them inside the house and put them all on the kitchen table. She said to her mother:

"Mummy, Johnny won't be having any Easter eggs, will he? So I'll take him some of mine.¨

Johnny, aged 16, and who lived next door, was severely mentally handicapped. Erin put half the chocolate eggs back in her basket and carried it round to her neighbour's house. Johnny was delighted. He had never been given chocolate Easter eggs before. Infact. he knew nothing about Easter at all, since his parents were not religious. On the other hand, Erin's parents were practising Christians.

by Joyce L Milton

Some thoughts on Lent and Easter

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell:
the soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast, and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)

Lenten Recipes

Lemony Lentil Soup (from Laurie King-Irani)
(Serves 6)

Ingredients

1 large onion, finely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup red lentils, washed and cleaned
1 tablespoon cumin
1/2 teaspon ground coriander seed
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
7-8 cups water
1 tablespoon sea salt
1/4 cup basmati rice, washed
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil

In a medium to large sized cooking pot, sautée the onion and garlic on medium heat until the onions are translucent. Do not burn the oil or the garlic. Add the washed lentils and all of the spices and stir for a minute or two. Then add the water and salt and bring to a rolling boil for 3-5 minutes.

Reduce heat to low, place a lid on the pot, and let the soup simmer for half an hour, stirring occasionally. You can add more water if the soup looks too thick. Bring the heat back up, add the rice, and bring to a boil for a minute, then reduce the heat to low again, replace the lid, and wait until the rice is cooked (about 15-20 minutes).

Remove from heat and taste to see if you would like more salt. Add the lemon juice only after the soup is no longer boiling.

Serve with sprigs of parsely and drizzle olive oil on each soup bowl. An excellent and filling meal accompanied by homemade bread!

Hummos bi-Tahini (Chick peas with sesame seed butter)
(from Laurie King-Irani)

Ingredients

1 16 oz. can of chick peas (garbanzos), with four fifths of its liquid drained off
3-4 cloves of garlic Juice of two lemons
Lemon zest (1/4 t.)
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 t. ground cumin
3/4 t. sea salt

Place the chick peas and their remaining liquid, the garlic cloves, lemon zest, and seasonings into a blender with half the lemon juice. Blend until smooth. Then add, alternating, the tahini and the rest of the lemon juice until all the ingredients are well blended. Taste and add more salt or lemon juice if necessary. Scoop the hummos into a shallow bowl, make a "moat" and add about 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil. Dust with some cumin and serve with hot bread for dipping.

Oat Cakes (From Ana Rodriguez Cano)

1/2 kilo of Harina de Avena (Oat flour)
2 teaspoons of salt
2 Tablespoons of sugar
3 to 4 fluid ounces of olive oil (not a drop more than 4 because otherwise the oatcakes will cumble)
enough water to make the mixture hard enough and soft enough to roll out.
Rice flour

Combine all ingredients, then roll out and usingrice flour to dust it with so that it doesn't stick to the rolling pin etc. and cut the oatcakes to size (I use a glass for this). They need around half an hour and a bit longer in my oven, which is gas, and I keep it at the top mark. It is very easy to burn them, so keep an eye on them until you have made them a few times and then you will know roughly how long they take.