Bowland Benefice
Pews News 30 March 2025
Mothering Sunday - Collect
God of love, passionate and strong,
tender and careful:
watch over us and hold us
all the days of our life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This week in the Benefice

Sunday
30 March

10.30am

Mothering
Sunday Service
in Upton
Snodsbury

10.30am

Mothering
Sunday Service
in White Ladies
Aston

11.00am

Holy
Communion for
Mothering
Sunday in
Peopleton

4.00pm

Joyful Mothering
Sunday in
Broughton
Hackett

Tuesday
1 April 7.30pm

Peopleton
Annual Meeting
in the church

Sunday
6 April
Lent 5
(Passiontide
begins)

10.30am

Family Service
in Upton
Snodsbury

11.00am

Holy
Communion
Service in
Peopleton

6.00pm

Evensong in
White Ladies
Aston
Everyone – young and old - welcome to our
Mothering Sunday Services this Sunday. Always
joyous services with an abundance of spring flower
posies! Are you wondering what Joyful Mothering
Sunday in Broughton Hackett is all about? Please do
come along to find out – you will be made very

welcome!

Next Tuesday at 7.30pm, St Nicholas Church, will hold
its Annual Parochial Church Meeting in the church. If
you are on the Electoral Roll you are entitled to

attend.

Claire writes: it was good to see so many of you at the
Café church service in Peopleton last Sunday. We
learned a lot from Stef Jones about how trust in God
can lead to life-changing actions for both ourselves

and others.

Join us again in a few months for this different way of
‘doing’ church - companionship, music, prayer and of
course refreshments. Keep an eye open for posters.

Lent is a time of preparation, waiting and penitence
and the five weeks of Lent leading up to Holy Week
make for an appropriate time to reflect upon our own
lives - our struggles, our goals, our prayers - in light of
Christ’s life, death and resurrection. We continue to
follow Stuart Townend through our Lenten journey.
The fourth week’s theme is God’s Love
The reading for this week is Luke 15: 11-32 (the
parable of the prodigal son)

Part of understanding the wonder of the events of
Easter weekend is to understand the love that was
shown to us individually through Christ’s life, death

and resurrection.

And part of Lent’s preparation is not only to confess,
forgive and fast, but also to prepare our minds by
dwelling on the wonder that God Himself loves us.
Traditionally, the time of Lent focuses on bodily and
physical tasks or sacrifices which help to lift our
mind’s eyes up towards God.
These can be helpful and powerful practices. It is
important, however, that we never view these
disciplines as a way of earning or achieving greater

standing with God.

His love for us never changes, and no Lenten fasting
or improved prayer life changes how he feels about
us. In all of Lent’s waiting and penitence, perhaps the
most crucial and spiritually mature thing to try and get
to grips with, is that these practices do not affect

God’s love for us!

We are free from trial and effort when it comes to our
relationship with God. The other side of this, of
course, is if you’re having a ‘bad Lent’ - maybe you
didn’t even realise we are even in Lent! - then God
loves you no less, thinks of you no less and your
relationship with him is just as rich and healthy as

anyone else’s.

It is also important to recognise that sometimes we
are weary and in need of rest. This is true in Lent as
well as any other season. Dragging our bodies to
tiredness through fasting every day, for example, may
not be the most appropriate course of worship for you
right now. That is OK. In today’s relentless world,
feeding your mind with the truth of God’s love for you
could well serve you better than going without food at
work all day. God does not call us to spend Lent
struggling mentally or spiritually for the sake of bodily

sacrifice.
A prayer

God, never let us forget that you are Love itself.
Direct our vision towards this incredible and

mysterious truth.

We thank you that you love us for who we are, for
who you made us to be, and not for what we’ve done

or failed to do.

I pray your love for us will be the inspiration for our
week ahead and bring us joy even in the midst of
hardship and difficulty. Amen.