Dear friends,
This Sunday’s Gospel reading emphasises the attitude of gratitude we should all endeavour to cultivate: God is good, and affords us wise guidance and many graces – and the first emphasis in our prayers should therefore be to thank Him for these. It is through this growing openness – to the Almighty and to our neighbour – that God often chooses to act: if we fill our lives with praise and service, so often in the meanwhile the Lord will begin to remedy our own challenges – far more powerfully than if our focus is always on ourselves. As Jesus also indicates, the supreme and proper context for thanksgiving is in the liturgical life of the Church – at the Eucharist: ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ Let us thus not be absent from our common worship, and let us raise our voices there, in grateful thanks to God!
Thank you very much to those who coordinated and supported last Saturday’s Coffee Morning; and hearty congratulations on so far raising the amazing sum of £1,091.81 for Macmillan Cancer Care! Any final donations can be made using this link, or given in cash to Bernadette (by Sunday, 19 October, please).
Thank you likewise for your Harvest donations last Sunday, for distribution, by the Harrow Food Bank, to families in need: please bring any remaining items to church by Sunday, 19 October.
Those coming on the parish outing to St Martin-in-the-Fields this Sunday should gather on the platform at Harrow-on-the-Hill station by 3.15pm: please let me know ASAP if you would like to come, but have not yet added your name to the list in church – further instructions to the party will follow this weekend.
A week on Sunday, 19 October our joint parish appeal (with All Saints Church) in support of St Luke’s Hospice will be launched: much more information will follow next week – but I would be keen to hear now from those who can knit or crochet, and might like to help produce some “holding hearts”, such as are detailed here.
One place remains on the next Youth Group outing, to the Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaursexhibition, on Saturday, 25 October. Please would those who have already signed up, now complete and return a registration form, plus £10pp.
Please continue to PRINT CLEARLY on the list in church the names of those departed loved ones whom you would like remembered at our All Souls Mass, on Sunday 2 November at 6pm. A collection will be taken during this service for the work of local charity Bereavement Care.
The PCC has also settled the following dates for future events: on Saturday, 22 November our “Countdown to Christmas” Pre-Christmas Market will take place in the Hall, 10.30am-5pm; on Sunday, 14 December there will be a parish outing to the pantomime, to watch “Dick Whittington” at the Harrow Arts Centre at 3pm; and next year’s parish barbecue will be on Saturday, 18 July 2026: save the dates! We are also very pleased to confirm that our Holy Week preacher 2026 (for the Sacrum Triduum, Maundy Thursday – Holy Saturday) will be the Rt Rev’d Norman Banks SSC (sometime Lord Bishop of Richborough) – who joined us earlier this year for Candlemas.
O sing a new song to the Lord, / for He has worked wonders,
Fr Richard