Dear friends,
Tickets are now on sale for our parish barbecue (on Saturday, 18 July (£15/adult, £5/under-18 – to include a glass of rum punch on arrival, and Prosecco with your meal)) – please pay for these these in cash, from Nancee (and take some too, to sell to others!), or use this payment link – not forgetting to include your name when you make payment, so that paper tickets can be supplied to you: raffle prizes are also kindly requested, as well as your help (i) to set up the Hall on Friday, 17 July from 6pm; (ii) to set up the barbecues and gazebos on the day, from 11am, and (iii) to clear up afterwards.
Members of the congregation are also asked to confirm to Pat your kind contribution of a side/salad/dessertfor the barbecue; and there will be a further planning meeting after Mass on Sunday, 5 July. A poster is attached, to share with your neighbours, family and friends.
Seats on the ‘bus are disappearing quickly*, for the Walsingham Pilgrimage for Healing and Renewal, on Bank Holiday Monday, 31 August: as in previous years, we will share a coach with our friends from Willesden, Kingsbury and Little Stanmore – and this coach will depart St Mary’s at 7.30am prompt (returning c.7.30pm). Rising fuel costs mean that the return coach journey will this year cost £30pp (£5 for under-18s): to secure your place, please sign up in church AND make payment – either in cash, or via this link. (You are invited to bring a picnic lunch on the day.)
(*At the time of writing, only six seats remain: however, if more people wish to come to Walsingham, it may be possible to secure an additional six seats, by upgrading the ‘bus to a larger vehicle.)
We also invite sponsorship of those of our young people who will be participating in this year’s Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage (in August): please see me, to sponsor a young pilgrim (£40pp).
As noted in last week’s mailing, your prayers are asked for the seven men to be ordained by Bishop Jonathan this summer, whose pre-ordination retreat takes place next week: I will be accompanying the group – in consequence of which there will be no public Morning Prayer on Tuesday next week, 16 June (St Richard’s Day!) In a little over one week we will mark Fathers’ Day: pray too for our fathers in God, who share in the Lord’s sacred ministry, as shepherds of souls.
A fruitful prompt to your prayers for our ordinands might be to reflect on this coming Sunday’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus tells his disciples that ‘[the] harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest, to send out labourers into his harvest.’ On the Eve of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, when we celebrate the love of God in the Heart of Jesus, we recall the words of St John Vianney, who described the sacred priesthood as ‘the love of the heart of Jesus‘: may God raise up those who will share with us Christ’s love, through their administration of his sacraments, their preaching of his Gospel and their exercise of his tender concern for God’s people.
‘By our prayers, Lord, help us to find new servants and ministers of your Gospel, who will – persevere in obeying your will; bear witness to your love before the world, and seek with courage those good things which alone will last for ever.’
Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth,
Fr Richard