Dear friends,
This Sunday’s second reading includes one of the most sublime and uplifting assertions in the New Testament – that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We live in a world of contingency and uncertainty, of the temporary and the transient; however, amidst life’s changes and changes, the love of God remains secure.
We are invited to celebrate three birthdays this Sunday after Mass – with Ioan, Robert and Robbie together toasting another year!
There will also be a short planning meeting after Mass, for the upcoming Macmillan Coffee Morning (to take place on Saturday, 12 September).
This Sunday is the final day to pay for seats reserved on the coach to Walsingham for the Pilgrimage for Healing and Renewal (on Bank Holiday Monday, 31 August): these cost £30/£5, and can also be paid for online. Seats not paid for by Sunday will be reallocated to those on the waiting list.
Thank you for donations this month, in support of the diocesan Angola-London-Mozambique Association (ALMA) link, totalling £570 (+Gift Aid). In August, donations are invited towards the work of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) – an international humanitarian organisation providing urgent medical care in more than 75 countries. Their website details how their 52,000 staff respond to healthcare crises, including outbreaks of war and disease. There are information leaflets (and collection boxes) in church, where your kind donations can also be placed into the basket at the back.
Next week, I will be in Walsingham Monday – Friday, with three of our young people taking part in this year’s Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage: please pray for us, and thank you to those who have also contributed financial sponsorship. This year’s pilgrimage theme is “Gaudete: Leaping for Joy”, and our own young people will join hundreds of others from around the country (and beyond!), for a week of lively worship, teaching, fellowship and fun. In my absence, I am grateful to Fr Mike for sustaining pastoral and sacramental ministry in this parish: please note that there will be no public Morning Prayer on Tuesday or Thursday next week. (Any final sponsorship payments may be given to me this weekend.)
As we look ahead to the ninetieth anniversary of the consecration of St Mary’s, I am delighted to report that the restoration of our church doors is currently underway: master joiner and carpenter Peter Meakin and his colleagues are at work as I write, stripping and re-staining the woodwork, and repainting the beautiful iron tracery and studs. The finished product should be visible to admire this weekend! The next project will be to sand and re-seal the parquet flooring beneath the pews (for which a stewardship campaign will begin later this year) – all in time for our Jubilee Mass on Saturday, 5 December at 3.30pm.
Please keep the priests and people of St Andrew, Jarrom Street in Leicester in your prayers: late on Tuesday evening this week, a catastrophic fire swept through their church building – rendering it unusable for the foreseeable future. On behalf of our parish, a gift of altar linens has been sent to Canon Johannes Arens (their parish priest, who preached for us here at St Mary’s last Advent) – to enable the celebration of Mass to continue: Mass will be offered here for their community, on Saturday next week, 8 August.
Our friends at St John, Kensal Green have spaces on their weekend pilgrimage to Walsingham, 30 October – 1 November: the cost is £250/adult (£100/child), to include coach travel, full board accommodation at the Shrine and an outing on the Saturday afternoon. Please speak to me, for further information.
Likewise included with this mailing are – a flier for the Summer Fayre at St Matthew, Willesden on Saturday, 8 August; an invitation to First Vespers of The Assumption at St Silas, Kentish Town on Saturday, 15 August, and advance notice of Bishop Jonathan’s Walsingham Festival at St Andrew, Holborn on Wednesday, 23 September.
For I am sure that… [nothing] else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Fr Richard