Dear friends,
The late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote of the Lord’s Prayer (which we encounter in this Sunday’s Gospel reading) that only Christ, the Only-Begotten Son, can pray, “My Father“.
‘By contrast, the rest of us have to say, “Our Father”. Only within the “we” of the disciples can we call God “Father”, because only through communion with Jesus Christ do we truly become “children of God”. In this sense, the word our is really rather demanding… It requires that we surrender ourselves to communion with the other children of God. When we say the word our, we say Yes to the living Church in which the Lord wanted to gather his new family. In this sense, the Our Father is at once a fully personal and a thoroughly ecclesial prayer.’
The Lord’s Prayer is thus the family prayer of the Church, in which we acknowledge God as our Father, and one another as our brothers and sisters. Let this prayer therefore be always on our lips.
Please note that this Sunday will be the final opportunity to contribute both to this month’s charity appeal for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and to the collection for our outgoing pastoral assistant, Ryan Davey.
Tickets remain on sale for our summer barbecue (on Saturday, 16 August) – including via this link (and if using this link, please enter the total payable, and then notify Fr Richard once you have made payment, so that a paper ticket can also be issued to you). One spare ticket for the barbecue has become available, at no charge: please see Fr Richard to claim this – first come, first served.
There is now also just one space remaining on the coach to Walsingham for the Pilgrimage for Healing and Renewal on Bank Holiday Monday, 25 August: please sign up in church – including if you wish to be placed onto a waiting list, should further seats become available.
Please note that the date of Fr Jason Rendell’s Induction to St Augustine, Kilburn has changed to Friday, 21 November.
Please also find herewith attached an invitation to a Harrow InterFaith walk this Sunday, 27 July, beginning at Rayners Lane Underground station at 10.45am, and including a tour of the Zoroastrian Centre, plus refreshments.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,
Fr Richard