Sunday June 6th and beyond

The Church of England’s Parochial Church Meetings and Councils rules stipulate that in “every parish there shall be held each year the annual parochial church meeting.” The purpose of this meeting is to elect members to the Parish Church Council; for those members of the PCC to represent the parish on the Deanery Synod; to review the finances and the workings of the parish over the previous year.

Please stay and learn more about the workings of your Church!

Today’s gospel tells of Jesus’ encounter with his own people and family. They all thought he was out of his mind. They accused him of being possessed when he was liberating the possessed. They were ready to restrain him with false charges. They wished to tame his miraculous works and powerful preaching. In spite of all these criticisms, Jesus remained focused on what he believed God was asking of him.

Every true disciple of Christ is, His brother, sister, mother and a member of his family. Jesus came to save all who are ready to do the will of God. Of course, Mary his mother is a great model of this for all of us. Hence, Christ did not disrespect his own faithful mother. Rather, he teaches an important lesson today. That, through faith and obedience to God’s will, we all have the opportunity to become active members of his faithful and happy family.

Going deeper into your faith! Are you considering Confirmation? Do you feel that you need a refresher course in the tenets of the faith? Fr Paul is hoping to begin a Confirmation study course very soon, and this course will also be open to anyone who would like to do this as a refresher course. We will be using the book “Faith Confirmed” as the course material. Please let Fr Paul know if you are interested and we can then look for suitable dates.

Each Friday at 12 Noon in Holy Trinity Church in Ramsgate we offer Mass in a more relaxed style with silence, music and reflecting the ancient Celtic tradition.

HOLY TRINITY SCHOOL NEWS On Wednesday June 16th The Bishop of Dover will be visiting our Church school at 11:15AM. On Friday June 9th we shall be hosting the Annual School leavers service in Church. Its that special time when we send our leavers on their way to secondary school with God’s blessing.

A NEW CHILDREN’S MASS ON SATURDAYS AT 4:30PM

Until Sunday School begins again later in the year (September), We have now started a very short and child friendly Mass of about thirty to thirty five minutes duration on Saturdays at 4:30PM as a Vigil Mass for the Sunday. This will be an age-appropriate Mass, with only one Gospel reading and a special simple Eucharistic prayer for children.

If you cannot be in Church on Sunday for whatever reason, this Mass is technically also the Sunday Mass. The “vigil mass” is held on Saturday early evening, but is the same as a Sunday Mass obligation. In the Jewish timetable days were measured from sundown to sundown, not from midnight to midnight. (Remember that for the early Church they did not consider themselves “Christian” as distinct from their fellow Jews. It was not until they became violently persecuted that they did distinguish themselves as “other”, as followers of “The Way”.

Holy Baptism at HTR On Saturday July 10th at Noon we shall welcome into the family of the Church Mazikeen Nicole McNamara. Please pray for this child and her parents and God-parents.

Fr Paul on Annual Leave. Fr Paul will be taking two weeks off duty from July 10th until 25th. Apart from sick leave and surgery this is the first time he has been off duty for over 14 months. Once again, we are indebted to Fr Michael for his ministry to us.