The Week beginning February 6th News and Events

Fr Paul is our celebrant and preacher.

Please note: No Sunday School until Feb 27th. Please join us for Coffee in the Hall.

Today, the 6th February, Her Majesty The Queen will become the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years of service to the people of the United Kingdom, the Realms and the Commonwealth.

On this anniversary of her Accession to the Throne, the young Princess Elizabeth started her reign with a request for prayer: “In my first Christmas broadcast in 1952, I asked the people of the Commonwealth and Empire to pray for me as I prepared to dedicate myself to their service at my Coronation. I have been – and remain – very grateful to you for your prayers and to God for His steadfast love. I have indeed seen His faithfulness.”

“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service… But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do: I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.” Princess Elizabeth, 21 April 1947

Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness, bless our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, and all who are in authority under her; that they may order all things in wisdom and equity, righteousness and peace, to the honour and glory of your name and the good of your Church and people; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

March 2nd is Ash Wednesday. Sung Mass here at Holy Trinity in Ramsgate at 7:00pm with Imposition of Ashes and the joint choirs of Holy Trinity and St Andrew’s will sing the Mass along with the famous Allegri “Miserere”.

The Lent course for both parishes begins at St Andrew’s Deal in the hall on Thursday evenings at 6:30PM beginning on March 10th. This course will see the screening of some very powerful films that have a deep theological message.

Week One: The Way. When his son dies during a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, a father decides to honour him by finishing the journey.

Week Two: The End of the Affair. Neil Jordan’s remake of the 1955 movie is full of Graham Greene’s “tortured Catholic” theology. Visually it is a throwback to those lush British romances of the 1940s, in green-tinged Technicolor

Week Three: Shadowlands. Thanks to brilliant performances from Debra Winger and especially Anthony Hopkins, Shadowlands is a deeply moving portrait of British scholar and theologian C.S. Lewis’s romance with American poet Joy Gresham.

Week four: Winter Light. In this film Ingmar Bergman explores the search for redemption in a meaningless existence. In this stark depiction of spiritual crisis, a small-town pastor performs his duties mechanically before a dwindling congregation. When he is asked to assist with a troubled parishioner’s debilitating fear of nuclear annihilation, he is terrified to find that he can provide nothing but his own uncertainty. Winter Light is an unsettling look at the human craving for personal validation in a world seemingly abandoned by God.

Week Five: Chocolat. God has a gloriously inventive imagination and a love of diversity. One of the greatest challenges facing followers of the world’s religions in the twenty-first century is to learn to respect the differences we find in one another and not to view them as threats to ourselves.

Bishop Norman invites you to join him and his priests in Canterbury Cathedral on Tuesday April 12th for the Chrism Mass. At Noon. The Chrism Mass is celebrated by the Bishop and concelebrated with all his priests. It is the Mass when the bishop consecrates the holy chrism and blesses the oil of catechumens and the oil of the sick. Priests are brought together and concelebrate this Mass as witnesses and sharers with their bishop in the consecration of the chrism because they share in the office of the bishop in building up, sanctifying, the people of God.

Please don’t forget our outreach projects for the Hygiene Bank and Food Bank. Collection points in the Hall.