The Week ahead at Holy Trinity in Ramsgate. July 24th

Fr Paul will be the celebrant today and preacher. Sunday School is now on Summer break until next term. Coffee served after Mass in the hall.

Hymns: 466, 443, 393, 486. Psalm 138

Readings at Mass today: 1st Reading: Genesis 18: 20-32. Psalm 138. 2nd Reading: Col 2: 6-15. The Gospel: St Luke 11: 1-13.

During the severe rise in Covid cases in our area. Please wear a face covering if you can and sit socially distanced. There is hand sanitiser available throughout the Church.

In the Gospel set for today – Luke 11:1-13 we read that well known reply of Jesus to the disciples’ direct request “teach us to pray”. These well-known verses take us right to the heart of Jesus’s own prayer, and the prayer he taught the disciples has been treasured in the community of faith ever since as an example and model of Jesus’ own prayer and of how we should pray. We can pray this prayer only while contemplating Jesus and accepting his invitation to join him in the intimacy of his communion with God.

For us to pray to God, our ‘Father’, is to be really and seriously conscious of our own union with Jesus. It is to join with his prayer and to allow his Spirit to move freely in our hearts and minds so that we might share his sentiments. Christian prayer is always the prayer of Jesus drawing his disciples with him towards God.

Over my ministry I have had many deep conversations with all sorts of people who tell me that they struggle with the words – ‘Forgive us our sins, as we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us’. It is the consciousness of God’s forgiveness that brings the reader, in the prayer itself, to hopefully forgive others.

We know that it is impossible to repay God for all that God has given, and so Jesus asks his Father to cast aside the debt but that we might do the same with those who have hurt us or offended us. Jesus, embracing the human condition, knew the limitations of the human person and in that weakness, he shares with all the human race, he asks his Father to keep giving him life and love, and the blessed communion that sustains him, knowing that, as a man, he would always be in God’s debt. It is this total generosity of God that enables Him not to measure the love he offers but to keep giving freely, in other words to literally ‘for-give’. Can we live up to this aspect of our own prayers?

PCC meet on Wednesday July 27th after Mass. (There is also a Wedding Rehearsal at 7pm in Church).

LAST CALL! You are all invited to a Church BBQ All five of the Parishes of the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda in Canterbury Diocese are getting to together on July 31st for a BBQ at St Michael’s Church in Harbledown, Canterbury at 3:00PM. Cost is only £2 for food and bring your own drinks – wine, beers or soft drinks. Lifts can be arranged, see Fr Paul for details. The event will conclude with Solemn Evensong and Benediction.

Saturday August 6th is the Feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration. Mass will be offered at St Andrew’s in Deal for both parishes at 9:30AM. All welcome.

The transfiguration of Jesus Christ was a powerful demonstration of His divine nature and manifestation of His glory, which Jesus possessed prior to coming to earth in the human body. This revelation is referenced in a passage in the Apostle Paul’s message to Phillippi. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

JOIN US FOR THE RICHBROUGH FAMILY DAY. A wonderful day out at St Albans’ Abbey on August 13th. Coach from Holy Trinity and St Andrew’s to St Albans in Hertfordshire. There will be a glorious Mass in the Abbey, Lunch with Bishop Norman and a great day with some time for shopping or sightseeing in city of St Albans. Sign up sheet out soon.

Sunday August 14th will be our celebration of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven. Sung Mass at 9:00AM.

Our Summer Fayre and Afternoon Teas will now take place on Saturday September 3rd from 2:00PM – 4:00PM. Offers of help or produce or Bric a Brac items will be glady received.

PLEASE REMEMBER THE FOOD BANK AND HYGIENE BANK.