Trinity 10 News

We welcome Fr Paul as our celebrant this morning. He will also be celebrating Mass for us on Thursday 25th August and Sunday 28th August. Thank you, Fr Paul, for your kindness and support to St Michael's.

Irene Horton's Funeral Mass will take place tomorrow, 22nd August, at 11 am. Let us come together to thank God for the life of a dedicated, generous and much loved member of the St Michael's family.

Please pray for the PCC, who hold a meeting on Thursday 25th August at which Archdeacon Andrew will be discussing our interregnum.

Fr Neil and Elizabeth are now settling into their new home in Norfolk. Please pray for them as they begin the next chapter of their life and ministry.

A small but enthusiastic party from St Michael's travelled to St Albans for the Richborough Family Day. Despite the rail strike there was a large congregation in the Cathedral, and beforehand we met a generous and welcoming guide who demonstrated how some of the medieval wall paintings in the Abbey – among them one of St Thomas of Canterbury – could, with the help of projections incorporating painstaking research, now be seen almost as they originally were. Wonderful!

In his sermon at this memorable Mass of the Holy Name of Jesus, Bishop Norman used the story of Rumpelstiltskin to remind us that supposed magic formulas for re-packaging and marketing the Christian message were a kind of modern gnosticism, were no substitute for simply pointing to the life and person of Jesus, and might well be doomed, like Rumpelstiltskin, to tear themselves to pieces in the end.

In his garden later in the day, when we had enjoyed our picnics and the Bishop's wine, the Bishop led us in a Bible Study based on 1Peter 1:13-16, pointing out that readiness for action, discipline, reliance on grace, and obedience were marks of the holy life to which Catholic Christians are called. He implied delicately (without actually saying so) that we might find this brief session more to the point than some of the Bible studies on the same Epistle that he had lately attended in the course of the Lambeth Conference.

It was good to be able to greet members of other SSC parishes and hear snippets of their news – for example, that a new priest was about to be appointed to our neighbour parishes of Deal and Ramsgate (STOP PRESS: his name is Fr Angus Beattie). Many thanks to Bishop Norman for organising a wonderful day.

More Richborough news: Bishop Norman reminds us of the Holy Land Pilgrimage planned for November 2023. Visit the Richborough website, or speak to Eleanor.

The 2023 Richborough Family Day will be held at St Albans in the first week of August next year, but a separate event is also planned for Canterbury. Watch this space! - and please, St Michael's family, make a special effort to support this when it happens. Bishop Norman will be retiring before long, and joining him at Canterbury would be a good way to show our appreciation of his pastoral concern for our parish. In addition, a Richborough weekend pilgrimage to Walsingham is planned for September 2023. People whose commitments made last week's five-day pilgrimage to Walsingham unfeasible, do watch out for next year's details. Walsingham is a treasure offered to all of us – a treasure well worth unpacking if you haven't yet experienced it. We thank fellow-pilgrims from other parishes who last week assured us of their prayers for St Michael's.

Mothers' Union members - and others who are aware of the “Away From It All” seaside holidays arranged by the MU for families in difficult circumstances – will like to know that among the pilgrims at Walsingham last week was someone who had accompanied this year's AFIA holiday as a volunteer, and was able to report at first hand how well it went, and how much it meant, for the 9 families who took part (the ice cream money, in particular, was well spent!). She also reports that there is real concern about whether a holiday of this kind will be financially possible next summer. If you would like to know more, and perhaps contribute for next year, please contact Daphne Tester.