NEWS & VIEWS

SUNDAY'S READINGS challenge us towards a deeper faith and a greater commitment to our duties and responsibilities as Christians. Jesus says that if we only had faith as small a mustard seed, we could do anything; and if we then did what that same faith requires of us, we would understand that we are only undertaking our duty towards God and one another. Faith should move us towards service, and service should move us towards God.

HARVEST THANKSGIVING Our 10am Parish Mass on Sunday 16th will be our harvest thanksgiving. As is our custom, your gifts of non-perishable food, toiletries and money will be ‘safely gathered in’ here and then passed on to The Welcome Centre, who work with those who are homeless and destitute. Please give generously.

LETTER TO HM THE KING Thank you to all who signed the Book of Condolences. This has now been closed and deposited in the parish archives, and a facsimile of it sent to The King. The accompanying letter sent by Fr Gareth on behalf of the parish is on the St Anne altar for those who would like to read it.

VOLUNTEERS We need volunteers who can take on some jobs and roles within our parish family. We have reached a critical point whereby the burden of responsibility for our life together is resting on too few shoulders, and those shoulders are very weary! On the blue notice board at the back of church are some further details about our shared responsibility as members of St Mary’s and some ideas about how you can become more involved in serving your church. Fr Gareth will be talking more about this during October.

FINANCIAL GIVING The Parish Giving Scheme is our new online and phone-based system for financial giving to the church. If you use it, it will save us hours of work (for example, by automatically handling donations and Gift Aid) - a really big help to us. You will have full control of your giving - and there’s no need to deal with your bank. There are flyers at the back of church giving simple instructions - or go online to tinyurl.com/parish-giving for further information. Please do consider seriously helping your church in this way.

INTERCESSION

OF YOUR CHARITY, PLEASE PRAY FOR

the sick, distressed and bereaved

John & Joan Cassidy, Richard Holland, Lucy Ball, Amberly Crediton, Christine Taylor, Nik, Kathy Valentine, Margaret Harding, Bernard Street, Mel Taylor, Muriel Masters, Samuel Messih, Fr Oliver Coss, Keith Holland, Helen Johnson, Fazie, Joe & Sally Cox, Kay Higgins, Ruth Fegan; Alison Clarke

the recently departed

Maureen Cox

those whose anniversaries of death fall this week

Monday

Frederick Holmes, John Hall, Bunty Cooke

Tuesday

Alexander Colvin priest, Frank Rogers

Wednesday

Bernice Parker, Dorothy Bouverie

Thursday

Roy Hassell,
six children of St Mary’s:
John, Mary, Olive, Marjorie, Jean, Dorothy

Friday

Lillian Baden-Powell

Saturday

Frederick Joy, Gordon Ayres

please pray especially for

HM Government

ORDER OF SERVICE