Trinity 14
News From St Michael's
Welcome, new readers and newcomers to St Michael's. We welcome and thank Fr Derek Mottershead, our celebrant this morning, who is also kindly celebrating Mass for us on Thursday 22nd. If you are a newcomer or a visitor, please introduce yourself to a member of the congregation so that we can welcome you properly.
The Tower of St Michael's has made a notable contribution as Maidstone has marked the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Thank you to those who rang and to those who attended to the flag. Thanks, too, to all who have helped us to mark the occasion in other ways.
Kent County Association: Maidstone, Kent:
St Michael and All Angels
Thursday, 8 September 2022 (6–1–24 in C)
96 Tolling
Half Muffled
8Mark T Elvers
**Tolled in memory of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who died today aged
- 21 April 1926 - 8 September 2022**.
Friday, 9 September 2022 (6–1–24 in C)
Rounds, Bob Doubles, Bob Minor and Reverse Canterbury
General Ringing fully muffled with tenor open at backstroke
1Jacqueline Barlow
2Terry Barnard
3Liam Corette
4Charlotte Elvers
5Mark Elvers
6Robin Hughes
7Steve Newlands
8Brian Osmer
Rung fully muffled to mark the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II.
A County and Civic Service of Commemoration will be held at All Saints', Maidstone, at 3 pm today (Sunday 18th). Everyone is invited.
Fr Paul Gibbons's Requiem Mass, which took place on Tuesday morning at St Francis' RC Church, was attended by many worshippers with a link to St Michael's. Among the clergy in the sanctuary were Fr Liam Gallagher, the parish priest, and Mgr Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. It had, however, been Fr Paul's plan that the celebrant and preacher should be Fr Christopher Pearson, also of the Ordinariate – whom he had known ever since the latter's arrival (as a school leaver) for a parish placement at St Michael's many years ago. Fr Paul had been adamant that the Mass must include “no eulogy” – but Fr Christopher managed to do justice to the essential nature of Fr Paul as person and priest while delivering an illuminating sermon on the raising of Lazarus - “When God speaks, it is.” Fr Paul had also planned the place of his burial, in Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, where he had secured a plot in the section belonging to the parish of St Alban's, Holborn. So, as the hearse departed after the Mass, we could reflect that although in life he felt abandoned by the Church of England, his final resting-place was among the members of an Anglican flock. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Our Michaelmas/Harvest Buffet Lunch on October 2nd still needs offers of food and help. Please, kind cooks and helpers, sign up on the list in the narthex. Please also think what you might bring to decorate the church for our worship that day, and to support the food bank which will receive our harvest gifts. Let's make it a day of rejoicing for St Michael's and a memorable occasion for our guests, who will include the Archdeacon of Maidstone as our preacher at Mass.
Warmest thanks to all who so generously joined in the church cleaning and Garden Working Party yesterday, Please make a note also of the Garden Working Party scheduled for October 8th – even if you can spare only half an hour, half an hour's gardening can make a real difference.
A Picnic in the Park this afternoon (Sunday 18^th,^) is being arranged by the Fant and Bower Group in Clare Park from 4.00 to 5.00 pm, weather permitting. Bring your picnic tea and appreciate our Green Flag local park. This is intended to be, not a raucous occasion, but an opportunity for members of the community to come together. Please note: anyone with any connection to the district (which all St Michael's worshippers have) is most welcome to join the Group on payment of a small subscription. Visit their website for details: fantandbower.co.uk.
14th Sunday After Trinity : Hymns 358,410,305,396
First reading Amos 8:4-7 ————— ————
Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
and try to suppress the poor people of the country,
you who say, ‘When will New Moon be over
so that we can sell our corn,
and sabbath, so that we can market our wheat?
Then by lowering the bushel, raising the shekel,
by swindling and tampering with the scales,
we can buy up the poor for money,
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and get a price even for the sweepings of the wheat.’
The Lord swears it by the pride of Jacob,
‘Never will I forget a single thing you have done.’
RESPONSORIAL PSALM 112 Response: Praise the Lord, who raises the poor.
1. Praise, O servants of the Lord; praise the name of the Lord!
May the name of the Lord be blessed: both now and for evermore. R.
2. High above all nations is the Lord, above the heavens his glory:
Who is like the Lord, our God, who has risen on high to his throne
Yet stoops from the heights to look down; to look down upon heaven and earth. R.
3. From the dust he lifts up the lowly; from the dungheap he raises the poor
to set them in the company of princes; yes, with the princes of his people. R.
Second reading 1 Timothy 2:1-7 —————- —————–
My advice is that, first of all, there should be prayers offered for everyone – petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving – and especially for kings and others in authority, so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet. To do this is right, and will please God our saviour: he wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth. For there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed himself as a ransom for them all. He is the evidence of this, sent at the appointed time, and I have been named a herald and apostle of it and – I am telling the truth and no lie – a teacher of the faith and the truth to the pagans.
In every place, then, I want the men to lift their hands up reverently in prayer, with no anger or argument.
GOSPEL Luke 16:1-13
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘There was a rich man and he had a steward denounced to him for being wasteful with his property. He called for the man and said, “What is this I hear about you? Draw me up an account of your stewardship because you are not to be my steward any longer.” Then the steward said to himself, “Now that my master is taking the stewardship from me, what am I to do? Dig? I am not strong enough. Go begging? I should be too ashamed. Ah, I know what I will do to make sure that when I am dismissed from office there will be some to welcome me into their homes.”
Then he called his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, “How much do you owe my master?” “One hundred measures of oil” was the reply. The steward said, “Here, take your bond; sit down straight away and write fifty.” To another he said, “And you, sir, how much do you owe?” “One hundred measures of wheat” was the reply. The steward said, “Here, take your bond and write eighty.”
‘The master praised the dishonest steward for his astuteness. For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light.
‘And so I tell you this: use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into the tents of eternity. The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great; the man who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. If then you cannot be trusted with money, that tainted thing, who will trust you with genuine riches? And if you cannot be trusted with what is not yours, who will give you what is your very own?
‘No servant can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.'
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