My Family Prayer Book

 2026-06-21 Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time   Jeremiah 20:10-13 Jeremiah came from a priestly family (his father Hilkiah was a priest). He was called to prophesy in the southern kingdom of Israel around 627 BCE, during the reign of King Josiah, and remained active for roughly 40 years through the reigns of several subsequent kings. His audience were filled alternately with nostalgia and fear—looking back to a “golden age” under David and Solomon, while facing the rising threat of Babylon He prophesied during one of its most turbulent periods — the decades leading up to and following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE when he foretold the destruction of the Temple. Jeremiah faced intense opposition—he was beaten, imprisoned, thrown into a cistern, and accused of treason. This personal anguish is reflected in his writings, earning him the nickname "the weeping prophet." Psalm 69:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35  Psalm 69's portrayal of David, as a servant of God who is ...

2026-06-14 Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time  Exodus 19:2-6a Exodus 19:2 marks an important return for Moses. God first spoke to Moses from the burning bush on this very mountain (Sinai also known as Horeb) - now it comes full circle. In Exodus 3:12, God promises Moses, “I will be with you. And this is the sign for you that I Myself have sent you. When you bring the people out from Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” Upon returning to this mountain, Moses seeks God’s guidance, and God gives him a message for the Israelites. God did not free the Israelites from bondage so they can do whatever they want; instead God reminds the Israelites that they are to be God’s people and participate in the covenant made with Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Living according to God’s teaching will make the Israelites God’s covenant people when they will become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” God then instructs in great detail the Israelites to build the Tabernacle and sacrifices to ...

2026-06-07 Solemnity of Corpus Christi aka  Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ    Opening Prayer In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our faith sharing of this most blessed sacrament of your Body and Blood help us to experience the salvation you won for us and the peace of the kingdom where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.   Amen.  Practice of Faith from last week Think about how God loved us and how that should inform our love for God and one another Reflect on places and moments in your life when God's love has been especially clear to you Consider times when someone demonstrated slowness to anger or abounding love or the kind of encouraging care to which paul exhorts the Corinthians. How did those experiences make you feel? What can you imitate from them? ...

 2026-05-31 The Most Holy Trinity Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9  Verse 4: Moses chisels out two stone tablets to replace the ones he shattered and climbs Mount Sinai as commanded. Verse 5: The Lord descends in a cloud and proclaims His name. Verses 6-7 provides one of the most foundational declarations of God’s character in the Old Testament. God introduces Himself as merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. It serves as a beautiful pivot from judgment to restoration. Verse 8: Overcome by this revelation, Moses quickly bows to the ground and worships Daniel 3:52-56  Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, commands everyone to worship his statue but Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who are exiled to Babylon and serve in the court not only refuse but boldly sing praises to Yahweh. They are cast in to the furnace, where King Nebuchadnezzar orders a sevenfold increase in the temperature of the furnace but Yahweh protects the three men This is part of the Prayer of Az...

 2026-05-24 Pentecost Sunday Opening prayer from the Roman Missal Collect for Pentecost     Let us pray.     O God, who by the mystery of today's great feast     sanctify your whole Church in every people and nation,     pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit     across the face of the earth     and, with the divine grace that was at work     when the Gospel was first proclaimed,     fill now once more the hearts of believers.       Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,     who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,     God, for ever and ever.       Amen. Discuss practice of faith from last week - Spend time in quiet prayer asking Jesus to open your eyes of your heart to his perspective - Spend time thanking God for all things you know exist but cannot see Acts 2:1-11 The Church celebrates Pentecost, the great fe...

 2026-05-17 Ascension of Our Lord    Acts 1:1-11 by St Luke Acts opens with a prologue (verses 1–5), which parallels the Gospel’s prologue (Luke 1:1–4), by addressing an otherwise unknown person, Theophilus (either Luke’s benefactor or a shorthand term for any believer, since the name means “lover of God”).  Jesus orders the disciples to stay in Jerusalem “to wait for the promise of the Father,” which is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit they will experience 10 days later, on the day of Pentecost.  “This power will have a purpose, to make these ordinary people into Jesus’ witnesses first to the Samaritans, their kinfolk who have a deep inter-generational hatred for each other, then to the Gentile across the Roman empire and finally to the ends of the Earth. The preaching of the Gospel will include impure spirits being cast out of many, and many who were paralysed or lame were healed by Philip in Samaria (Acts 8:6-7), rabid persecutors like Saul become blind to g...

2026-05-10  Sixth Sunday of Easter   Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 Samaria was a region of contested Jewish identity - faithful descendants of the northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who worshiped at Mount Gerizim instead of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Samaritans were worshippers of the same God Yahweh but with different beliefs from other Jews, with each claiming to uphold the identity of Abraham.  Philip, one of the seven presbyters, takes the Gospel to Samaria and baptises them by the water but it is only after Peter, one of the Apostles, lays hands on them does God bless them with the gift of the Spirit - confirming that the Samaritans as a whole are now part of the Church. With this act the old divisions that kept Samaritans and Jews at odds would be undone in the family of God united in Jesus. The same baptism, the same Spirit, would mark them all as beloved children. Even today the Bishop, direct descendants of the Apostles, in most cases is the one ...

 2026-05-03 Fifth Sunday of Easter   Acts 6:1—7 Acts chapters 1 through 5 describe matters of the Holy Temple, whereas chapter 6 talks about the early Jewish converts. Jerusalem was a vibrant city with Jews from every nation under the sun. The native Aramaic-speaking Jews were probably the majority and the diaspora who had migrated from outside Judea and Samaria, referred to as Hellenistic Jews who spoke Greek, were a minority. There was a dispute involving the equal distribution of responsibility and honour between widows  of the local “Hebrew” and the immigrant “Hellenists.” The Apostles ask the community to select seven immigrant Hellenist men to serve at table, while they themselves focused on spreading the Gospel.  This passage therefore marks the unofficlal beginning of deaconship.  All seven have Greek, not Hebrew, names: Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and one, Nicolaus from Antioch, who was a convert, a former polytheist who conver...

 2026-04-26 Fourth Sunday of Easter   Opening prayer Today Thursday April 23rd 2026 is the feast day of Martyrs St George and  St. Adalbert of Prague St. George, Martyr (d. 303 AD)was a Roman soldier of Greek origin and a member of the Praetorian Guard for Emperor Diocletian. He was executed for refusing to recant his Christian faith during the Diocletianic Persecution in 303 AD. He is the patron saint of England and is frequently depicted on horseback slaying a dragon with a sword. This is widely viewed as an allegory for the triumph of the Christian faith over evil (represented by the dragon) and the rescue of the Church (the princess). Let us being with a prayer to St George: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. St. George, Heroic soldier and defender of the Faith, you dared to criticize the tyrannical Emperor Diocletian and were willing to endure torture and death rather than deny God. Help us to be as brave as you in the defence of w...