My Family Prayer Book

 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...

2026-04-12 Divine Mercy Sunday  Acts 2:42-47 Acts 2:42-47 summarises the daily life of the earliest Christian community in Jerusalem; marked by redistribution of resources. “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need,” - the communal living called 'Koinōnia' meant the community as a whole provided food for the hungry, resources for the impoverished, and burial assistance for the marginalised. Luke's Gospel and Acts both portray the material excess of the wealthy as a hindrance to spiritual access to the community of Christ. The Rich Man (often called "Dives") awakens in an afterlife of a fiery hellscape because of his neglect of the poor man Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). We can also see this with Zacchaeus, who gained his wealth from being Rome’s chief collector of the financial penalty that Judeans had to pay for being conquered (Luke 19:1–10). Only after he says that he will pay back what he extorted does Jesus tell him that salvation has come ...

 2026-04-05 Easter Vigil (Year B)   Acts 10:34-43 Cornelius was a centurion of roughly 600 volunteer Italian citizens. Stationed in Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judea, he held a position of significant authority and respect. In these verses, the apostle Peter delivers a compelling speech to God-fearer Cornelius and his household, concisely outlining the Christian message about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God-fearer" (phoboumenos ton Theon). This was a specific term for Gentiles who:     Worshipped the God of Israel.     Attended synagogue services.     Followed Jewish moral ethics.     However, they had not undergone circumcision or fully converted to Judaism. The interaction of Cornelius and Peter, sometimes refered to the Gentile Pentecost, involves a "double vision" designed to overcome the deep-seated cultural and religious barriers between Jews and Gentiles.     Cornelius’s Vision: An angel appeared to hi...

 2026-03-29 Palm Sunday   Opening Prayer In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. O God of eternal glory, you anointed Jesus, your servant, to bear our sins, to encourage the weary, to raise up and restore the fallen. Keep before our eyes the splendour of the paschal mystery of Christ, and, by our sharing in the passion and resurrection, seal our lives with the victorious sign of his obedience and exaltation. We ask this through Christ, our liberator from sin, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, holy and mighty God for ever and ever. Amen   Action item from last week's Practice of Faith - Practice Lectio Divina and imagine Jesus saying, "Lazarus, come out' Imagine the Lord saying your name and asking you to come out of your tomb of disbelief.   Matthew 21:1-11 Gospel Passage read at the entrance into the Church during the Procession into the Church with Palms When Jesus and the disciples drew near Jerusalem an...