Today is the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, and this week our community celebrates the Festival of St Luke the Evangelist on Tuesday, 18th October, and the lesser festival of St Frideswide, Abbess of Oxford, on Wednesday, 19th October.
We pray for:
•the family circle of the Rev Trevor Kelly, curate in the parishes of Drummaul, Duneane and Ballyscullion, in the Church of Ireland Diocese of Connor who died yesterday evening;.
•everyone affected by the accident in the Mourne Mountains; and
•everyone receiving their next Covid19 booster.
Please send us a message if you would like us to pray for you or for others.
St Luke the Evangelist
Luke was a dear friend of the apostle Paul, and is mentioned by him three times in his Letters. Paul describes him as ‘the belovèd physician’ and, in his second Letter to Timothy, as his only companion in prison. He is believed to be the author of two books of the New Testament, firstly the gospel which stands in his name and also the Acts of the Apostles.
Luke’s narrative of the life of Christ has a pictorial quality and shows the sequential pattern from the nativity through to the death and resurrection. The developed sense of theology that comes over in Paul’s writings is virtually unknown in those of Luke but, as a Gentile, Luke makes clear that the good news of salvation is for all, regardless of sex, social position or nationality. Traditionally, Luke wrote his gospel in Greece and died in Boeotia at the age of eighty-four‘.
St Frideswide, Abbess of Oxford
Born in about the year 680, Frideswide was the daughter of a Mercian king who built and endowed a double monastery of which she became the first abbess. She was buried in her monastery, which became the nucleus of the nascent town of Oxford. Her cult was strengthened by her being formally adopted as the patron of Oxford University in the early fifteenth century. However, in the sixteenth century, Cardinal Wolsey suppressed Frideswide’s monastery to provide revenues for his Cardinal College (now Christ Church), built on the same site. More recently, part of the shrine has been reconstructed from remains discovered in a well at Christ Church, a reminder of the abbess around whose monastery grew the city and university of Oxford.
Follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/CommStMalachy) for the daily readings for Morning and Evening Prayer and for the Readings from the Rule of St Benedict.
Collect of 17th Sunday after Trinity
Almighty and everlasting God: Increase in us your gift of faith that, forsaking what lies behind, we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen.
For the Bereaved
Grant, O Lord, to all who are bereaved, the spirit of faith and courage, that they may have strength to meet the days to come with steadfastness and patience, not sorrowing as those without hope, but in thankful remembrance of your great goodness in past years, and in the sure expectation of a joyful reunion in the heavenly places; and this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Community Prayer
God, you called Malachy to be a re-builder and restorer of the Irish Church: Look upon your Church in this land today, correct what is amiss and supply what is lacking; that we may more and more bring forth fruit to your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Community of St Benedict – Ireland 