4th August 2019

The Parish Churches of

St Michael & St Wulfad, Stone, with

St Saviour Aston by Stone

            What’s important in your life? And what is of lasting value? I remember a preacher asking the question as to what we would do if we suddenly and unexpectedly gained a large sum of money? I was then shocked at myself, when the preacher followed with the words “of course, most of us would want to make sure that our children were well looked after first”. I had been thinking of all the things I could enjoy and do! A good insight into the state of my innermost feelings for me.

            This week’s parable has a man coming to Jesus and asking him to adjudicate over property between him and his brother. That wasn’t unusual in itself; where religious law is mixed with the law of the land, it was not unusual for a Rabbi to be asked to judge in such cases. But Jesus sees through the question and starts warning against every kind of greed, telling the story of the rich man who stores up goods is this world, but has no thought of the things that really matter in the eyes of our heavenly Father.

            So what does really matter to you? What fills your waking and sleeping thoughts? Jesus warns us that it is all too easy to become obsessed and worried about those things which will simply fade away at the end of our lives. “You can’t take it with you” was the old adage – but there are an awful lot of those things, and money is only one of them

            We are asked by Jesus to concentrate instead on the things of eternity. Jesus calls them “treasure in Heaven” – and they are certainly the things that we CAN take with us

Ian Cardinal

Hymns for today

                        Aston                          Stone  

            55                                56

            Ps84                            520

                        316                              158

520                              339/342

427                              285

Please pray for the sick in the benefice:

Mary Townsend, Noelle Emery,  Dianne Harvey, Elsie Richardson, Roy & Barbara Ball, Vera Tomkinson, Neil & Pat Wynne, Gary Kelsall,

Emily Franks, John Richardson, Annette McMullen, Peter Bowler,   

Howard Boswell, Catherine Ritchie, Sarah Taylor, Graham Baker,

Jackie Finnemore,  James Astle, Miles Brain, Joan Lazonby,  John & Ann Shuttleworth,  Evelyn Cotterill, Margaret Wright, Gren Deakin, Margaret Bott

And for the departed:

Michael Tranmer, Doreen Pearson

Remembering their families and friends at this time

This week:

Tuesday 6^th NO DROP INN CAFÉ

Thursday 8^th 10.30am Holy Communion – St M&W

            2pm Deanery Standing Committee - Rectory

LADIES OUTINGBook your places for Afternoon Tea at Aston Marina on Wednesday 18^th September at 3.30pm. See Steph (from 21^st July) – cost £16.

HEALING AND MEDITATION SERVICEThis Sunday (4^th August) at 4pm. All welcome for a time of calm reflection and music