For many clergy, June is the month when they remember the anniversary of their ordination, which often took place on or around the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June.This Petertide I will be celebrating 20 years as a priest on 28 June, the Memorial of Saint Irenaeus. 

 

In the Forest and Avon Team we look forward to the ordination of Veronica Batchelor as a priest on 2 July, together with others from across the Diocese of Salisbury. We pray for them all as they prepare, in God’s strength, to take this next step in their ministry. 

 

We pray too for John Holbrook, lately a parish priest and rural dean in this Diocese, who is to be ordained bishop on 2 June to serve in the Diocese of Peterborough, and for Nicholas Holtam, who is to be ordained bishop on 22 July; he will take up his post as the new Bishop of Salisbury in the autumn. 

 

The Feast of Pentecost on 12 June reminds us, however, that the Holy Spirit is poured out on all God’s people, lay and ordained. It prompts us to pray that we may recognise and realise the gifts of God in all the people of God. So we pray: 

 

Almighty and everlasting God, 

by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church 

is governed and sanctified: 

hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people, 

that in their vocation and ministry 

they may serve you in holiness and truth 

to the glory of your name; 

through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 

who is alive and reigns with you, 

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 

one God, now and for ever. 

Amen. 

 

Bill Rogers 

Team Priest, Forest and Avon Team 

Assistant Rural Dean, Alderbury Deanery 

This prayer is from Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (2000), which is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2000