Advent Sunday 4C, 19th December 2021 There’s a rumour going around that all Brother John is interested in is bird-watching – now there’s some truth in this which could get me into trouble with my ecclesiastical superiors especially as, in the seventh chapter of the Rule of St Benedict, it …
Advent Sunday 3C, 12th December 2021 When Hitler was playing cat and mouse with the Christians of the Third Reich in the 1930s he had great success at first partly because he knew exactly how to play on their fears and hopes and divided loyalties and partly because Christianity itself …
The Immaculate Conception, 8th December 2021 Who has our best interests at heart? Who to trust? One could see the Genesis story in this light. Adam and Eve are faced with this fundamental choice of who it is as human beings we should be listening to. Who it is we …
Advent Sunday 2C, 5th December 2021 We were privileged last night to have a three year old and a five year old and a hundred year old all together in the same room – you can imagine how noisy that was, especially from the hundred year old, with all three …
Saint Andrew, 30th November 2021 We need a fisherman to comment on a text like this but one can imagine that part of the fascination and joy of fishing is that one doesn’t quite know what one is going to catch or quite where the fish are. But this is …
Advent Sunday 1C, 28th November 2021 Dante has a special place in hell for the deceitful or intellectually dishonest – though he seems to have a special place in hell for everyone – and among these was, and perhaps is, Guido da Montefeltro who was asked by Pope Boniface VIII …
Advent Sunday 4B, 20th December 2020 We are forever attempting to tabernacle God for ourselves; finding a place for God which we can clearly identify and then control, but God is not of this nature at all. Indeed, the very word ‘God’ is a failed attempt at pinning something down …
Advent Sunday 3B, 13th December Now, it would be anachronistic to say that John the Baptist was in the wilderness of Judea in order to save it: no, he’s there in order to call the people from the towns and villages of Judea, especially Jerusalem, in order to save them …
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady We may think we are seeking God but it is really God who is seeking us. We are the ones in hiding and God who asks ‘Where are you?’ but no one, of course, can hide from God. It’s like the child …
Second Sunday in Advent, 6th December 2020 Time is Short and the Water Rises: the title of a book, I think, about the building of the Aswan Dam and the threat it posed to many wild creatures. It was an account of the rescue operation to save the elephants and …
