The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 10th January 2021 There is a tide in the affairs of men,which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeis bound in shallows and in miseries. Some very well known words from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, here …
The Epiphany of the Lord, 6th January 2021 Death stalks the land and people are afraid. Can we learn anything from the Christmas story to abate this fear or at least address it? Today, we celebrate the coming of the Magi : three wise men to greet the newly born …
Second Sunday after Christmas, 3rd January 2021 These are tremendous texts: they situate our local ‘coming together’ here in Turvey in a far wider setting – indeed, in the largest setting possible: the beginning and end of all meaning: Through him all things came to be,not one thing had its …
Mary Mother of God, 1st January 2021 It is often said that truth is the first casualty of war. Well, if so, we seem to have been at war for a very long time, if not forever. It’s certainly harder at the moment to discern the true word, with so …
Saint Thomas Becket, 29th December 2020 There is something of the ‘gamekeeper turned poacher’ about Thomas’ dispute with King Henry ll and a world of political and ecclesiastical intrigue which I cannot claim to really understand but which, from our present rural existence here at Turvey, seems distinctly unedifying – …
Feast of the Holy Family, 27th December 2020 Families and How to Survive Them: it’s becoming almost politically incorrect to defend the institution of the family as a ‘good’ in itself, even as ‘best practice’, an ideal we should still honour and respect, and aim for. And I wonder if …
Saint Stephen, 26th December 2020 And so Stephen dies at the hands of fellow Jews and Saul, later Paul, entirely approves of the killing. What were they afraid of? Stalin is infamous now for the show trials of those deemed opponents to his particular brand of Communism: elaborately staged performances …
Christmas Day 2020 The people that walked in darknesshas seen a great light:on those who live in a land of deep shadowa light has shone. We looked to the skies for a conjunction of planets but rain came instead.Br Herbert remarked on Wednesday that he’d never seen the day so …
The Baptism of the Lord, 12th January 2020 To become a good craftsman you must meet and love your material. There has to be this epiphany. For me, it is stone. For other people it will be wood, clay, metals, leather, glass…Each of these will have a particular resonance . …
The Epiphany of the Lord, 6th January 2020 We come to Church to find God but, as we heard yesterday, and hear again today, God can be found anywhere and everywhere, in the least of people as well as the greatest, in the least of places as well as the …
