Pentecost, 31st May, 2020 Perhaps the deepest irony, or mystery, of our faith is that when it is fulfilled God disappears from sight. The danger then becomes that we fill this ‘space’ with the imagery of faith rather than the fact of it, with the things of God, rather than …
St Augustine of Canterbury, 27th May 2020 We live in an age of anxiety, slowly emerging into a ‘foreign’ land; a land we know not yet how to develop and in which to, once again, find security. Great hopes are being voiced as to this being an age of opportunity; …
Eastertide Sunday 7A, 24th May 2020 It is as if, here, God is standing outside himself. The Son gives notice of his intention to return to the Father as if the Father would not know this, or he himself could have intended otherwise. And in this ‘dialogue’ we see the …
Ascension Day, 21st May 2020 Can we see Christ’s life as a commentary on our own? A recent commentator on the seismic shift which Covid 19 has had on our society highlights the inadequacy of the present capitalist way of doing things and the realisation that the huge kindnesses and …
Eastertide Sunday 6A, 17th May 2020 In a recent biopic of Winston Churchill at his ‘Darkest Hour’ when Great Britain faces certain defeat on the continent and Parliament seems minded to make peace with Hitler, the tide is turned, not by military might but by words- his famous speech invoking …
Saint Matthias, 14th May 2020 Matthias comes late to the leadership and is both the choice of the disciples and the choice of God, if one accepts choosing by lot as a way of allowing God to have a say. This subtle, or not so subtle, interplay of man proposing …
Eastertide Sunday 5A, 10th May 2020 And so the Church gradually organises itself, or rather, allows itself to be organised by Christ. At first directly, as here with Thomas and Philip, and later more indirectly through the Spirit, as with the choosing of ‘deacons’ to serve the Greek-speaking widows. And …
The English Martyrs, 4th May 2020 Softly this Sunday morningof sunlight and daffodilsThe thought comes to meThat with malign intent somewhereAt this particular momentPrising the sealed edges of integrityMan tortures man. I should like to pretend otherwiseBury my head in the sandof my Sunday complacency(the daffodils sing in my heart)Yet …
Eastertide Sunday 4A, 3rd May 2020 We’ve recently acquired a clock radio which, when set right, has faithfully been waking me up at 5.35 am and also faithfully taking me on a journey around the British Coast, both its inshore and offshore waters, followed by ‘Thought for the Day’, ‘Farming …
Saint Catherine of Siena, 29th April 2020 Catherine of Siena lived at a very turbulent time in a very turbulent setting among people threatened not only with the plague but with the constant warfare between the various Italian city states and with a Church divided between Avignon and Rome. Astutely, …
