Saint George, 23rd April 2020 St George is a problematic saint for us on several counts, partly because of the lack of historical detail as to the original St George, and partly because of the legends which have since become attached, not least that of the slaying of the dragon. …
Low Sunday, 19th April 2020 John’s gospel, too, struggles with its ending. There is always more to say. Today’s passage seems to have been its original ending culminating, as it does, with Thomas’s recognition of Jesus as ‘Lord and God’ – a deliberate echo of the beginning of the gospel …
Easter Saturday, 18th April 2020 This is the beginning of the longer ending to Mark’s gospel, often seen as an addition to its true ending to ameliorate it in some way. In the shorter ending, the women run away from the tomb ‘frightened out of their wits’, in one translation, …
Easter Friday, 17th April 2020 Allowing for this gospel story, perhaps, to be from a separate tradition to other post-resurrectional stories of Jesus, could it not also be seen as a call to the wandering disciples to return once more to Jerusalem and begin their lives of witness from Jerusalem …
Easter Friday, 17th April 2020 Allowing for this gospel story, perhaps, to be from a separate tradition to other post-resurrectional stories of Jesus, could it not also be seen as a call to the wandering disciples to return once more to Jerusalem and begin their lives of witness from Jerusalem …
Easter Thursday, 16th April 2020 When we celebrate Easter, we are really standing in the middle of a second ‘Big Bang’, a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and as intense as the very beginning of the universe. What a recent writer wonderfully calls ‘the fire in the equations’ …
Easter Thursday, 16th April 2020 When we celebrate Easter, we are really standing in the middle of a second ‘Big Bang’, a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and as intense as the very beginning of the universe. What a recent writer wonderfully calls ‘the fire in the equations’ …
Easter Wednesday, 15th April 2020 We are gathering the fell tomorrow. James Reebanks: The Shepherd’s Life p.8 Words of the ‘elder statesman’ of the fell shepherds in one part of the Lake District as the day comes for bringing down the Herdwick or Swaledale sheep from their winter pasture. This …
Easter Tuesday, 14th April 2020 By her tears and her waiting, Mary expresses her true desire. And Jesus responds. This is where we touch on our own true desire. What are we here for? Whom do we seek? And the answer lies in some very primal emotions which years of …
Easter Monday, 13th April 2020 There is a strong blame game going on at the moment as one way of coping with the present epidemic trauma in all its various guises – more immediate for some and less for others – and blame in all its various guises – some …
