The Sacred Heart of Jesus, 11th June 2021 It was a wonderful treeFull of childrenSo they cut it down This is Jesus: immensely attractive to children, to his people, to all created in God’s image. I have in mind two further images: one of a child yesterday, gazing in wonder …
Corpus Christi, 3rd June 2021 We are part of a body which is on the move. And, to quote Russell Hulsey, a contributor to a book celebrating Thomas Merton’s 100th anniversary, Life has never been, nor will it ever be about ‘figuring it all out’ it is more concisely, about …
Trinity Sunday, 30th May 2021 We live in a rural community but the ‘newcomers’ among us are not really part of it. It’s a world and mentality which has carried on for generations, working the land and looking at the land quite differently from us. We could be and, indeed, …
Pentecost Sunday, 23rd May 2021 At the risk of importing an analogy which has no place here but is simply an enthusiasm of mine, I’d like to say a little more about that marvellous area of scrub a few miles to the north of us which is heaving with birds, …
The Ascension of the Lord, 13th May 2021 There’s a delightful scene in Dickens’s novel Bleak House where an ex-soldier, Mr Bagnet, is treating his wife to a birthday meal prepared entirely by himself and his two daughters. It’s the same meal every year: two very scrawny chickens passed off …
The Easter Vigil, 4th April 2021 It was night. And Judas leaves. Night forever associated with spiritual darkness, with sin. And so associated with all times of darkness, moral, physical, alone or with others. This past year we’ve shared a communal darkness with most, if not all, our sisters and …
The Annunciation of the Lord, 25th March 2021. As morning breaks earlier so the blackbird’s song coincides with ‘getting-out-of-bed’ time. What better alarm clock could you want? But still there’s a certain resistance in me to getting up even when the real alarm goes off. I’ve slept very well because …
Solemnity of Saint Joseph, 19th March 2021 The theme or concept of faith has been dogging our footsteps throughout Lent. It was there most obviously last night in the reading from chapter 11 of the letter to the Hebrews, and is there again in the readings of today’s eucharist, all …
Saint Frances of Rome, 9th March 2021 Picking up from the words of the Sufi mystic Rabia of Basra quoted on Sunday, that we’re not here to act out of fear of hell or love of heaven but for love of God. We can see this essential trust in God’s …
Solemnity of Saint Scholastica, 10th February, 2021 The language, in our readings today and those of last night, seems very primal – part of that side of us which we try to keep very much under control: the language of feelings, employed here to describe God’s relationship to us and …
