As you may know one of my brothers is also a priest based in Poole in the diocese of Plymouth where he runs two parishes. A couple of weeks ago he was speaking to the head of his finance committee who was off to visit his family based in Nairobi for a few days.
Chris my brother was telling him to have a safe journey to which the man jokingly replied “Don’t worry Father – It’s a dangerous place but I hope to see you soon”
Read MoreWhere do you go to pray and how do you pray? Do you pray in the mornings? In the evenings? At night? Do you pray alone or with others?
Today we hear that Jesus goes up a mountain to pray. Mount Tabor. And he prays to his Father in heaven probably for the whole night.
He has taken Peter, John and James with him who also came to pray - but who probably fell asleep after an hour or so. They probably didn’t pray the whole night.
Read MoreOn Friday 7th March our first group of pilgrims to visit Our Lady's Shrine were 135 children from St John's, Bath. They had initially climbed the Tor and had waved their coloured ribbons of hope at the summit.
Read MoreYesterday David Baldwin gave us a terrific talk about Pilgrimage. The do’s and don’ts and what to pack in our rucksacks. What to bring and what to leave behind despite temptation.
Today we hear about the temptations of Jesus in his wanderings in the desert. And we hear that Satan tempts Jesus in three quite specific ways.
So why does Satan use these three ways of temptation? It’s because they exactly mirror the three ways in which Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden all those years before when they took fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why was Eve tempted by the fruit originally?
Read MoreToday we mark ourselves with ashes as a sign of our humility in front of God and that we will return to him at some point. We came from him and we will return to him. And this should form how we live our short span of life in this world.
And lent is a time of fasting when we think about maybe giving something up or taking something on that is good. 6 weeks or just over 40 days. 40 having significance of spiritual preparation in the Desert in the scriptures. We allow ourselves to enter the desert a little.
Lent of course is the old English word for spring. Because we have the lengthening of days. And Lent is a time to remind us of our complete dependence on God and not on other things.
Read MoreWhen reading the Gospel this week in relation to someone unfit to complain about the splinter in the others eye because he already has a bigger one in his own eye made me think of the argument we saw between Zelensky and Trump in the news recently. Can one blind man really teach and lead another?
Jesus is speaking to his disciples today in relation to spiritual blindness. He is telling them that we cannot judge or condemn others if we are not first aware of our own sinfulness.
Remember some of the saints – St Teresa of Liseux for example. She continually writes about her own sinfulness because she has a great spiritual awareness of herself. The more clearly you see God in your life the more aware you become of your own sinfulness. The more the light you let in the more you see the blemishes.
Read MoreHow easy is it for us to get angry in this life? To offer curses instead of love? Perhaps a classic example is road rage…
Today Jesus continues to tell us how we should behave towards others. He tells us how we should love.
We know we should love God. And our neighbour. But our enemies? How can we love those who have hurt us in some way or another? Well part of the reason why we find this so difficult is due to how we see love in this day and age. We see it as an emotion and a feeling.
Whereas Jesus want us to see it as an action. He wants it to be a decision that we make rather than simply a feeling that we experience.
Read MoreThe Committee stage of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill has begun, raising serious concerns about its conduct.
The Committee has been ‘stacked’ with a higher number of MPs who support the Bill.
Nearly twice as many witnesses supported assisted suicide than the number who opposed it.
Important voices have been excluded, including the Government’s chief Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisor, the British Geriatrics Society and a number of disability rights groups, senior palliative care doctors and legal experts with relevant expertise. MPs must be aware of the serious issues in the scrutiny of Kim Leadbeater’s Bill. It’s vital they know your concerns and vote against it at Third Reading.
Read MoreIn memory of Ray the beloved town wizard, Merlin of Glastonbury. He is seen here at the annual Glastonbury Pilgrimage in July 2024 waving to Bishop Bosco and the pilgrims as they process through the town.
Read MoreToday we have Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. Slightly different to Matthews in that it is given on a flat area rather than on a mountain and it has four blessings and four woes as opposed to the full eight blessings we get in Matthews gospel.
Jesus tells us that we will be blessed in four ways if we live our lives in a particular way but we will also be cursed if we live out our lives in other ways.
Jesus of course is often described as being a second Moses and so what he says today actually emulates what Moses said to his people all those years ago. We can read it clearly in the book of Deuteronomy.
Read MoreWhat’s the only thing that we can give to God that we didn’t get from him in the first place? The answer is of course - our sinfulness.
Sometimes this is the only thing that Jesus wants us to give to him. We might well try and give him everything else in our lives thinking that’s what he wants. Our gifts, our money or our very lives when we don’t realise that he gave us all these things in the first place.
God wants to redeem us. This means that we have to have a good look at ourselves and take that step of humility and give to God what he really wants from us.
Read MoreWhat’s the main message of today’s feast? That Jesus is the light of the world that we so desperately need.
At the time of Jesus it was the custom that the new born child would be taken 40 days after birth to the temple to be presented and offered for service of the lord. And the Mother would be purified so she could again enter the temple for worship.
The light of the candles represents that presence of Jesus, hence the other name for this celebration Candlemas.
It all began with Moses. The Israelites formed a new covenant with God, using the sacrifice of lambs. They were asked to sacrifice the best of what they had, ‘a lamb without blemish’.
Read MoreWe all have stories of our history and how we have arrived at this point in our lives. But sometimes we ask ourselves: Who am I? Well I am sure we would answer that question differently. Many people often define themselves according to their job. You might say I am:
a doctor
engineer
a computer programmer
But if you define yourself by your job - that’s fine as long as it’s fulfilling or successful. But what happens if you retire, or are made redundant or if you have a mundane job? Other people define themselves by what others say about them.
Read MoreSo why does Jesus start with this particular miracle? Why doesn’t he start his ministry with:
A wonderful healing to show his power
Or a dramatic raising from the dead to show his divinity
Or a powerful exorcism to show his authority over evil?
Because he wants to emphasize his love for us as a divine bridegroom. So he inaugurates his ministry here at a wedding. It’s deeply symbolic.
The story says that Jesus was at a wedding party when his Mother notices that the wine is running out. Mary plays her intercessory role. She notices what help is needed and then asks her son to intervene.
Read MoreClifton Diocese in partnership with ‘Light of Truth’ are offering Essential Training for Catechists. This will include six sessions for the formation of catechists, beginning at 7.30pm on a Thursday evening.
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