(a sermon on Mark 8.31-38) Have you ever overheard the tail of a conversation and wished you’d heard it all? Or been the person speaking, and realised that what you just said to one person is something that everyone needed to hear? So you raise your voice, gather everyone together, and make the point again […]
Poetry (and poets) can often be like marmite – love ‘em or hate ‘em. But poetry (and indeed words) can have a profound effect. And it can lead from one place to another like stepping stones in a stream. Words can be powerful and transformative and, when well crafted, are life-giving. This Saturday is the […]
Caring for elderly parents and relatives is a burden that is really hard to speak about, not least because of our sense of love and duty to them. A few days ago I was chatting to an old friend. I asked her to share her thoughts on this – she writes with an honesty of […]
Usually Lent is taken as a time of fasting and penitence, a time to give up something for a short while. Not so that we can feel all virtuous but rather as a symbol and route to seeing the spiritual truth and reality behind all our material goods. It’s also about being in solidarity with […]
This Sunday, 14th February, is St Valentine’s Day, a date on which it has become traditional to send an often anonymous card to one’s sweetheart. St Valentine’s Day has been described as one of the year’s big gifting days, along with Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, when people express love in the giving of flowers, […]
In the beginning was the Word… Thus begins many a sermon at Midnight Mass! In his famous prologue to his gospel, St John describes Christ as the Word of God which existed before all else came into being. And that this Word of God was the means and vehicle through which all that exists came […]
Foundations aren’t always pretty, but without them anything that is built is unlikely to last the test of time and “weather” – that is to say, events and circumstances which will put pressure upon it. And this is true both literally and metaphorically. And the taller a building is, the more important foundations become. Our […]