The Feast of John Henry Newman

9 Oct 202023 Oct 2020

Sophie Scholl might not be a familiar name to many. She is, however, a legend in Germany. About 200 schools are named after her and was voted ‘woman of the…

27th Sunday – “Falling asleep in the Father’s arms”

4 Oct 202016 Oct 2020

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, by Valentin de Boulogne. Phil 4:6-9 Philippians is among the last letters written by Paul. We know that he was in captivity, though it is…

26th Sunday -Phronesis and the Drama of Suffering

27 Sep 202010 Oct 2020

The Apostle Paul by Rembrandt Phil 2:1-11 Philippi was a Roman Colony. A colony of Rome was an extension of Rome and it’s rule. These weren’t colonies in the sense we…

25th Sunday – Why be envious because I’m generous?

19 Sep 20205 Oct 2020

Workers in the Vineyard, Rembrandt Isaiah 55:6-9, Matthew 20:1-16 The parables of Jesus are masterful constructions, deceptively simple in their appearance. Very often they are seen as similes, helping one…

24th Sunday – How not to Forgive

12 Sep 20204 Oct 2020

Trinity with the Saints, Boticelli Matthew 18:21-35 “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times”. In this Sunday’s gospel we come to one of the key pillars, maybe the key pillar of Christian life.…

23rd Sunday – To Judge or Not to Judge?

6 Sep 202026 Sep 2020

Matt 18:15-20 Fra Angelico, Sermon on the Mount Adele, the singer, has been all over the News and social media recently. She seems to have become the latest, but for…

22nd Sunday – Stumbling Stone

30 Aug 202019 Sep 2020

Felix Joseph Barrias, The Temptation of Christ Matt 16:21-27, Romans 12:1-2 “It so happened that I [once wrote] a bestseller; this was a pure accident, due to inattention and naiveté and I would take…

21st Sunday – Rock of Salvation

23 Aug 202012 Sep 2020

Matthew 16:13-20 Christ giving the Keys of Heaven, Rubens The most important rock in all of Judaism was the foundation stone of the Temple. The Jews spoke of this as…

Assumption of Mary – How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

16 Aug 20204 Sep 2020

Revelation 11:19-12:10, Luke 1:39-56 Assumption of the Virgin by Corregio, Fresco 1939. Hardly twenty years had passed from what had been thought of as the ‘war to end all wars’.…

19th Sunday- Elijah and Lessons in the Spiritual Life

9 Aug 202030 Aug 2020

1 Kings 19:9-13 If you’ve trained for a marathon or even otherwise, you might be familiar with the phrase ‘hitting the wall’. It’s the point where the body of the…

18th Sunday – Two Kingdoms, Two Meals

2 Aug 202023 Aug 2020

Feeding the multitude, by Ambrosius Francken Isaiah 55:1-3, Matthew 14:13-21 We have before us this familiar scene from the gospel, commonly called the ‘Feeding of the five thousand’. It is…

17th Sunday-Stumbling onto your Treasure

25 Jul 202016 Aug 2020

Matthew 13:44-52, Romans 8:28-30 St Josephine Bakhita, portrait Josephine Bakhita was born in 1869 in Dafur, Sudan, with three brothers and three sisters. She was loved by her family and…

17th Sunday – The Treasure and Pearl

25 Jul 20209 Aug 2020

These two parables sound very similar to begin with. Finding a treasure, finding a pearl, rejoicing and selling everything to buy it. But did you notice? – they’re not identical,…

16th Sunday – Awake to God’s Life

19 Jul 20202 Aug 2020

Matthew 13:24-43, Romans 8:26-27 The Sower, Vincent van Gogh We are presented with three parables in our gospel today. I want to reflect only on the first of the parables,…

15th Sunday (Part 2) – Listening to the Sower with St Benedict

12 Jul 202012 Aug 2020

St Benedict, by Fra Angelico Isaiah 55:10-11, Matthew 13:1-23 There are few people, to whom a greater debt is owed by Western civilisation collectively than St Benedict, whose feast we…