1st Week Advent – What is your True North?

26 Nov 202227 Nov 2022

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash Isaiah 2:1-5 We come to the season of Advent which begins a new year in the Church. It always amazes me how much optimism people have as…

Epiphany – The Risk of Faith

5 Jan 202116 Jan 2021

Matthew 2:1-12 The feast of Epiphany. We meet the Magi, these well-loved characters in every crib. Today, they are contrasted with another character, Herod. Between them, they represent the best…

Christ the King – The Sheep and the Goats

20 Nov 202013 Dec 2020

The Last Judgment, Michelangelo Matthew 25:31-46 If you’ve been to the Sistine Chapel, you can’t fail to be impressed by the full length mural serving as the backdrop to the…

33rd Sunday – Fear, Valour and the Joy of the Lord

15 Nov 202012 Dec 2020

The Stretcher, Eleuterio Pagliano. Prov 31:10-31, Matt 25:14-30 We come to the final parable in Matthew’s gospel. It leads to the awesome scene of the Final Judgement, which also sets…

32nd Sunday – The Burning Love of the Bride

8 Nov 202028 Nov 2020

Wise and Foolish Virgins, William Blake Matt 25:1-13 Weddings, then, like now, were elaborate affairs. They probably lasted a whole week. In first century Jewish weddings, the man would first…

Carlo Acutis and The Feast of All Saints

31 Oct 202020 Nov 2020

Fra Angelico, The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs  Matt 5:1-12 “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” ― Léon Bloy I grew up being quite perplexed…

30th Sunday – Obedience, Compassion, Humility

23 Oct 202016 Nov 2020

Moses with the Commandments, Rembrandt Matt 22:34-40 We meet the Pharisees again this week, as they come together after their initial failed attempt to trap Jesus with the coin incident.…

29th Sunday – Taxes,Caesar and God

18 Oct 20208 Nov 2020

The Tribute Money, Thomas Sully Matt 22:15-21 In today’s gospel, we have an unholy alliance, of the Pharisees and the Herodians who come together against Jesus. The question they pose,…

28th Sunday – The Process of Judgement

11 Oct 202031 Oct 2020

Parable of the Wedding Banquet, from paintingvalley.com Isaiah 25:6-10, Matt 22:1-14 We reach the last part of Matthew’s gospel as Jesus enters Jerusalem. (If you’re wondering whether you missed something,…

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…

27th Sunday -Tending the Vineyard

4 Oct 20205 Oct 2020

Matt 21:33-43 So many of our problems come from thinking that our life belongs to us. Take our lack of patience, for example, when we say that someone is “wasting…

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 – Imaculee Ilibagiza and a Lesson in Forgiveness

12 Sep 20201 Dec 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 202011 Aug 2022

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…

15th Sunday (part 1) – To See and not Perceive

11 Jul 202025 Jul 2020

Isaiah by Michael Angelo, Sistine Chapel Isaiah 55:10-11, Matthew 13:1-23 A friend of mine always went to watch some of the most mind-twisting and complex, even disconcerting plots that came…