Easter Monday, traditionally a Bank holiday in the UK and Ireland, is in some places a holy day of obligation (Poland, I think). We see the whole of Easter week, or the Easter octave, as a continuation of Easter day, with some of the same psalms and hymns in the
Continue readingI promised to write something about last night’s celebration of the Easter Vigil – this picture shows the Holy Father in an almost deserted St Peter’s Basilica, holding his candle and following the Paschal Candle. Many of you participated remotely in the ceremonies led in our church by Fr Steve
Continue readingYou will be able to join us online for Masses, live at 9.30am and 5.30pm, and available to watch at a later time under “Recordings”; our Webcam is HERE. You may also want to connect to the services at the Vatican, which are available via the LIVE link below:
Continue readingThis is Holy Saturday (not ‘Easter Saturday’ which is actually in a week’s time). I would urge you, if you haven’t already heard it, to listen to the Catholic commentator and former Tablet editor Catherine Pepinster who spoke on ‘Thought for the Day this morning on Radio 4 (it won’t
Continue readingSome of us, in Holy Week, have a tendency to think that the special acts of worship which are so important to us, and so characteristic of this time, in some ways don’t need much explanation: they can be allowed to speak for themselves. The Passion narratives which we hear
Continue readingFor most of us, unless we go to Mass regularly, we seldom experience the daily prayer of the Church, known as the ‘Daily Office’ or ‘Divine Office’ or ‘Breviary’. This has to be said every day by priests and deacons and most Religious, but laypeople are encouraged to say it
Continue readingThe Church begins this evening what we call the ‘Triduum Sacrum’, the ‘sacred three days’ – possibly the strangest marking of this very special time in the history of the Church. In much of the world public worship has been suspended; in Catholic churches the customary acts of worship will
Continue readingThis is a Greek Orthodox icon of ‘Jesus Christ the High Priest’. If you joined our worship this morning live-streamed from our church you would have noticed that it was not a Mass, but the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer – this is because today, Maundy (or Holy) Thursday,
Continue readingToday is Spy Wednesday – and ordinary morning Masses stop after today until Sunday; we’re reaching the most intense and sacred time of the year. Like yesterday our focus is on Judas, hence the traditional name for today, and this time we look at him through the lens of Matthew’s gospel
Continue readingFor those who don’t use Facebook, please see below Tuesday’s reflections by Fr Ashley… Today and tomorrow at Mass the gospel readings focus not only on Our Lord but on the tragic and key figure of Judas Iscariot – today in the account of him dipping his bread in the
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