Today is the feast day of St Oliver Plunkett. This is a photo of the best known image of the saint in this diocese, on the outside wall of St Francis Xavier College in Balham. He was the last priest to be martyred in penal times in this country, in
Continue readingToday the Church keeps the feast day of the first martyrs of the Church to lose their lives after St Peter and St Paul. A picture can be found at https://www.bing.com/images/search…. We continue today to pray for the Holy Father and for those who administer the diocese of Rome at this
Continue readingIn our Old Testament readings at weekday Mass we have been hearing about the decline of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, together with the prophetic ministry of Elijah: this reached its climax in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC. We now explore more
Continue readingToday, transferred from tomorrow (in this country) we keep the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. They are venerated on the same day because they are thought to have been martyred in the persecution of Christians under the Emperor Nero, sparked by a big fire in Rome, in the late
Continue readingToday is the feast of St Cyril of Alexandria. When we say the ‘Hail Mary’ we conclude with the words ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death’. St Cyril is part of the reason why we call Our Lady ‘Mother
Continue readingThis picture (and I don’t know its origin) is labelled ‘The fear of Zedekiah’. Presumably the king, not long installed as a puppet by the Babylonian potentate Nebuchadnezzar, is frightened because he’s about to have his eyes gouged out, in today’s first reading at Mass (2 Kings 25:1-12), the second
Continue readingToday’s first reading at Mass (2 Kings 24:8-17) describes briefly one of the key climactic points of the history of the Jewish people – the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (called Nabucadonosor in older Catholic Bibles) in the year 597 BC and the exile into Babylon initially
Continue readingThe feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist is historically and culturally very important in this country because it’s a ‘Quarter day’, one of the signposts in the year when rents used to be due (like Lady Day), and it more or less coincides too with Midsummer Day,
Continue readingSt Etheldreda, or Aethelthryth (the name is also the original of the name Audrey) was one of the great female saints of Anglo Saxon England. If you’ve ever watched (as I have recently) the Netflix series ‘The Last Kingdom’ (which hopefully will have at least one more series) you see
Continue readingToday is a very special feast day in this country – Saints John Fisher and Thomas More – they weren’t martyred on the same day in 1535 – Fisher was killed on this day and More in early July. They symbolise jointly good and holy leadership of the Church (Fisher
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