The feeding of the five thousand

The gospel readings from John’s gospel in the Easter season are designed to show us how the risen Christ was experienced among early Christians in their reception of accounts of the life of Jesus which takes form in the fourth Gospel. We look at familiar events sometimes through the new

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St George’s Day

Today is the Solemnity of St George, Patron Saint and Protector of England. One good thing about the current crisis is that we’re spared some of the tabloid flag-waving which has become popular today, divorced from the Christian importance of this feast day and of this saint. The Catholic Church

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Today’s Reflections

  Today’s first reading from Acts (5:17-26) describes the miraculous prison escape by Peter and John. Note that the author doesn’t concentrate on the miracle itself – rather, all the emphasis is on what the apostles are expected to do in response to be free, that is, go back to

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Saint Anselm of Canterbury

The first proper saint’s day for some weeks is the feast day of one of the great saints and teachers of early medieval England and Europe – Anselm of Canterbury (1033 -1109). Apart from anything else he shows the truly pan-European character of Christian life in this period: he was

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Monday Reflections

In Easter week we covered at daily Mass all the appearances of the risen Christ in the gospels. For the rest of the season of Easter, for the next six weeks or so, our gospel readings are all from John’s gospel. This is because John was formed over a number

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Second Sunday of Easter

The image in the post I put up last night, as we began to celebrate this Sunday, was of doubting Thomas by Caravaggio; the image here is described as by ‘Martin Schongauer and workshop’. In Beckenham this Sunday, which as I noted earlier has several names, it is a beautiful

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Easter Saturday

Our first reading today from Acts (4:13-21) continues yesterday’s account of the apostles Peter and John before the council of priests and elders known as the Sanhedrin. We’re told that the priests look down on them because ‘they were uneducated laymen’: this is a warning to all of us not

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Easter Friday

I have only been once to the Holy Land, in 1986 with my late mother, when I was an Anglican transitional deacon. One of the most moving places I remember is the Church of Peter’s Primacy in the town of Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee, shown here. A big

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Easter Thursday

Today’s gospel reading for Easter Thursday is the continuation of yesterday’s account of Jesus meeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 35-48). As in other appearances there is a lot of emphasis on the physicality of the resurrection; the writer is going out of his way to

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