Not many deacons have been canonised or occur in the universal calendar of the Church. Ephraem the Syrian, whose feast day is today, was also a major theologian of the late 4th century – a contemporary of major Greek and Latin theologians like Basil and Ambrose, but much less well
Continue readingI have written about Trinity Sunday in our parish newsletter this weekend, available on our website HERE, and I don’t really want to add very much: I will be posting some recent reflections from CARJ which have been published following the recent tragic events in the United States. God bless and
Continue readingSome years ago on this day at Mass in St Edmund’s I commented in my homily that today’s saint reminded us of the Catholic Church’s commitment to European unity. A very faithful worshipper, who has now gone to his rest, was so offended by this remark that he asked to
Continue readingYesterday, and I am sorry I didn’t post a separate entry about the scripture readings, we broadened our coverage in the first readings at weekday Mass of the later parts of the New Testament, after only two readings from 2 Peter, to the Second Letter to Timothy. I will share
Continue readingToday’s gospel reading (Mark 12: 13-17) is well known, but at the same time a passage so often spectacularly misunderstood and distorted. The encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees and Herodians (two groups who loathed each other) about the payment of taxes to Caesar has always excited the imagination. In
Continue readingThe Easter season ended yesterday so our cycle of readings at Mass resumes as ‘Ordinary Time’, which we left ages ago on Shrove Tuesday (and it really does feel like a long time ago). The first readings this week are from the Second Letter of Peter (1:2-7). This composition reads
Continue readingToday is Whitsunday (the old English name), the feast of Pentecost. Again,I don’t want to repeat my homily at the livestreamed 9:30 Mass today (www.saintedmunds.net). I have also reposted a note from the Catholic Womens League reminding us that a large number of young people from our parish were due
Continue readingTomorrow, Whitsunday, is the last day of the Easter season. So this morning at Mass we conclude our weekday Mass cycle of readings from Acts and John, the final verses of each book. The final reading from Acts (28: 16-20, 30-31) shows us a picture of St Paul under what
Continue readingIn the calendar of the Church today is the feast day of Pope St Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978. Normally a feast day is the anniversary of a saint’s death: Pope Paul died on the feast of the Transfiguration (6 August) and after his canonisation his feast was
Continue readingSt Augustine’s day yesterday displaced the reading you would have heard at Mass from Acts 20, which contains the very emotional farewell St Paul makes to his friends before he leaves them. He then travels to Jerusalem where he is arrested, and speaks in today’s reading (part of chapters 22
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