SOME OF YOU will recognise this picture as being of a cemetery in Poland at this time of year: filled with candles and other religious objects as an act of prayer for those buried there. I don’t know whether under current restrictions this tradition is possible this weekend. All over
Continue readingWELCOME! Last Saturday at 2.30 in the afternoon I was very blessed to celebrate a Mass of Baptism and Confirmation. On this memorable occasion, which we would normally have celebrated earlier in the year at the Easter vigil, but due to the pandemic was delayed, four people were received into
Continue readingThere is a lovely story told about Pauline Baynes who was invited to illustrate the pictures for the book by C.S. Lewis ‘The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.’ Pauline said that she had great difficulty drawing Aslam the lion; as she would break down and cry and could not finish
Continue readingThese are the opening lines of a poem on lockdown and relates the experience of a resident of HMP Edinburgh. It is one of many poems submitted after prisoners were invited to express their feelings through verse. Freedom, in the sense of the unrestrained enjoyment of natural rights, is something
Continue reading‘Christian tradition has never recognised the right to private property as absolute and untouchable: “On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to
Continue readingLate September and early October is a time when we are reminded by the Church of the importance and significance of angels. On 29 September we celebrate the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Archangels, and on 2nd October we do the same for the memorial of The Holy
Continue readingONE OF THE SOBERING THINGS about trying to teach Moral Theology in almost any context, including a parish, is the realisation that a lot of Catholics think that the Church should only be concerned about issues such as sex, the family or some aspects of the sanctity of life. If
Continue readingThere is no getting away from the fact that forgiveness is hard and the bigger the hurt and injustice the harder it is to forgive. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading from St Matthew, St Peter asks Jesus, ‘How often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often
Continue readingON TUESDAY we kept the annual Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This observance on 1 September was established by Pope Francis five years ago, following the example of the Orthodox Churches and his ground-breaking encyclical of May of that year, known by its Italian title Laudato Si’.
Continue readingEDUCATION has been in the news a lot this month, as it always is in August; this has been exacerbated by the breath-taking chaos surrounding A level and GCSE results in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Distress surrounding this will have affected some of you, both pupils and teachers
Continue reading