Staying or Leaving

When Peter witnesses the glory of Jesus on the mountain he cries out with obvious delight, “Master, it is wonderful for us to be here, so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” We have all felt this way in the events

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What are we giving up this Lent?

The first question that comes up in our family as we approach Lent is “What are we giving up for Lent this year?” Basically the children want to know, during Lent, will we give up meat only on Fridays and Wednesdays, or all days of the week during Lent. Another

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Ukraine and Catholic Teaching

THE PICTURE HERE is of the Ukrainian Cathedral of the Holy Family in Mayfair (Duke Street, W1) which is the base of the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy (diocese) in the United Kingdom. These are Catholics, in full Communion with the Holy See and our bishops, who use Eastern Orthodox liturgy and

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Racial Justice and Human Dignity

TODAY the churches keep Racial Justice Sunday and we have a second collection at the end of Masses for the work of the Catholic Association for Racial Justice (CARJ). Reflections and other material for this Sunday has been produced by the association and can be found HERE. At the heart

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Bad Apples?

When they are required to address the evil of sexual abuse by priests, religious and others within the Church, it is not uncommon for those wanting to protect the ‘good name of the Church’ to refer to the perpetrator as a ‘bad apple’, or some such. It’s a way of

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Why Peace Sunday is Important

NEXT SATURDAY is the 100th anniversary of the death of the man who is probably the most neglected and overlooked pope of the 20th century, Benedict XV. He wasn’t very old and had no history of particularly bad health. Pneumonia was a killer a hundred years ago (my mother, who

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God Revealed

THIS WEEKEND we celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the final day and climax of the season of Christmas. It is joined very closely to last Thursday’s feast of the Epiphany – indeed at various times both the manifestation of the baby Jesus to the Magi and

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God, Alive and Well in his People

Often, we can experience the briefest encounters which cause us to stop and reflect about the Goodness of God. This happens all the time and I would like to mention just four things that happened to me this Advent. The woman who received Holy Communion from me in her home

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Christmas is coming! And so is the Synod.

Advent, as we all know, is a journey towards Christmas; we all look forward through this season to celebrating the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ and rightly so. We should be looking forward to such an occasion, because if he wasn’t born in human form and experienced the emotions

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Into Advent with Pope Francis – Part II

ON THURSDAY I listened to the traditional Carol Service led by KS2 children at St Mary’s School – sadly once again this could not be in church for Covid reasons and was recorded from the school, and I concluded the service with a blessing as usual. As in the past

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