Twenty six pilgrims returned from Poland late last Saturday in the rain. We were delayed at Heathrow and then again on the coach journey to Beckenham. The rain was still relentless when we finally arrived in Village Way in the early hours of Sunday morning. It wasn’t ideal of course
Continue readingI AM FORTUNATE to have been, forty years ago, a student at the Oxford college where John Henry Newman had been a Fellow and Tutor for over twenty years in the early 19th century. For anyone with even a vague knowledge of the history of Christianity in this country this
Continue readingI have always been comforted by the soothing sound of people praying the rosary when I enter St Edmund’s church to celebrate the 10 am Mass. Above all it comforts me to know the efficacy of such a powerful weapon of intercession and protection. As you may know we have
Continue readingTHE SPEECH by the young Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg at the United Nations last week, together with her powerful glance at the man who thinks he’s the leader of the free world, made a dramatic impression. The UN conference came days after the Climate change protests here last
Continue readingWhen I look at the Chapel in St. John’s, I often think about all of the Seminarians and Priests over the ages who have prayed there and I think about how the Church has changed over those 125+ years! Mgr. Gerry, our Vice-Rector has been making a recent appeal for
Continue readingI promised a couple of weeks ago to tell you something about the annual conference of the Catholic Theological Association, which took place at the beginning of the month in Twickenham. The title of the conference was Word of God, Words of God: Words, Image and Ritual in Religion and
Continue readingI am always hoping and praying for more young people to be engaged with their faith and involved in parish life. I know I am not alone in this. Equally, I am well aware of my inadequacy, my inability to make this happen. Again, this frustration may well be the
Continue readingIN 2015 the Holy Father, following the example of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, designated today as a special Day of Prayer for Creation, in his encyclical Laudato Si’. One of the rather facile criticisms made of that letter at the time was that the pope was too pessimistic in his
Continue readingA FEW WEEKS AGO we celebrated at school our Year 6 Leavers’ Mass. This is always a poignant and emotional occasion, for parents as much as for children (possibly more so). For many, a ‘tear-jerker’ is this contemporary hymn, written by Eugene O’Reilly, which has been sung on this occasion
Continue readingTHIS is the great east window in St George’s Cathedral, the mother church of our diocese of Catholics in South London and Kent. Later this month it will be the place of the installation of our new archbishop, John Wilson. However it is on the page because in the cathedral,
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