We have arrived at a day marked by a whole series of different events and it is easy to lose the thread. What is this liturgy about? Is it about service – the foot washing? Is it about the Passover sacrifice? Is it about how the deepening darkness of the conflict that Jesus had...
We have come to the central week of the Church’s year. Over the next few days we shall have before us the mystery of Christ’s suffering, dying and rising. For us as Christians there is nothing more important than this event. The fact that for us and for our salvation Christ came, suffered, died and...
Another very long Gospel reading this morning – and perhaps we need to remind ourselves why this comes about. Originally, Lent was a time of preparation for baptism and confirmation – which only happened once a year at the Paschal Vigil on Holy Saturday, the night before Easter day. And as part of the...
There are all sorts of significances attached to this Sunday in the way that it has fallen this year. All of which could merit several sermons! So first of all, this is Laetare Sunday. The word from the beginning of the traditional Introit for this Sunday’s Eucharist, which in turn directs us in a...
Today in this series of homilies which are looking at the Person of Christ with the help of the readings through Lent and the Church of England’s Lent Course, Dust and Glory, we think about Christ as the Living Water. Now matters of thirst and water come into the first reading from the book...
We live these days in a highly risk-averse culture. In my last chaplaincy before I retired, we were supposed to have a written risk-assessment in place for every single activity that took place within the orbit of church life. I am afraid that this was not altogether the case. Of course, we try to...
For this first Sunday in Lent, things are a little different in our Eucharist this morning. The penitential section, which concludes with the sign of ash, follows this homily and it is much longer than usual with more time for us to reflect, at the beginning of Lent, on our failures and sins. As a...
Some years ago, I went round a gallery at which there was an exhibition of modern art depicting the human face. What I saw was a very varied selection of paintings – some of the ‘faces’ so deconstructed as to be only just recognisably human – yet there was always something even in the most...
Last week, we thought a lot about light on the Feast of Christ’s Presentation in the Temple, and the person of Simeon – the priest who recognised the mysterious reality about the baby he held in his arms. We heard his words – echoed to this day in the Church’s Daily Office – which celebrated...
