By Linda Strohmier. (Read as part fo the Service of the Word) The Twelve Days of Christmas are ending in a burst of celebration and light. The Christmas cookies are nearly all eaten, even the fruitcake has been nibbled down, and the tree is starting to shed. The presents, every last one of them, are...
Sermon Category: Epiphany
Candlemas
Friday last week was Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January. That was the date in 1945 when the Soviet Army liberated the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. The theme of this year’s commemoration is Ordinary People. It is, the organisers remind us, ordinary people who perpetrate the horrors of genocide, just as it is ordinary people...
Christ our light
Wednesday this coming week is the feast day of the Conversion of S. Paul. It must be one of the most influential of conversions that the world has ever known, so it is no wonder that it has a special day of commemoration unlike that associated with any other saint! And Wednesday also marks the...
Father, may they all be One
It’s probably not great to start with some statistics but I am going to take the risk! The first is a good one – even in our secular times Christianity is the largest world religion and one third of the world’s population embrace it. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest part of the Christian...
Enlightenment and Joy
Today, which we are keeping as the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, brings to a conclusion our celebrations of Christmas. It is also the day when traditionally we celebrate Christ as the Light of the world with a procession with candles. The thing about liturgy is that it uses...
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do...
1 Corinthians 13:4-13
Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts,...