Fifth Sunday of Easter

Download Bulletin 28th April 2024

Deacon George’s Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Are we in an intimate union with Christ?   Or are we dying spiritually?   I will ask again.   Are we in an intimate union with Christ?   Or are we dying spiritually?   These are the two questions that the Gospel is asking us today.  In the Old Testament, the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Psalmists, all used the image of a vine, or vineyard, to represent the Chosen People of God.   However, the Old Testament vine, was only a shadow of what was to come.   Now today, Jesus is using the image of a vine, to say that he and his disciples, will form the new chosen people of God.     He is saying that he is the true vine, the vine that will bear fruit…..

Complete Homily for 5th Sunday of Easter

Readings for 5th Sunday of Easter

Daily Prayers Easter 5

Read the May Catholic Voice Here

Third Sunday of Easter

Download Bulletin 14th April 2024

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 3rd Sunday of Easter

Last week the disciples were working out how to live the new life that Jesus had given them, and what it meant to value each other equally regardless of your social status.  More of the same this week as we move through the Acts the Apostles.  Again it is all about what it means to be a witness, and this is the word that defines Christian life from now on.  What Christians are about is simply bearing witness to Christ and what he has done for all of us, all of creation.  Last week it was living together in a way in which all were looked after, equality and dignity of life.  This week the example of what it might also mean is hidden from us as it happens just before the first reading, and I will come to that….

Complete Homily for 3rd Sunday of Easter

Readings for 3rd Sunday of Easter

Daily Prayers Easter 3

Second Sunday of Easter

DIVINE MERCY

Download Bulletin 7th April 2024

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 2nd Sunday of Easter

It seems that we will have an election at some point this year, and everyone thinks one party will win, at the moment. So what is going through their minds?  All sorts of questions such as: How do we govern? How are we going to do things differently?  How do we keep to our ideals and yet be practical?  What are we facing when we take over?  And hopefully they are preparing for this whether they win or not.  It is that question of: what are we being asked to do?  How are we being called on to live this new role?….

Complete Homily for 2nd Sunday of Easter

Readings for Easter 2

Daily Prayers Easter 2

 

Easter Sunday

Download Bulletin 31st March 2024

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Easter Sunday

This is just a story, sort of a parable, for today about what Jesus has done for us.  So there was an old Chinese man who had a lovely garden that he spent all his days looking after.  Everyone admired it.  At the centre of this garden was his most treasured plant which was a great big bamboo tree.  Every day he would go into the garden in the evening and gaze at the tree and loved it when the wind blew and the tree waved his branches and the tree knew that his master loved him.  One evening the master came to the tree and said, “I am going to have to cut off your branches, but it is up to you, it is your decision.”…..

Complete Easter Homily

Readings for Easter Sunday

Daily Prayers Easter

 

Palm Sunday

Download Bulletin 24th March 2024

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Palm Sunday

What are we ready to give up for love of others?  When we look to Jesus for an example it is tempting to say, ‘Well, he was God so he knew what was going to happen and that he would be all right.’  But that answer is clearly not the case.  In the words of the ancient hymn in the second reading from St. Paul, Christ emptied himself, a central theme about Jesus in studies of him, he cleared out everything that was of God, and became as we are, as we all are.

There can be no clearer statement of what the early Church thought…..

Complete Homily for Palm Sunday

Daily Prayers Palm Sunday

Read the Catholic Voice here

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Download Bulletin 17th March 2024

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 5th Sunday in Lent

In a film about the Deep South, a young black child, (in England today it could also have been Muslim, Jewish or traveller child,) goes out on their own and has just experienced for the first time what his parents would know to be prejudice.  He comes home and says to his father, “Why do they hate us?  Are we different?”  In the not-so-distant past, and even today this is a ventral experience.  And if in the news at this time.  Even in school we find that some children still learn it from their parents.  “Why do they hate us,” is a question that so many people have asked over the years.  Right at the start of the Bible, in Genesis 11, the people tell the story of the Tower of Babel to try to explain why peoples, tribes, hate each other, starting with language differences.  But what that story says is, is that it is a confusion born of sin…..

Complete Homily for 5th Sunday in Lent  

Readings for Lent 5

Daily Prayers Lent 5

Read the Spring Parish Magazine Here

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Laetare sunday

Today is Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in the season of Lent.  Traditionally, this Sunday has been a day of celebration, within the austere period of Lent. This Sunday gets its name from the first few words of the traditional Latin entrance for the Mass of the day.   “Laetare Jerusalem” (“Rejoice, O Jerusalem”) is Latin from Isaiah 66:10.

Download Bulletin 10th March 2024

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 4th Sunday in Lent

Sevilla football team were failing.  The successes of the recent seasons just didn’t seem to be happening, and even relegation was becoming a possibility.  In a very much lower league, say the Andalusian Bovril league, a young man of 23, Romero, was enjoying his football but even though modest would have loved to be in the top league.  A scout spotted him and he came up to the next league, then the next, until someone said to a scout for Sevilla, “You know you’ve been looking for inspiration, take a look at young Romero.”  So there he is now, in the top league.  Scoring goals, encouraging the team with his enthusiasm, and bringing them out of the relegation spot…..

Complete Homily for 4th Sunday in Lent

Readings Lent 4

Daily Prayers Lent 4