Download Bulletin 20th June 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Some years ago the kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee at Gennesaret dug an ancient fishing boat out of the mud, and you could see from the design how Jesus could have been sleeping while all this took place, with his head tucked under some planking at one end.  All day he had been teaching and meeting people in the sun and the heat so it is not surprising that he was fast asleep.  As we know from last week, he had been talking about faith and how the disciples needed to trust in it.  So today’s story is going to test just how far they had taken the message in.  Before we look at that though, we need to look at a few points……

Complete Homily for 12th Sunday

Readings for 12th Sunday

Daily Prayers Week 12  

Download Bulletin 13th June 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Eleventh Sunday Ordinary Time

The fact that the G7 government leaders are meeting in Cornwall may not impinge much on our lives, unless you had booked a ‘staycation’ in St. Ives just now and everything is blocked off or booked up. There are plenty of pictures of Boris and Biden bumping elbows and protestors doing odd things, though I did like the image of the seven leaders made out of electronic gadget waste called ‘Mt. Recyclemore’ after Mt Rushmore. But by the time it is finished and everyone gets bogged down again in the politics of Northern Ireland (which are important, I am not belittling them) we may well prefer to turn to the Euros or whatever other escapism we like if you have not already.  However what those leaders do is important, but the results may never be clear. The two parables in today’s gospel have something to say about this, just as they do about the kingdom of God….

Complete Homily for 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings for Eleventh Sunday

Daily Prayers Week 11

Download Bulletin 6th June 2021

Read the Catholic Bishop’s Statement on the Assisted Dying Bill

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Corpus Christi

I was talking to a Methodist friend at the Chaplaincy in Lancaster one day as we were planning a joint service which we held alternately in each other’s chapels on occasions.  He asked me one day why when we were in the Catholic chapel it always had to be Mass.   Could we not do something different?  (Sr. Ella, who worked with me, once said to me (jokingly I might add), ‘The Methodist chaplain really has to work at his sermons, all you have to do is say Mass.’ But getting back to our discussion, I explained to him that for Catholics Mass was more than just a service, or even a memorial as we say at the consecration.  We believe we are taking a very real part in the event of the cross, of the sacrifice, that Jesus made himself.  At each Mass we join him in this offering of himself and ourselves together to the Father…..

Complete Homily for Corpus Christi

Readings for Corpus Christi

Daily Prayers Corpus Christi

Download Bulletin 30th May 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Trinity Sunday

Sitting in my office as a lawyer, various people could come through the door.  If it was the boss then that was usually not good news and I would not say I was actually cowering, but ready to take whatever reprimand was about to be delivered.  If it was a client, as the office was at the Elephant and Castle in London, I could expect anything; burglary, smuggling, mugging, housing problems, conveyancing, matrimonial or probate.  If it was matrimonial my heart sank as they never agreed on anything, criminals were the easiest as they usually knew the score.  Or it could be my secretary, a great woman from south London, or possibly the alcoholic temp who typed with cans of Carslberg Special Brew balanced on the type-writer and put bets on for us at the bookies and then we listened to the results, smoking as you could in offices then.  To each person who came through the door I responded in a different way, and yet it was still me.  And sometimes we use fairly easy metaphors like this to explain the different ways we meet God.  God can and will relate to us or come into our lives in different ways at different times……

Complete Trinity Sunday Homily

Readings for Trinity Sunday

Daily Prayers Most Holy Trinity

Read the June Catholic Voice here

livestream on YouTube today

6pm Pentecost Sunday Mass

The video of the Mass will be available to watch on the parish YouTube channel afterwards.

Download Bulletin 23rd May 2021

PENTECOST: Today’s feast offers us real hope.  The Holy Spirit – the life-giver – filled the Apostles with life, with courage and renewed their trust in God.  The doors of the Upper Room were opened, and the mission of the Church began. The Holy Spirit’s gifts freed the Apostles to go out into the world to share with all people the wonder of Jesus Christ.  We too can unlock the doors that trap us.  We can do so because we are loved and graced by God.  Let us not allow ourselves to be trapped, rather, let us, with renewed faith, call on the Holy Spirit to free us from whatever it is that may constrain us.  It is with His help that  we can live the fullness of life, in the fullness of faith and so continue to share the wonder of the Gospel with all peoples.

Read the Pastoral Letter for Pentecost

Readings for Pentecost Sunday

Daily Prayers Pentecost

Download Bulletin 16th May 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Seventh Sunday of Easter

Shakespeare always has a good take on history, often not very historical.  His version of Prince Hal and Falstaff, the carousing young prince with the drunken side-kick, may or may not be true to life.  But in the film, The King, what agonises the old king is whether he can really trust his son to run the country.  (Falstaff here gets a better presentation of himself in the film than the play.)  It is one of those classic story scenes where the parent hands on his work with great trepidation to his child or children, who either do well or don’t.  That is pretty much the setting of today’s first reading and gospel.  In the gospel Jesus is praying to his Father to look after the apostles, his children in a way.  Will they be able to carry on his work.  Jesus is sure that they can with the help he leaves behind, and yet there is a certain amount of almost anxiety in his prayer….

Complete Homily for Seventh Sunday of Eastertime

Readings for 7th Sunday of Easter

Daily Prayers Easter 7

Ascension of the Lord on Thursday 13th May

A Holy Day of Obligation

12 noon Mass – Livestream on YouTube

7pm Mass

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Seventh Sunday of Easter on 15th/16th May

6pm Saturday Vigil Mass – Livestream on YouTube

10am Sunday Mass – NO Livestream but Saturday Vigil Mass is on YouTube

12 noon Sunday Mass at Sedbergh

6pm Sunday Mass

Download Bulletin 9th May 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Sixth Sunday of Easter

One evening in London in the 1980s I went off to watch Blackpool who were away to Brentford.  Not a part of London I usually visited.  It was after work so I was in my suit.  I got into the right stand but the Blackpool fans were corralled off to one side as they often were those days, and there were not that many of them anyway.  A small sea of tangerine.  A bit of a pond rather than a sea.  So to get in with the Blackpool fans I had to climb out of one part of the stand onto the ground to walk round, and I was promptly stopped by a large policeman.  ‘Where are you going, son?’  ‘I am Blackpool fan,’ I loyally announced.  He took one look at my suit, and my much more London accent at the time, but seeing I looked harmless said, ‘Rather you than me,’ letting me pass.  I think he assumed all away fans would be violent, especially from distant parts.  But in fact Blackpool were about to be relegated (often the way) and by the end (we lost 5-0) we were singing, ‘We’re going down, you’re not,’ in a very well-spirited way…..

Complete Homily for Sixth Sunday of Easter

Readings for Sixth Sunday of Easter

Daily Prayers Easter 6

Download Bulletin 2nd May 2021

Fr Hugh’s Homily for Fifth Sunday of Easter

For us Catholics the word ‘Reformation’ has tended to be a bit of a dirty word, especially The Reformation.  You do not find Luther’s picture up on many Catholic school walls, possibly in a secondary school History class or Religion classroom, but not usually to celebrate his life. (More likely to find Guy Fawkes.) But the Church’s history has always been one of continuing reformation. Both church institutions and religious orders have been being reformed since the beginning.  It is natural if you think about it.  The Church is here for a mission, and as humans following Jesus we build communities for that mission.  But also as humans we often settle after a while into a way of doing ‘mission’ in which the structure of the community gets too settled…..

Complete Homily for Fifth Sunday of Eastertide

Readings for 5th Sunday of Easter

Daily Prayers Easter 5

Read the May Catholic Voice Here