Download Bulletin 20th September 2020

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 25th Sunday

Back in the day, many years ago, when there were five priests in a parish, there was a strict order in the diocese of who was to be promoted next to ‘parish priest’.  The one who reached the top of the list was called ‘The Head Waiter.’  If, for whatever reason, the Bishop decided not to promote him, then there was a good deal of muttering and questioning as to why he had been ‘passed over.’  After all wasn’t it his ‘right’ to be next.  So why had he been by-passed?  What was up?  And why was the other guy promoted over him?   Now, every set of workers has its own ideas about what is fair.  What we often fail to think about, when the gossip is flying around, is what decision is right for the good of the firm, which it is in everyone’s interest to make successful. Dioceses too.  So it is in our parable.  We always concentrate on how unfair the boss seems to be, and know that if we were the first one to be hired then we would be pretty miffed as well.  But, as ever, what Jesus is trying to get us to do is not concentrate on ourselves but on the work in hand, and that is spreading the Good News of the gospel.  In Graham Greene’s ‘The Power and the Glory’, the whisky priest’s focus is on his own sins, he hates himself for how he is, but in fact he achieves great good, even heroism.  This is what God knows we are capable of, sinners or not, that is what God looks at and hopes for from us….

Complete Homily for 25th Sunday

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Readings for 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 25

Bulletin 13th September 2020

Homily for 24^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Today’s gospel is a parable on forgiveness and debt.  What about one for our own time?  “A rich man with lots of money, we could say he was a man who ran a bank, had so much money he just needed to make more.  So he looked around for people to lend it to at good interest rates so that he would get wealthier.  A found a few dictators of very poor countries who said, ‘Lend me money and you can have all my people’s wealth.’  So he did and all went well until the dictators were thrown out, and had to flee to the South of France with all the money, and the people refused to pay.  But a very powerful World Bank demanded they pay, and so the poor country got poorer and the rich richer.  Then the rich man found another group of very poor people in his own country who wanted to buy their own houses and it looked such a good source of money that he leant so much money even he could did not have enough, so he borrowed more money to lend even more, and that made him even richer. 

Homily for 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Readings for 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 24

Download Bulletin 6th September 2020

Fr Hugh’s Homily

I got used to meeting young enthusiastic, very evangelical, members of the Christian Union at University who would have a pleasant chat and then say, “But of course it is a pity you are not going to heaven, Father.”  (Had I known this earlier I could have taken up a life of crime or perhaps worse.)  They were very keen and I took it with a pinch of salt.  But one day one of the other Chaplains, not a Catholic, decided that he would invite the Christian Union to do their Church Search, from the Chaplaincy. It was a way of introducing students to the local churches in Lancaster.  The chaplain’s aim was to see if he could integrate the Christian Union with us a bit more.  I had my doubts, because, lovely as they all were, they were never going to want to join up with Catholics.  So we met one morning and they began to speak about the churches in Lancaster that gave good Bible teaching, none of them Catholic of course, and I listened, and the young man giving the talk said, “We will find you good churches, with good Bible teaching, that will lead you well, and if you fall out of line, will expel you.” It was the last line that struck me.   This was all very well-intentioned, and the guy was really sincere, and I think he had this reading in mind……

Complete Homily for 23rd Sunday

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Readings for 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 23

Download Bulletin 30th August 2020

Homily by Fr Hugh

King George VI steps up to the microphone and the whole of the FA Cup crowd are waiting to hear the new king, and, of course, he can barely get two words out due to his stutter, and people begin to whisper and then talk loudly.  In the king’s eyes it is an embarrassing disaster and he knew it was going to be, yet he did it.  This is the most used scene as a trailer for ‘The King’s Speech.’ Earlier in the film we see the horror on his face when he realises all his worst fears have come true.  He and his family are dragged from their quiet life because the abdication of his brother forces him, out of duty, to become king.  He and his wife go on to become famous for their roles during the Second World War.  Jeremiah is trying to express the same sentiments in the first reading.  The last thing he wants to do is become a prophet. Partly because he has a comfortable life as it is, and partly because he knows that prophets rarely come to a good end.  Jesus himself, 500 years later, shouts at the Chief Priests and the scribes for the way in which they have treated prophets in the past. Why are the prophets so unpopular?  Because it is their job to challenge the people to follow the way of God, to turn back to God…..  

Complete Homily for 22nd Sunday

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Readings for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 22

Read the September Catholic Voice Newspaper here

Download Bulletin 23rd August 2020

Homily by Fr Hugh

You may have noticed that most parish priests tend to think they are infallible at times, if not always.  Of course events have shown otherwise, but the temptation to make what you think are definitive, final, statements about things is attractive.  I am sure some parents hope their declarations will be treated as infallible, for example when they are grounding someone.  The Church’s answer to grounding was to exclude people.  The teachings of the Councils always ended by saying “You must follow these or be declared ‘Anathema sit.’”  You were unholy, excluded.  Why did it think it could, can say that, exclude people, make infallible statements? In what circumstances?  This gospel has a lot to do with it. In today’s gospel Jesus gives Peter amazing powers; so it seems. He calls him his Rock, and that is a big thing as all through the psalms God is referred to as ‘our rock, our refuge and stronghold.’  ‘Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’  So is Jesus creating some sort of dictator here?  You would not expect it and it isn’t so….

Homily for 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the Assumption

What do you think of the Queen? If you ask people this question you
will get some very different answers.
It depends where you are and who you ask. Their age, their life,
their feeling about society. But why would your feelings about one
woman be about society?
That’s because she is no ordinary woman. In one sense she is:
she is a mother, who has had some fairly traumatic times with her family as we know, she is a wife, she also has a great capacity for doing her job in a way that even those who don’t agree with her position usually respect. And managed that with dignity and
impartiality whatever else might be going on…

Complete Homily for the Assumption

Readings for the Assumption

10AM SUNDAY MASS LIVESTREAM

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Download Bulletin 9th August 2020

Homily for 19^th Sunday

Apparently Archimedes leapt out of his bath when he discovered his Principle and ran down the street shouting ‘Eureka’, I have found it.  For many people discovering Christ truly for the first time it can have the same sort of effect.  Over the last few weeks the gospels have been about what sort of ground we might be, dry, thorny, fertile?  But there is always the chance that we will have a ‘leap out of the bath’ moment, or like Peter, out of the boat.  Peter has been with Jesus for some time already, but today he really ‘sees’ him.  In the gospels when it says ‘see’ it usually means something more than just sight. It is about seeing with the eyes of faith.  So Peter leaps out of the boat, on Jesus’ assurance that he can, and starts to move across the water.  But there is always that moment, however we come to faith and however fervent, and perhaps particularly when our discovery is fervent, that we stop and begin to say to ourselves.  Am I really sure Jesus is there?  I mean, I cannot see him really.  Am I just fooling myself? ……

Complete Homily for 19th Sunday

To watch the 10am Sunday Mass Livestream go to CLICK HERE FOR LIVESTREAM ON YOUTUBE at the top of this website. The parish YouTube channel will appear then click on the LIVE NOW video.

Readings for 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 19

Download Bulletin 2nd August 2020

Homily by Fr Hugh

We don’t really understand suffering, especially when the innocent suffer.  It is an old complaint that surely a loving and all-powerful God would never let the innocent suffer, and it is one we often make when we believe we have just suffered or witnessed it.  I have no answers to that directly, and no one does, though it has been discussed many times.  But I do want to approach suffering from another angle today.  Without suffering we would be without the virtue of compassion, literally ‘suffering with.’  You could say, well let’s give up that virtue in exchange for the loss of suffering.  But compassion has a tremendous power, is a tremendous power for good, and it is good that we are looking for.  In the film ‘Rendition’ the young CIA man is finally moved to leave and help others when he sees and is drawn into the suffering of one of their prisoners at the hands of his own organisation. This sudden, almost shock, of feeling compassion turns his life around, restores his natural goodness, and he then finds the courage to risk everything and free others.  The power of compassion can break through our fear and hardened prejudices.  It can remind us of a humanity lost, distorted, through the pressures laid upon us to conform to what the world expects…. 

Complete Homily 18th Sunday Ordinary Time

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Readings for 18th Sunday Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 18

Download Bulletin 26th July 2020

Homily by Fr Hugh

In every age people have dreamt of being rich.  I can remember when the lottery first began I used to go in and get a ticket for myself (though my enthusiasm soon ran out.)  Many of us from children upwards have chatted about what we would do if we won the lottery.  What would we spend all that money on?  And sometimes, in an idle moment, wonder what footballers do with all that money, and occasionally announce that it is immoral to pay anyone that much, but whether we would be so righteous if we had it is another matter.  Do you remember Jack and the Beanstalk?  If you have children or grandchildren you might have come across it recently.  The seemingly stupid hero Jack, the cow, the magic beans, the outraged mother, and then the adventure with the massive beanstalk, battle with the giant and, at the end of the search, the goose laying the golden eggs.  Apparently a similar story was being told 4500 years ago.  Again it is about wealth, and then adventure and risk, and trusting in, and facing, the unknown, also of course comedy, with the selling of the cow and the magic beans, the irate mother, the precious goose and the giant.  Every age has these stories.  Ireland has its rainbows, pots of gold and leprechauns, who apparently wore red coats originally.  So when Jesus is talking in parables to his crowd, he knows the sort of thing they talk and joke about.  The stories they have…..

Complete 17th Sunday Homily

LIVESTREAM CONTINUES of the 10AM SUNDAY MASS.  There will be no further livestreaming of Wednesday Evening Prayer.

To watch the Livestream go to CLICK HERE FOR LIVESTREAM ON YOUTUBE at the top of this website. The parish YouTube channel will appear then click on the LIVE NOW video.

Readings for 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 17

Download Bulletin 19th July 2020

Homily by Fr Hugh

Nobody likes being called weak.  The number of school reports I have had that began, Hugh has had a good term, they always seemed to begin encouragingly, until we got to the ‘unfortunately’ or ‘however,’ he has been weak in Maths this year, it was usually at least Maths, and not surprisingly that was the bit everyone focused on.  Then there is the post mortem about what to do about my ‘weakness’ even though I knew I was unlikely ever to be ‘strong’ in Maths, and strong is usually the opposite  to weak.  It is amazing how our culture, or perhaps it is just something within us as human beings, always focuses on what is weak and not our strengths.  Sometimes in trying to help the young especially, for the best reasons, we harp on about what they need to improve, not what they are good at, which feeds them with a sense of not being good or worthwhile.  But what do we do to avoid being weak, in our own eyes or those of others?  Where do we find our strength? …..

Complete 16th Sunday Homily

LIVESTREAM CONTINUES of the 10AM SUNDAY MASS.  There will be no further livestreaming of Wednesday Evening Prayer.

To watch the Livestream go to CLICK HERE FOR LIVESTREAM ON YOUTUBE at the top of this website. The parish YouTube channel will appear then click on the LIVE NOW video.

Readings for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 16