Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Download Bulletin 3rd August 2025

DEACON GEORGE’S HOMILY FOR EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Today’s parable, “the rich man and his barns”, is only found in Luke’s Gospel.  As Luke was addressing his Gospel mainly to non-Jews, therefore, he must have thought that this parable was important for them.  Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd, to whom he was giving his message of salvation.  However, some men in the crowd asked him to arbitrate in a family dispute over property.  They asked Jesus, because, in those days, rabbis were expected to give judgement on the whole range of the Law, which included civil, criminal and religious questions.  Jesus refused to do this, no doubt, for a very good reason.  However, their interest in property, gave him the opportunity to teach his hearers, and all of us, a very effective parable on the relative value of this world’s goods.  The lesson of this parable is very obvious to us all…..

  Complete Homily for 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 18

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Fr Hugh’s Homily for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to them, and will eat with them, and they with me” Jesus says in the book of Revelation.  So at the end of the Bible, Jesus is saying to us, if only we open the door to him he will be that close to us, as a family member eating at our table.  Why does he want to do that?  Is it just to eat, as might be my first thought?  In our first reading and gospel this is exactly what happens.  Abraham and Martha both eagerly welcome the angels (or angel) and Jesus into their homes.  But why have they come.  Its not to eat.  The angels don’t need to, Jesus might need to but it is not his priority.  Both come to do the work of God.  To make God and his message known……

Complete Homily for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 16

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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Download Bulletin 6th July 2025

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

James MacMillan is a modern composer and a Catholic, and on Thursday we had a clergy day with him.  Not being a great music person I went with some dread but in fact his talks were engrossing.  He spoke about his own life and the power of music in it, his grandfather was a coal-miner in Ayrshire who played the euphonium in the local brass band, and where music had brought him, (biography ‘A Scot’s song-a life of music, small and readable.).  And about the discussions he often had with other musicians and artists about religion and art, but especially, even with atheists, the sense that they were searching for and found a spirituality in their lives through music….

Complete Homily for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 14

CORPUS CHRISTI

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FR HUGH’S HOMILY FOR CORPUS CHRISTI 2025

Over the last few weeks we have been talking about the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  But how can we get an idea of how this might be possible.  Over the centuries many learned people (and not so learned) have tried to explain this change, and often given very good explanations giving us also the word ‘transubstantion,’ changed substance.  But even this is hard for us to grasp.  Also we know that this is a mystery so we can never get to the bottom of it completely.  Can we find a very simple (too simple really) way of looking at it?….

Complete Homily for Corpus Christi

Daily Prayers Week 12

 

Most Holy Trinity

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Deacon George’s Homily for Most Holy Trinity

For five minutes, could you pretend you were children back at school.  And you were in the science classroom.  And you found some liquid metal … called mercury.  And if you touched it with your pencil, it would break into several pieces.  Also, with your pencil you could merge it back into a single blob of mercury again.  Mercury is an element, a substance, which it cannot be broken down into any other element.  If you separated it into many parts, every part would remain pure mercury.  Now if we had a element called “pure unadulterated love” and we separated it, like the mercury, into several parts, each part would still consist of the element “pure unadulterated love”……

Complete Homily for Most Holy Trinity 

Daily Prayers Week 11

Pentecost

Download Bulletin 8th June 2025

FR HUGH’S HOMILY FOR PENTECOST

Many of you might remember the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit we receive at Confirmation.  Those making their Confirmation have been studying them and Mary Biddle has used explanations of each of them from an old catechetics book. to explain each one.  You may remember different explanations.  It might be helpful to look at them again and the explanation given….

AWE AND WONDER: to help us appreciate the greatness of God in the world and people around us… KNOWLEDGE: to help us to know ourselves and the world around us.  To see the world as it really is… REVERENCE: to help us to love God and each other as we should.  UNDERSTANDING: to help us to understand all that God has told us.  RIGHT JUDGEMENT: to help us to know what to do, especially in difficult situations… WISDOM: helps us to see things as God wants us to see them.  COURAGE: to give us the strength to do what is right, no matter how hard this may be.

Complete Homily for Pentecost

Daily Prayers Week 10