Second Sunday of Easter

Download Bulletin 27th April 2025

Deacon George’s Homily for 2nd Sunday of Easter

Before they encountered Jesus, the disciples all had their own jobs, their own identities and their own way of life.  After they had encountered Jesus, their lives changed.  Their characters remained the same, and they didn’t stop being themselves.  They simply found a new way of living.  In today’s Gospel reading, the disciples now believe that Jesus is gone.  And the direction of their lives changes once again.  They are now a group of people who gather together out of fear.  They are very fearful, that they will have to face the same death as Jesus.  Their lives are now so rooted in fear, that they lock themselves away.  It is whilst they are locked away, that the Risen Jesus comes to them.  He does not come to chastise them for abandoning him, but he comes to reclaim them, with his forgiveness and love, through his words of peace.  He shows himself to his disciples.   And they can see from his hands and his side, that his resurrection does not remove his wounds, of cruelty and suffering.   Because the risen Jesus is the wounded crucified Christ…..

Complete Homily for 2nd Sunday of Easter

Daily Prayers Easter 2

 

Palm Sunday

Download Bulletin 13th April 2025

FR HUGH’S HOMILY FOR PALM SUNDAY  

What does Jesus feel in these final days?  Think of yourself as being in his place for a moment.  Celebrated as king as no High Priest, pharisee or Roman governor has ever been by his people since King David.  ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.’  Yet within days betrayed by the same people, his people, ‘release to us Barabbas,’ the murderer they cry instead.  Then stripped of his clothes and his dignity, forced to carry his cross through the baying crowds, and crucified for all to see, as a common criminal….

Complete Homily for Palm Sunday

Daily Prayers Palm Sunday

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Fifth Sunday in Lent

Download Bulletin 6th April 2025

+ Rt Rev Paul Swarbrick, Bishop of Lancaster’s Pastoral Letter on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill for Fifth Sunday of Lent

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I wish to speak with you today about the process in which our Parliament is currently considering legalising assisted suicide through the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. As I have made clear earlier in this debate, as Catholics we have maintained a principled objection to this change in law recognising that every human life is sacred, coming as a gift of God and bearing a God-given dignity. We are, therefore, clearly opposed to this Bill in principle, elevating, as it does, the autonomy of the individual above all other considerations…..

Complete Pastoral Letter

Daily Prayers Lent 5

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Download Bulletin 30th March 2025

Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent, is a day of celebration and a brief pause from the penitential emphasis of Lent, known as “Rejoice, O Jerusalem” in Latin, and marks the halfway point of Lent. 

DEACON GEORGE’S HOMILY FOR 4TH SUNDAY IN LENT

The story of the Prodigal Son is probably one of the most well-known stories in the Gospels.  It is a story about a sinner who repents of his sinful ways.  But this story is a double-edged parable, because there are two sinners, the younger son and the elder son.  The younger son demanded his hereditary share of the family property.  But since there were two sons, the eldest son always received a double share, hence two thirds for him, and one third for the younger son.  The younger son immediately turned his share into cash and wasted it in a foreign land.  He abandoned the three main aspects of his life, by abandoning his family, his nation and his religion.  He left his family, to live among foreigners, and worked among pigs, showing total disrespect for his religion.  Whereas, the elder son served his father daily, but only through a sense of duty, and not through any sense of love….

Complete Homily for 4th Sunday in Lent  

Daily Prayers Lent 4