Today’s Gospel is from the first part of John chapter seventeen, what is sometimes referred to as the Priestly Prayer of Jesus. It is uttered by Christ at the time of the Last Supper, after the Washing of the Feet on Maundy Thursday. People have identified three parts to it, and our Gospel reading today includes the first two parts. In the first part, Christ asks the Father for the glorification of His holy human nature and for the Father to accept His Sacrifice on the Cross.

Today’s second reading is perhaps a typical example of St Paul’s writings, with his rather long sentences. But at the end it refers to Christ being “all in all”. What does that mean? It means Christ being everything, and in everything. I remember going to an evening meeting some years ago for clergy who were going to become, or who already were, school governors. The priest leading the session quoted Cardinal Basil Hume, who said that Catholic education is not just National C

Speaking the truth, with love, is not easy. We can so easily go to one extreme or the other. We can be blunt, “telling it the way it is” and upsetting or antagonising people, or, to be nice and polite, we deny the truth and just want to say “nice things” instead. Take the example of a teenage lad who has come back from playing a football match and is watching TV. His brother enters, stage left. He has a reputation for being as blunt as a spade. He tells him straight: “It abso

We begin today’s homily with a short message from the Archbishop: “Dear friends, this weekend we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday, when the Church prays especially for vocations to the priesthood. I want to ask you to join me in praying today that all those whom Our Lord is calling will respond with courage and generosity to his invitation to serve their brothers and sisters as priests in our Archdiocese. If you feel that the Good Shepherd might indeed be calling you – and if y

This week, our Parish Treasurer, Jim Crisp, provided a feedback update on the Planned Giving Appeal, if you would like to find out more information, please click here . You will remember we introduced our Planned Giving Appeal just after the Christmas/ New Year period. Well, that Appeal continues, but we owe you an update and feedback on what’s happened since then. You will remember the problems we face. Inflation has reduced the buying power of Offertories and Donations by a

Many of us are aware of the need to go to Mass each Sunday and Holyday of Obligation, unless we have a good reason for missing Mass, such as a sudden heart attack or being on holiday in a country where there isn’t a local Catholic church in the area. But what about confession? Church law covers many different things, most of which is more relevant to priests running parishes, but some of the rules concern the general lay Catholic. With regard to confession, Canon 989 says the

(using material taken from The Turin Shroud and Paschal Events by Fr Maurice Hogan in Far East, March/April 2026, pgs 12-13) Back when I was starting secondary school in the early nineties, we looked in our science lessons at the subject of radioactivity and carbon dating. In the course of this, the subject textbook mentioned the Turin Shroud, claiming that carbon dating had shown it to be a mediaeval forgery. Well, that was back then, and since then, new tests have been done

Who is Jesus? He is the Son of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life. And in St John’s Gospel, which we heard today, He shows up all inauthenticity around Him. He is the Light, that causes those who cower in the darkness to flee. As it says in John 3:19-21: “And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come t

Some of you may remember, or maybe don’t want to remember, the lead-up to the Scottish independence referendum back in 2014. After all the campaigning, just as it was coming up to the day of decision for the Scottish people, Alex Salmond, who was leader of the Scottish National Party at the time, was asked for his thoughts. He said something like this: We’re in the hands of the Scottish people, and that’s a great place to be. Independence politics aside, no matter how goo

I am the resurrection and the life. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, As we welcome the Spring equinox when the hours of daylight begin to exceed those of darkness and night, the Church’s calendar also marks a turning-point. The first four weeks of Lent have already passed quickly and in the coming two weeks, which the Church sometimes calls Passiontide, we begin to reflect more intensely in our prayers and liturgy on the Passion of Our Lord. With Easter a fortnight away,

This Sunday our central figure is the man born blind, and there’s an important link with the Lenten theme of Baptism: “[Jesus] spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. The he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool at Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.” Baptism takes its name from the Greek word baptizein which means to “plunge” or “immerse”; the plunging into the water symbolises being buried wi

Last week I mentioned that we have five people in this parish seeking the sacraments this Easter, and we prayed at the 11am Mass for the four of them who are already baptised: Julie, Joel, Reece and Joanne. This Sunday and the next three Sundays, we pray for our fifth person, who is currently unbaptised, Anthony. So we haven’t lost anyone. It wasn’t anything either you or I said to them. When you have someone in your parish who is preparing for baptism at the Easter Vigil, no