(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