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Memory
Memory is wonderful. We may re-live the days of our lives whenever we choose, returning time and again to the happiest, revisiting the sad days knowing that they are in the past, the worst is over. Do you ever ask yourself about living such days again – a favourite hour, day, holiday, a wonderful year,…
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Kingdoms Of God
“God is the giver of all life, human and divine.” Those words come from the Baptism ceremony in the blessing of the parents. God is the giver of all life. All that is has been created in God’s love. We are made for God. Most of creation cannot know – mountains, seas, the earth –…
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Nuclear Weapon Possession
One of the strangest stories I have heard is that of a man in Hiroshima on the day the atomic bomb was dropped, 6th August 1945, the day of the Transfiguration. The man took a train to Nagasaki the following day (the trains were still running!) and was thus in Nagasaki when the second atomic…
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A Christian Volunteer
Errol writes about his life . . . “I grew up in one of the toughest ghettos in Birmingham – a place called Winson Green. My mother was a single parent and with the help of my grandmother they tried their best to raise me well . . . but they could only teach me…
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A Hail Mary, A Rosary
She was pleasant. Elderly Catholic lady in the hospital, but telling me she had finished with church when she left school. Church and school were combined and she hadn’t really been interested. But she still remembered the Hail Mary, she said, smiling. Strange, she thought, that the words had stayed within her over the years…
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CAFOD
This letter has just arrived from CAFOD and I thought you would like a glimpse of how we can help in the developing world. Thank you to the people of St Joseph’s for your generous support for CAFOD. This harvest we heard about Fabiano, a young boy in Uganda, trying to have two simple things…
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Democracy And Unity
Brexit is almost resolved. I have enjoyed watching democracy at work. Since debating with myself before voting in the Referendum (good arguments on both sides) I have followed the discussions, the moves in Parliament, name-calling, mind-changing, the workings of democracy. Best government is one clear-minded woman (or man) telling us what to do, how it…
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Death
Would I come, asked the family. Mother was near death. I came. I said the prayers. The clock struck six o’clock. “The Angelus,” said the daughter and we began to say the prayer. Partway through, her mother stopped breathing. The silence was strange. The room had been full of her breathing. We finished the Angelus…
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Guardian Angels
When I was small and heard at school of guardian angels I thought it was beautiful, each of us having an angel of our own to be with and guide us. A little older and I wondered if my angel was my own or had been someone else’s who was now dead and would be…
Daily Prayers
Prayer is Love, I want to Love