Daily Prayers

Prayer is Love, I want to Love

Fr Johns Weekly:

Love, Poverty and Indifference

Over the years at the General hospital I am drawn into family lives. I am glad to be trusted with new understanding and I come to know the family a little just as I know the patient. The love, affection and courage can be deeply touching. Ward 17 stands out for me because of the…

30/04/2017
Vocations To The Priesthood

Would you like to see married priests? No. Would you like women priests? No, no. Would you like to see a married woman priest become a bishop? No, no, no. Nonsense. Fifty years ago in the Church of England they would have said “Nonsense”. Today, married women bishops are a reality. There are more women…

23/04/2017
Catholic Homecare System

Every now and then someone says to me “I wish we had a local Catholic nursing home.” It’s impossible. The costs of building and running such an enterprise are beyond us. Work out for yourself the cost of building, employing nursing, care and domestic staff – before we could invite anyone into the home. The…

09/04/2017
Eight and a Half Million Deaths!

Since 1967 we have legally killed more than eight and a half million children in the womb by abortion. The figures are public knowledge and proclaimed for different reasons, most obviously as a crime against humanity and as a sign of women’s liberation.

01/04/2017
Let Them In

“Imagine a world where you are enclosed by war, not knowing if you are going to die tomorrow or tonight, or maybe in an hour. Living in a world of fear. Hearing gunshots and shelling day and night, hoping that you won’t be the one to get hit. Not wanting to step outside your door…

19/03/2017
Imagine

There is terrible pain in the background of the letter below. I asked if I might use it in our parish newsletter. You will glimpse, perhaps understand, the pain. Please pray for those who do know and do understand. God bless us with sympathy and understanding for one another. Fr John(12th March 2017) “If people…

12/03/2017
Interpreting Bible Teachings

We are descended from man and woman, as we see in every generation of world history. We are not descended from Adam and Eve whose story begins in chapter four, in exile, outside the Garden of Eden. They have a child, Cain, who grows up to be a murderer – a horrifying beginning to the…

26/02/2017
The Holy Mass

The priest proclaimed the offering of the bread and wine and all the Eucharistic Prayer, but he said quietly (not silently) the prayer of pouring the water and wine into the chalice, the breaking of bread over the chalice just before Holy Communion, etc.

19/02/2017
A World Loved By God

Northern Ireland has taught us that democracy does not work but that genuine power sharing does. The world has tried to apply that lesson to the Middle East and the Muslim world but with little success. When people vote along tribal lines the results are known before the votes are cast and counted. To claim…

12/02/2017
Silence!

Silence gives consent. Do you believe that? But speaking out may cause more harm than good – so we stay silent. The consent is only apparent and the silence is fear of the consequences: but if no one speaks so the wrong continues. Last week we enjoyed watching Theresa May and Donald Trump smiling with…

05/02/2017
Song Greater Than The Singers

And so the song of Jesus gradually spread out from Jerusalem into other lands. Parents began to sing it to their children, and the song passed down through the generations and the centuries.

29/01/2017
Giving Pope Francis A Hug

“He said that it was lovely and that he’d love to give the Pope a hug himself. I thought no more of it until I was talking to his mother who said Ethan wanted to know everything about Pope Francis when he came home later that day.”

15/01/2017