15th Sunday Year A

15th Sunday 2026

Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

This is a rare occasion. Of course, every Mass is a UNIQUE occasion, an encounter with God which is new and fresh every time it occurs, because God’s love for us and His mercy are new every morning. Consequently, every meeting with Him brings us something new, something different.

That isn’t what I had in mind though, when claiming that this is a rare occasion. As you probably know, the First Reading in Ordinary Time is chosen to fit with the Gospel, whereas the Second Reading comprises part of a New Testament Epistle which we follow week by week, without any particular connection with the other two Readings.

Consequently, it is rare for all three Readings to connect, as happens today; for the Second Reading to harmonise with the First Reading and Gospel. Yet that is what we find on this Sunday.

What is the connection, the common theme? We might say that it is growth, new life, creation and re-creation; both in the natural world, and in the Kingdom of God.

Deutero-Isaiah, like Our Lord, draws on the natural world for a parable. (At this point, I suspect that the Sisters may scream and flee from the chapel, as I am about to repeat a story which I tell every year on the First Tuesday of Lent.)

It dates from 1987, when I was leading a group of Fifth Years (Year 11 in new money) from St. Joseph’s High School, Workington, on a course at the Diocesan Residential Youth Centre, Castlerigg Manor. The winter of 1986-7 was the sort of heavy season which we have rarely seen in more recent years, and as we walked up Walla Crag (1234 feet, as we never tired of pointing out to groups) we were greeted by a glorious sight.

A golden sun beat down from a cloudless blue sky upon fields of pure white, in a combination of colours which has become increasingly infrequent. As we gazed around from one of our regular stopping places, it was easy to imagine the snow seeping into the grass, enriching it, making it lush, preparing the land to produce a rich harvest.

At the end of the walk, we made our way almost immediately into chapel for Mass, and in no time we were hearing those words of the prophet “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven…” a parable of how the word of God—the word of God in the scriptures, and the Word of God with a capital W, which is Christ Himself—brings forth richness in human hearts, enabling growth in the Kingdom.

The psalm pursues a similar theme, which provides a link to the Gospel parable of the Sower. Jesus speaks of all kinds of soil, not only the rich soil of the green field, producing growth under the white blanket of the snow, but the hard and fruitless soil of the footpath we were following, formed into ridges by the pounding of many feet, interspersed with puddles of ice; unresponsive, unyielding.

I cannot avoid another Castlerigg story. This dates from a year or so later, the final Mass with another group on a Friday morning, immediately prior to their departure. I was processing out of chapel at the end of Mass as the young people, bouncing with enthusiasm, belted out the final hymn. All of a sudden, a paraphrase came into my mind of Our Lord’s words about the rocky ground, as I thought “They have no root in them”. We had attempted, over the week, to sow good seed, but would it bear fruit, as these teenagers returned to a very different world? Where were the roots in today’s society which had grounded our own generation?

St. Paul perhaps points us towards an answer, as he provides his own parable of creation struggling to break free, to give birth to new life. At one level, we can see this as a warning about the destruction wrought upon creation by human beings, making new birth and even survival increasingly difficult for a wounded planet. We can also see the struggle which the growth of God’s Kingdom always entails. We labour to sow seeds, but there is so much which conspires against their growth and fruitfulness.

Yet we must not despair. Ultimately, as God reminds us elsewhere, it is God who gives the growth. Let us return to those fields around Walla Crag, wrapped in snow, producing growth invisible to us. Let us keep on sowing, and leave the fruits of our efforts to God.

14th Sunday Year A

14th Sunday 2026

Zechariah 9: 9-10; Romans 8: 9, 11-13; Matthew 11: 25-30

Yes! And Yes! But a couple of notes of caution. I have long believed that Our Lord’s words at the beginning of today’s Gospel should be inscribed in letters of gold over the door of every Christian educational establishment, and particularly of every seminary, in every country of the world.

Jesus thanks the Father for hiding the mysteries of the Kingdom from the learned and the clever; and Holy Mother Church is constantly tempted to turn those words on their heads. Who have always been the backbone of the Church in this country and, I suspect, everywhere? Surely, it is the ordinary folk in the pews: Joe and Joanna Soap. It has been your Dad and my Dad, who joined the KSC or the SVP, who broke up or transported and sold salvage, to help pay for the building of the new church: your Mum and my Mum who knitted and baked for the parish fair. Yet, over the years, these people have been neglected and despised, as we have become increasingly the chattering Church of the chattering classes; and now their descendants have increasingly been lost to the Church.

My own particular bugbear has always been the seminaries. My own time in the seminary was one of the happiest periods of my life, but even then it troubled me that the less academically gifted students were often left to sink or swim; and some who would have made excellent priests sank. They were not thrown out, but left of their own accord, overwhelmed by the difficulties of an over-academically biased timetable.

One situation stays vividly in my mind. After I had been ordained, and spent a year on the Junior Seminary staff, Steve arrived for Sixth Form. His education to that point had been rudimentary, but by careful guidance, and the benefit of three years in the Sixth Form, we helped him to gain two A-Levels, and I was more than happy to see him proceed to the Senior Seminary.

A few months into the new academic year, I took a football team from the Sixth Form to play the Senior Seminary. I checked up on our former Sixth Formers, bumping into Steve in the ambulacrum (corridor).

“Hello, Steve! How’s it going?”

“Not very well, Father, I’m afraid. I am really struggling with the studies.”

I hotfooted it to the President’s (Rector’s) room. “Oy! What’s happening to Steve?”

“Oh, he’s hopeless!”

“He’s got two A-levels!”

 “I don’t know where he got them from!”

Not long afterwards, Steve left: a potentially fine priest lost because of the seminary’s obsession with academia. (Of course, the Church is not alone in this obsession: nursing is now a profession which, in its attitude to training, appears equally one-eyed.)

Now for the first note of caution. I am not for one moment suggesting that academic studies don’t matter. We need our scholars and our theologians, but when academic prowess is prized above pastoral sensitivity and above prayerful openness to God, we ae pursuing a non-Christlike path.

My other “Yes” goes to the final stages of today’s Gospel. “Come to me, all who labour and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest.” That is what we look for from Christ. Furthermore, it is what we look for from priests and religious. Suffering people do not need from their priests a learned discourse on the distinction between Pelagianism and Gnosticism: they need a listening ear and a loving heart, a heart which shares in the compassion of Christ, and of the Heart of Christ, the Sacred Heart.

“I am gentle and lowly in Heart” Jesus goes on to say, “and you will find rest for your souls”. That is what we long to receive from Him. How will we receive it? We should receive it through our prayer and through the Church, which is why Popes John XXIII and Francis have been the best loved of the recent successors of Peter. If people do not find that consolation in the Church, then the Church, for all its theological acumen, is failing in its task. Pope Francis described the Church as a field hospital, because it should be “binding up hearts that are broken” and thus drawing people to the wounded Heart of Christ.

Finally, my second note of caution. Jesus ends by saying “My yoke is easy and my burden light”. In the long term, we may say “yes” to that, but we cannot deny that, in the short term, many people find that yoke far from easy, that burden painfully heavy, and they need a loving Church, including sensitively loving priests, to help them through.

Saints Peter and Paul Year A

Sts. Peter and Paul 2026

Acts 12: 1-11; 2Tim 4:6-8, 17-18; Matthew 16:13-19

A quarter of a century or so ago, I recall a very gifted Christian mime artist presenting in word, but more particularly in gesture, the story of St. Paul to a group of schoolchildren. Referring to Paul’s former career as a persecutor of Christians, he commented “Until he was converted, Paul wasn’t really a very nice person”.

It took a huge amount of self-discipline on my part not to interject “Are you suggesting that, after his conversion, he WAS a nice person?” I suggest that even Paul’s greatest admirers would struggle with that. He puts me in mind of the true story of a Lancashire widow watching the efforts of the undertaker’s men struggling to lower her husband’s coffin with dignity and decorum into a grave whose dimensions were not quite accurate.

As they huffed and puffed, the bereaved lady was heard to exclaim “Tha always were an awkward bugger!” I can’t help feeling that this would make an ideal epitaph for St. Paul.

A plaster saint he definitely was not—few, if any, are! They are men and women of flesh and blood, partly shaped, as are the rest of us, by heredity and environment. Again, like the rest of us, they have particular temperaments, in which the strengths and weaknesses are mirror images of each other.

Effectively, Paul was the same person after his conversion as he was before. He threw off his bloodthirstiness, but in all other essentials he remained the same. The drivenness which fired his enthusiasm as a persecutor of the Church, gave him the strength to become the greatest missionary of all time. His single mindedness which had carried him before his conversion, continued to motivate him afterwards. Without it, and without the impatient intolerance which accompanied it, he could never have spread the Gospel throughout the Mediterranean world, or inspired others, in later ages, to carry his work still further.

This made him a difficult companion, if not an impossible one. He fell out with practically all those who travelled with him, including his mentor Barnabas, the unsung hero of the Pauline story, who had smoothed Paul’s route into acceptance by the Church, and who had been the leader of what is often known as “Paul’s First Missionary Journey”, a misnomer as egregious as the “Matthews Final” of 1953, of which the true hero was Stan Mortensen, later of Lancaster City, who scored three of his victorious Blackpool side’s four goals.

Paul’s arrogantly slighting reference in the Letter to the Galatians to the leaders of the Church as “Those who seem to be something” coupled with his Uriah Heep-like claims not to boast, strikes a discordant note, whilst his self-congratulatory narration of his public humiliation of Peter directly contradicts Our Lord’s command to deal with disputes in private. Against these we must set his awe-inspiring description of love in chapter thirteen of his First Letter to the Corinthians, and his deeply reverent explanation of the Eucharist in the same letter.

Peter too had glaring faults. His was an almost unrivalled capacity for opening his mouth and putting his foot in it, as he repeatedly promised what he subsequently failed to deliver. “I would lay down my life for you”….”Bid me come to you across the water”….”I would never deny you” are claims which, initially at least, have no cash value, and in his dispute with Paul, there is no denying that Peter is at fault, regardless of Paul’s arguably greater fault.

He tends as well to be slow on the uptake. It is John, not Peter, who sees the relevance of the empty tomb, and who recognises the presence of the risen Christ on the seashore: “It is the Lord”. Likewise, Peter fails to grasp that the threefold question “Do you love me?” relates to his threefold denial of his Lord.

We have, then, two deeply flawed characters who are honoured as the foundation stones of the Church. What does that say to us? It says that God in Christ doesn’t see as we see, judge as we judge. It says that some of the greatest saints have some of the greatest faults, yet that God can turn their base metal into something more precious than gold. It tells us not to despair of our own faults, or to brag of our supposed strength. It tells us that we need the Church, with all its faults and blemishes, because, without the Church, all we have are the faults and blemishes of our own.

12th Sunday of the Year

12th Sunday 2026

Jeremiah 20: 10-13;  Romans 5: 12-15;  Matthew 10:26-37

“Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” I am afraid that I am less reassured by that statement than I used to be, when I had a luxuriant head of hair. Now, with significant gaps appearing, it will take the Lord less time and trouble than it used to, to number the hairs of my head. At least I am in a better position than one priest of this diocese who was bald at the age of nineteen. Counting his hairs will take no time at all.

Our Lord, of course, intends this statement as a reassurance. A God who has taken the trouble, not to split hairs but to count them, is not going easily to let us slip out of His hand—unless we ourselves allow that to happen. Indeed, reassurance is the hallmark of all our readings today.

That may not seem to be the case when we first look at Jeremiah. In some ways he was a forerunner of Jesus; spied on, denounced, deceived, betrayed. Yet when we reach the second half of today’s reading, we find a similar note of reassurance, of confidence.

For a long time Jeremiah was a lone voice as he prophesied the fall and destruction of Jerusalem at the end of the seventh century BC. As would happen with Jesus, the religious and civil authorities conspired against him; like Joseph son of Jacob, he found himself thrust into an empty well. Yet he was vindicated, and one of his followers, himself using the name Jeremiah, was able to proclaim the liberation of the Jewish people and the downfall of their Babylonian persecutors. Thus, we hear of trouble and suffering culminating in triumph.

Today’s psalm follows a similar pattern. The psalmist complains that everyone is against him, even his close relations. Again, we see a role as a forerunner of Our Lord. “Zeal for your house consumes me, and taunts against you fall on me.” These are words which were applied to Jesus.

At this point, it is worth asking “Do these words apply to you and me?” Do you and I burn with zeal for Our Lord? Do we suffer when Jesus and His Church are attacked? If not, why not?

Like Jeremiah, the psalmist ends by being full of hope, full of confidence in the Lord. “The poor, when they see it, will be glad, and God-seeking hearts will revive.” Again, we must question ourselves. Despite our difficulties, do we have gladness in the Lord? Do we have God-seeking hearts? Again, if not, why not?

St. Paul is even more reassuring. He refers to the fall of the human race, which he describes as Adam’s sin. Keep in mind that “Adam” means Man, or humankind. All of us have sinned, says Paul, but that sin is overwhelmed, overpowered, by the free gift of the New Human Being, the new Adam, who is Jesus the Christ. The damage done by Adam is repaired, and more than repaired, by the free gift, the grace, given to us by Jesus, if we ae willing to accept it.

From here we come to the Gospel, and Our Lord’s promise of a hair-count. “Do not fear…” He tells us, the sort of opponents whom Jeremiah and the psalmist feared. “Do not fear” He repeats, “those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul”. Then, for a third time, He insists, “Fear not”.

“Ah yes” you may reply, but He also tells us that we should fear “Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell”. True, but that fear is not to be a terrified cringing, but a healthy respect, a fear of letting God and ourselves down. It is a fear which grows out of love. You may remember the “long” Act of Contrition, in which we gave three reasons for detesting our sins; firstly, “because they deserve thy dreadful punishments” (perhaps questionable); secondly, “because they have crucified my loving Saviour, Jesus Christ”; but “most of all”—notice that “most of all”—“because they offend thine infinite goodness”. Our main reason for contrition is not fear of punishment, but fear of being ungrateful, of letting down this infinitely loving God. So, let our fear be a healthy fear, and our principal emotion be joy in the Lord.

11th Sunday Year A

11th Sunday in OT 2026

Exodus 19:2-6; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36-10:8

It’s there! My favourite word! COMPASSION. A fortnight ago, in recognition of my forthcoming Golden Jubilee, I was asked to preach at the gathering of the priests of the Lancaster Diocese to mark the Feast of Christ the High Priest.

I reflected on the qualities which I felt should be the hallmarks of a priest, beginning with the First Reading of that day, which described Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, and I recalled a Carthusian Novice Conference which I had read years before, the gist of which was that all of us have at least one Isaac which we need to sacrifice. These are excessive attachments, which can afflict any of us, whether we be priests, religious, or members of the lay faithful. Anything which threatens to draw us away from God is an Isaac, which we have to surrender to God. If we do so, however painfully, we will find liberation, and may even receive Isaac back, renewed and purified.

The Gospel described the Agony in the Garden, when Peter, James and John were unable to fulfil Jesus’ request to watch and pray. I emphasised the need for priests to be men of prayer—again, a need which everyone shares—and I warned against arrogance, a fault to which priests may be particularly prone.

There was something else which the Gospel of the Agony revealed to me, in the repeated trips which Jesus made to the three apostles. Three times He stood up from His struggle and His prayer, to make His way back to Peter, James, and John. Each time, He found them asleep, unable to cope with what was asked of them.

It struck me that Our Lord was looking for support, and for compassion, which were not to be found. That compassion is represented in today’s Gospel by the verb splangnizomai, literally “to be stirred in your entrails or bowels, to be moved in your guts, in the very depth of your being”. Jesus, we ae told, had compassion—was moved in the depth of His being—because the people were “harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd”.

In Latin, as you may be aware, the phrase which English renders as “compassion” is cum passio, literally “suffering with”. It is one of the greatest gifts which God gives us, the grace to suffer with others, to be moved in our guts by and with the sufferings of others, to walk in their shoes, to dwell in their skin.

Why do I say that? It is because God is compassionate with us. He literally took on our skin in the person of Jesus, who became one of us, suffered what we suffer, both physically and mentally, went to the limits and beyond, with us.

In my homily, I commented that a priest without compassion is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and probably many other sorts of moron as well. Again, we could say the same about any Christian. Compassion is a beautiful gift which we must use, and which we all possess, if only we realise it.

 I mentioned too that, when I was based at the Diocesan Residential Youth Centre (Castlerigg Manor) the lay staff used to claim (tongue in cheek) that I had only one homily which ran “Compassion—cum passio—suffering with”. Afterwards, Fr. Peter Sharrock, with whom had I worked there, commented that at least anyone who had been on the staff at that time knew what compassion meant.

Another word which recurs in today’s liturgy is “reconciliation”. In the Reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we find “reconciled” twice, as well as “reconciliation”. We were “reconciled to God” Paul tells us “by the death of God’s Son”. Can there be any news better than that? Sinners that we are, the Son of God, out of compassion for us, a compassion dwelling in the Father through the working of the Holy Spirit, has died for us, and has brought us back into friendship with God. As Paul writes elsewhere in the Letter to the Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God IS for us, as the death of His Son shows.

Consequently, I would like to leave you with those two words today: compassion and reconciliation. You couldn’t do better than either.

Corpus Christi Year A

Body and Blood of Christ 2026

Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14-16; 1 Cor 10:16-17; John 6: 51-58

Most of us are familiar with this feast as Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. It was relatively recently that the Blood was added to the title; the full name of the feast in Latin is now Corpus et Sanguis Christi.

I don’t remember whether the change of title coincided with the restoration of the administering of the chalice to the laity. The latter happened when I was at St. Mary’s, Morecambe, so between 1983 and 1986. Prior to that, from the time of the Second Vatican Council in the early 60s, communion under both kinds, as we call it, had been available to various communities such as religious houses. For instance, university chaplaincies tended to introduce it, and it was well established as the norm in seminaries when I began my studies for the priesthood in 1971.

The offering of the chalice to the laity was suspended during Covid, and it strikes me as a tragedy that many parishes throughout the country have not yet restored it. Many people have pestered the Bishop about it, and he has stated that he wishes it to be restored, but really it is a matter for the Bishops’ Conference, as it is a national, rather than a Diocesan issue. To persuade the Bishops as a body to move in the same direction is rather like raising the Titanic: if it happens at all, it will happen extremely slowly.

It is worth pointing out that nobody is obliged to receive from the chalice. As we know, Jesus is received whole and entire—body, blood, soul, and divinity—under either species alone, but to receive Him under both kinds, under the appearances both of bread and of wine, fulfils more plainly His commands both at the Last Supper and in chapter Six of St. John’s Gospel.

Incidentally, a decree which arrived from Rome a few years ago under the auspices of some tinpot congregation made no sense. Some quango claimed that, at a concelebration, if the priests have received the sacred hosts in their places, they should genuflect when approaching the altar to receive from the chalice. My Dad knew better than that.

After I had become an altar boy, the first time that I subsequently went into the congregation, I genuflected after communion before entering the bench. “No, you don’t do that,” said my father kindly but firmly. “When you have received Communion, you have Jesus inside you. You are a walking tabernacle.” A Lancashire shopkeeper had a better understanding of the Eucharist than Roman redhats.

Enough criticism! To receive Jesus, whether under the appearances of bread alone, or under the appearances of both bread and wine, is something awesome, something beyond human understanding. It lifts us beyond the limits of this world into an intimate relationship with the Son of God, and consequently with the other members of the Blessed Trinity.

Kate was an old lady in the parish of St. Mary’s Morecambe when I was there. She once told me that, after receiving communion, she would say to Jesus “I’ve got you now. You can’t get away from me”. She was right. Our Lord Himself says “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides (or “remains”) in me, and I in them”. It is the high point of our encounter with God, the deepest form of our union with Him. It is the meeting point of us mortals with the loving God.

Some of you will remember the days of early morning Mass when, as an altar server, you had to check if anyone was approaching the altar before Mass began. If they were, you began the Confiteor, because these were people on their way to work. They hadn’t time to stay for Mass, but they longed to have Jesus within them at the beginning of the working day. Bear in mind that they would have gone without breakfast, because fasting before Communion was from midnight, until changed by Pius XII to three hours before Communion, and subsequently to one hour. Even more strikingly, it was for the sake of their faith in the Body and Blood of Christ that the English Martyrs died. Let us, their descendants, value that Body and Blood as they did.

Trinity Sunday

Trinity Sunday 2026

Exodus 34: 4-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-14; John 3: 16-18

When I have attended ecumenical gatherings, I have generally found that they ended with that final verse of today’s Second Reading: “the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”. Non-Catholic Christians tend to refer to it as “the grace” and it is as familiar to them as the Sign of the Cross is to us—though many Anglicans and others now use the Sign of the Cross also, as do, invariably, the Eastern Orthodox.

The “grace” is also available to us as an alternative to “The Lord be with you” though the Missal translates koinonia as “communion” rather than “fellowship”. Both translations are correct: “fellowship” is a hallmark word among Methodists, whilst “communion” brings perhaps a more spiritual element. You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

Both the grace and the Sign of the Cross to begin or end prayer remind us that our faith is always Trinitarian, that as Christians we believe that God is three persons in one Godhead, or, to put it the other way round, one God in three persons. Each person of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Hoy Spirit—is God, yet they are not three gods, but three aspects, disseminations, if you like, of the one God; three unique and distinct ways in which God IS, and reveals God’s self.

In speaking of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we are using human terms, the only terms we have, to describe a mystery which is beyond description. Whatever we say will always fall short of the reality.

To simplify things, we can say that, in general, we pray TO the Father, THROUGH the Son, IN THE POWER OF the Holy Spirit; yet we also pray to the persons of the Trinity individually. Jesus—God the Son become man—taught us to say “Our Father”, yet we also pray “Jesus have mercy on us” and “Come Holy Spirit”. Our liturgical (official) prayer is addressed to the Father “through Our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever”.

Rather than agonise over the nature of the Trinity, it is best that we continue our Trinitarian prayer, always remembering those words in today’s Gospel, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son—begotten, that is, by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is infinitely loving, the overflowing love within the Godhead being huge enough to be conveyed to us by the Father’s sending of the Son, who was made one of us by the power of the Holy Spirit. That love we need to show to God in return, and to share with God’s people and God’s creation.

Pentecost 2026

PENTECOST 2026

Acts 2:1-11; 1Cor 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23

I suspect that you need the gift of tongues to negotiate that list of nations in the First Reading. I recall that, when I was based at the Diocesan Youth Centre (Castlerigg Manor) a 15/16 year old lad received a spontaneous round of applause for completing the reading faultlessly. (Incidentally, although that seems like yesterday, that lad will now be in his fifties, a reminder of how time passes, and an encouragement to live every moment fully.) Meanwhile, St. Paul emphasises the unity of the baptised in the one Body of Christ.

Then we come to THAT Gospel! Why, why, why, do we use it today, even though it describes an event on Easter Sunday evening? I mentioned last week the confusion to which, I suspect, it contributes.

It is, in fact, obvious why it is used today: it refers to a different way in which the Spirit may be given. The Pentecost event is spectacular, and the Easter Sunday evening and Pentecost episodes respectively reverse and confirm the experience of the prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb.

You may remember what happened to Elijah. It is related in the First Book of Kings, chapter 19, verses 9 to 18. Elijah spent the night in a cave on the mountain, but was then summoned by God to appear before Him on the mountainside. Then, we are told, “the Lord Himself went by”. There were an earthquake, a mighty wind, and a fire, but the Lord was not in any of them. Instead, He spoke to Elijah in the “still, small voice” of a gentle breeze.

All of this is repeated and, we might suggest, reversed at Pentecost, not on a mountain, but in the Upper Room. There is a “sound like a mighty rushing wind which filled the entire house” recalling the wind and earthquake of Elijah’s experience. Then come the “divided tongues, as of fire” reminding us of Elijah’s fire. Yet it seems that now God IS in the wind and fire, because it is as the tongues of fire come down on the inhabitants of the room that they are filled by the Holy Spirit.

The giving of the Spirit is spectacular, and the results equally so, with a form of spontaneous translation transforming the speech of the apostles. Some people, including Pentecostals and members of the Charismatic Renewal, claim to receive the Holy Spirit in a similar manner today. I do not have sufficient experience of those movements to be able to comment, other than to say that what is claimed as the gift of tongues doesn’t appear to be intelligible to anyone.

It is certainly exuberant. Perhaps that is my problem: I recall throwing my school cap in the air at the Giant Axe as the ninth goal went into the Prescot net in December 1962, but in general I am not prone to exuberance. Indeed, I have a degree of sympathy with the priest, now deceased, from the Shrewsbury Diocese who found himself in a Charismatic gathering in New York. As a rather buxom lady descended on him with a view to enfolding him in an embrace, he cried out “Oh no!. Please don’t! I’m British!” Still more am I in agreement with the early Church Father who claimed that the Gift of Tongues was fulfilled in his day—and hence in ours—by the preaching of the Gospel  throughout the world in all the languages into which it had been translated, of which there are many more today.

As for today’s Gospel, it presents us with the bestowal of the Spirit in a much gentler form, which resembles more closely the gentle breeze or the “still small voice” through which God spoke to Elijah. On Easter Sunday evening, the Risen Christ breathed on the apostles with the words “Receive the Holy Spirit”.

Clearly, then, the Sprit may be given to us in different ways, as St. Paul points out to the Christians of Corinth. Essentially though, we receive the Spirit through our Baptism—also, as a result of the unfortunate separation of Confirmation from Baptism—at our Confirmation. What matters is that we have received the Spirit, and that we continue to respond to the Spirit’s guidance and promptings within the one Body which is the Church, fed by the one Body which is the Eucharist, without which we starve.

7th Sunday of Easter

7th Sunday of Easter 2026

Acts 1:12-14; 1Peter 4:13-16; John 17:1-11a

Five things strike me about today’s Readings. They are a misunderstanding, two corrections, an encouragement arising out of a warning, and a location.

Firstly, the misunderstanding: what mood were the disciples in when they returned to the Upper Room after the Ascension? This is one of my bugbears: I return to it every year, but often feel that I am swimming against the tide. The answer is that they were joyful, and they were focused. On what were they focused? They were focused on prayer, as they prepared for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

What were they not? They were not cowering in fear. Luke in his Gospel, which we don’t read this year, reports that “They went back to Jerusalem full of joy; and they were continually in the Temple praising God.”

Why, then, do people try to tell you that the disciples were afraid until Pentecost? It is because, at Pentecost, we use a Gospel passage which relates, not to that day, but to Easter Sunday, when they were indeed afraid, but they received a visit from the Risen Christ. I do wish they wouldn’t use that Gospel at Pentecost. I understand why they do, because it recounts the giving of the Holy Spirit through the breath of Christ, but it has given rise to so much misunderstanding, so much confusion.

Right, that’s the misunderstanding: what about the corrections? They come at the end of the First reading. The Jerusalem Bible, to which we became accustomed over more than fifty years, related that, in the Upper Room, the disciples “joined in continuous prayer”. Well, they may have done, but that’s not what the original Greek says. The word is homothumadon, which means “with one heart” or, as the new translation correctly puts it, “with one accord”.

The second correction is much more serious, because it relates to the role of Our Lady. The Jerusalem Bible talked about “several women, INCLUDING Mary, the Mother of Jesus”, thus lumping Our Lady in among the other women. This is a ghastly howler. The original Greek says “women AND Mary, the Mother of Jesus”, again correctly translated now, putting Our Lady in a category of her own, which of course she was, having been filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of her own Immaculate Conception in her own mother’s womb.

We have, then, the disciples, assisted by the Spirit-filled Mary, unafraid and praying with one accord for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We should be doing the same, including seeking Our Lady’s help.

What about the encouragement arising out of a warning? That comes in the Second Reading, which is from the First Letter of St. Peter. We are warned that we shall share in Christ’s sufferings, but we are told to rejoice, because it means that we have the Spirit of glory and of God resting on us. In the sporting world, there is a saying “no pain, no gain”: this is the spiritual equivalent.

Finally, the location: this relates to the Gospel, which is taken from what is known as “the High Priestly prayer of Jesus” and located by John within the context of the Last Supper. In it, Jesus who, as the true High Priest, is about to offer the supreme sacrifice of His own life, prays for us, and dedicates us to the Father. We belong, He tells us, both to the Son and to the Father. Over all, that means that we have both the gift and the responsibility of praying for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, the world, and the whole of creation.

6th Sunday of Easter

6th Sunday of Easter 2026

Acts 8: 5-8,14-17; 1Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21

Were you good at Maths? I had no real aptitude for the subject, but being an awkward so-and-so, I slogged away at it, spending literally hours over my Maths homework, and finally managing a Grade 1 at O-level. (I should point out that, in those days, grades went down from 1 to nine, rather than the other way round, so Grade 1 was the top grade, which made me more chuffed than all my other grades put together. About the recent proposal that everyone should study Maths till the age of 18, I can only say “Stark raving lunacy!”)

My best subject was Latin, which, oddly, bears a certain resemblance to Maths, as they both follow a strict set of rules. That makes them different from life, which constantly flouts the rules, or ignores them, confusing us, driving us barmy, flattening us for a shorter or longer interlude.

I mention Maths because much of today’s Gospel reminds me of a mathematical equation—or do I mean a syllogism? Never mind: it reminds me of something. Our Lord begins “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” and after pursuing His argument, He concludes “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me”. If X then Y: X, therefore Y.

All Jesus’ words in between are tightly packed. They deal with the Holy Spirit, who WILL come, but who HAS already come. While promising that the Father will give the Holy Spirit, Jesus also uses the present tense in speaking of the Holy Spirit: “He/It dwells with you”. (Incidentally, the English translation speaks of the Spirit as “He” but the Greek from which the English is drawn uses the neuter—to pneuma—the Holy Spirit has no gender.) We cannot tie the Holy Spirit down by tense or gender: as Jesus says elsewhere, the Holy Spirit is like the wind which blows where it will, and, we might add, when it will.

If I were to ask you, “When was the Spirit given to the apostles?” you might reply “at Pentecost”, and you would be correct, but only partly so. What about Easter Sunday evening, when the Risen Christ appeared to the apostles in the Upper Room, breathed on them, and said “Receive the Holy Spirit”?

“Ah” you might now say, “so the Spirit WAS given at Pentecost, but was first given on Easter Sunday evening”. Well, not exactly. Today’s Gospel is taken from Our Lord’s words at the Last Supper, before both Easter and Pentecost, yet He says to the apostles, on the subject of the Holy Spirit “He/It dwells with you”. Even before these two occasions, the Spirit is with the apostles, simply because He is the Spirit. He blows where He will, and isn’t bound by any laws, whether of Maths or of Latin.

We tend to think that we received the Spirit at our Baptism and at our Confirmation, and we are right, but the Holy Spirit isn’t limited to the sacraments. The Samaritans of today’s First Reading must have been led by the Spirit to seek Baptism, even before Peter and John lay hands on them, effectively confirming them.

Back we come then to Our Lord’s opening and closing words “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. What are the Lord’s commandments? Remember how Jesus summed up all the commandments under the heading of the first two: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and your neighbour as yourself”.

If we keep these commandments of love, then by definition we are loving the Lord; we are being inspired by the Holy Spirit. Our ability to do this comes from God’s love for us, and leads to God’s love for us. As Our Lord goes on to say, “Anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love them and show myself to them”. Is this a circle or a spiral, as God’s love for us enables us to love Him, which causes Him to love us, and to dwell within us, causing us to love Him more, and so on.

Finally, what does Jesus mean by saying “I shall show myself to them”? Perhaps it means that He will make us more conscious of His presence, which is always with us. He will help us to see Him in our neighbour, to be more aware that He is present in our times of prayer, to recognise His activity in the events of our lives, to be conscious of Him when He seems to be absent, when our prayer is dry and without consolations, when we are called by Him to the Garden of the Agony or to the Cross. We may even find Him in the rules of Mathematics or of Latin, but we can guarantee that He will break the rules.

5th Sunday of Easter

5th Sunday of Easter 2026

Acts 6: 1-7; 1 Peter 2: 4-9; John 14: 1-12

Philip said “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us” (or “we shall be satisfied”). No, it isn’t, Philip, and we shall never be satisfied because the desires of the human heart are insatiable this side of eternity. Whatever we have, we shall always want more. St. Augustine famously wrote “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you”. That is true, but it is unlikely (impossible?) that this rest will be found completely in this life. Our hearts will not rest until we have seen Christ face to face, and that won’t happen this side of the grave.

Will it happen after death? Yes, we have Jesus’ word for it. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I shall return to take you to myself.” This is the passage chosen most often by mourners when preparing the funeral of a loved one. This choice is an expression of our restlessness, of that desire for the rest in God which Our Lord promises, and of our faith in that promise.

Does that mean that we are always going to be dissatisfied, unhappy, in this life? Not at all. To be unsatisfied, and to be dissatisfied, are not necessarily the same thing. To be dissatisfied is to be negative, a grumbler, a misery guts, a serial complainer. You may have read “The Chronicles of Narnia” by CS Lewis. If so, you will have met the dwarves, who are chronic grumblers.

Everything is wrong for them: they can see nothing good in anything or anybody. This attitude becomes so strong that, eventually, they become incapable of recognising goodness. They are sitting in the sun. amid the most glorious scenery, sharing a banquet of the finest food and drink, yet they are convinced that they are cooped up in a dank and dirty dungeon, and being fed straw. They are so conditioned to grumbling that they have created hell for themselves; they have become so determined to be miserable, that they can no longer do anything else.

Do you know any perpetual grumblers? Do you recognise anything of the sort in yourself? I can certainly see it at times in me. It is an easy habit to get into, but it is a destructive habit, and we must break it if we are truly to encounter God, because negativity is incompatible with God.

This doesn’t mean that we should settle for injustice, with unfair conditions for ourselves or others. Rather than sit around grumbling, though, we should take steps to improve matters. Allegedly, it was a nineteenth century English Methodist minister named William Watkinson who first used the expression “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”—in other words, don’t grumble: do something.

What about being “unsatisfied” though? That is the human condition, implanted in our nature by God.  Consciously or not, we have an instinct telling us that we were created for more than this life can offer. We were created for life with God, and until we reach that we cannot and should not be satisfied.

We should be happy; we should be filled with joy. Recall Jesus’ words in last week’s Gospel: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”. We should recognise, here and now, the gifts which God has given us, and we should enjoy them. We were not created to be miserable, even if this world is, at times, a vale of tears, as we proclaim in the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen), and we should rejoice even more in the promise of final satisfaction, of eternal joy, and we should strive towards it.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you. Let that restlessness drive us on to seek actively to build the Kingdom of God, let it move us to oppose injustice, let it enable us to enjoy God’s gifts here and now, and let it preserve us from negativity and from grumbling.

(And let it encourage Sir Mick Jagger not to give up hope.)

4th Sunday of Easter

4th Sunday of Easter 2026

Acts 2:14, 36-41; 1 Peter 2:20-25; John 10:1-10

Gervase Phinn, the teacher and school Inspector turned author, tells a cautionary tale about a young teacher arriving in a rural primary school. Anxious to impress with some visual teaching, the young man shows his class picture of a sheep.

“What’s that?” he asks. One lad puts his hand up. “Well” he replies, “It looks a bit like a Herdwick, but the face is the wrong shape”. The moral of that story is “Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs” or, to be more precise, “Don’t talk about things your audience understands better than you”.

I spent eight and a half years in a rural parish, and was careful not to claim any imaginary knowledge about farming. After Mass on my first Easter Sunday in the parish, I discovered that even a lamb may have more wisdom than I do. I was speaking to parishioners outside church when I spotted a lamb which had escaped from a field directly across the road, but was now bleating plaintively as it sought a way back.

Springing into action, a non-farming parishioner and I took our places on either side of the refugee, with a view to closing in and coaxing it back through the gap in the fence. Immediately, it set off at a great rate of knots, sped through my legs, and hurtled along the grass verge before slipping back through a different gap altogether, and trotting back to its mother, looking back at us with a self-satisfied smirk. I cannot assert positively that it winked, but I wouldn’t have been surprised.

My other close encounters with sheep have been on the fells. Both in the Lake District and in Derbyshire, I have accompanied groups of schoolchildren. When the latter have sat down to eat their sandwiches, they have been ambushed by sheep which have clambered over them in an attempt to snatch the aforementioned butties from their hands. You can’t even rely on sheep to be timid.

Jesus, on the other hand, had as much experience of sheep as did His hearers. Although His own trade was carpentry, He would probably have mucked in with the rest of the village when the local farmers needed a hand. His disciples and potential disciples would also have been familiar with talk about sheep and shepherds.

They would have recognised the need, in the countryside of Palestine, for sheep to be protected from both wild animals and rustlers. Seemingly, in that time and place, a shepherd would lie down across the entrance to the sheepfold to form a door, deterring both human and animal predators—or, if not, sacrificing his life in his attempt to save the sheep.

Pope Francis used to stress the need for present day pastors of Christ’s human flock—the Church—to “live with smell of the sheep”. Conversely, it seems from the parable of the shepherd as the door of the sheepfold, that the sheep live with the smell of the shepherd. Whilst the wolf is warned off by the human scent, the sheep, being familiar with it, “go in and out and find pasture”, hopping comfortably in and out over the prone body of the shepherd.

Familiarity between sheep and shepherd is paramount. The sheep recognise the shepherd’s voice: the shepherd knows every sheep by name. What are the implications for us? All of us are sheep of the Lord’s flock: how well do we know the shepherd? Do we recognise Him from time spent in prayer, and therefore do we find Him in the events of our lives? In our prayer, do we leave time and space for Him to speak to us, or is our prayer a monologue, blocking out the voice of the Good Shepherd? In particular, are priests, whom we might designate as deputy shepherds, on close speaking terms with the Good Shepherd, Jesus the Lord?

Speaking of familiarity, in that rural parish which I mentioned, there was a lovely elderly lady who was a powerhouse of prayer. One day, during the Forty Hours devotion, she told me a story.

“Helen and I came into church,” she said, “and Helen stumbled and hit her face on the bench. I said to Jesus ‘You’re naughty. We come to pray, and you let that happen to Helen’”. I half expected her to say “If it happens again, I’ll tell your Mother”.

One last point. It is more difficult now for priests, with larger areas to cover, to know all the sheep by name, but we must be familiar with as many as possible, and always available to all. There is no excuse for lording it over people. That is not the way of the Good Shepherd: it must not be our way either.

3rd Sunday of Easter

3rd Sunday of Easter 2026

Acts 2:14, 22-23; 1Peter 1, 17-21; Luke 24: 13-25

When this passage was read on Easter Thursday, I invited people to reflect on when the first Mass was celebrated. Our instinct might be to reply “At the Last Supper” which is partially true, but doesn’t tell the whole story.

Certainly, at the Supper, there was a Liturgy of the Word, the first part of the Mass, with scripture readings telling of the Passover and Exodus, and the singing of psalms; and a Liturgy of the Eucharist, as Jesus consecrated the bread and wine of the Passover meal, thus making them His Body and Blood. What then was the difference between the Last Supper and Mass?

Crucially, if you will pardon the pun, at the Last Supper, Jesus had not yet entered into His Passion. He had not yet given up His life on the Cross; He had not yet risen from the dead. These are elements at the heart of the Mass, which makes present for us today the whole of Christ’s sacrifice, His self-offering to the Father, culminating in His Death and Resurrection.

I would therefore say that the first Mass BEGAN at the Last Supper, but CONTINUED in the Garden of the Agony, in the High Priest’s palace, in the residences of Pilate and Herod Junior; REACHED ITS CLIMAX on Calvary; and WAS FULFILLED in the Resurrection. This whole sequence of events formed Christ’s sacrifice, that once-and-for-all self-offering, which is made present for us IN ITS ENTIRETY every time Mass is celebrated.

What we are celebrating now brings together all these aspects of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, beginning in the Upper Room and reaching its conclusion at the Empty Tomb. Hence, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council (1962-5) defined the Mass (the Eucharist) as “the source and summit of the Christian life”.

Perhaps we shouldn’t speak at all of the First Mass, the Second Mass, and so on because the Mass is always one with the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, bringing that sacrifice to the here and now. However, as celebrations of the Mass are separated in time, we may perhaps legitimately ask when Mass was celebrated for the second time, to which the answer would be “in the passage we have heard today, on the road to, and in the house at, Emmaus”.

It's all there, isn’t it? We have the Liturgy of the Word, when Jesus recalls the Books of the Law and the Prophets, and “interprets to [the disciples] in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself”.

Then we have the second part of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, as He takes, blesses, breaks and gives the Bread of the Eucharist, opening their eyes to recognise Him, and “vanishing from their sight” as He is now present in His Body and Blood. When they have received Christ under the appearances of bread (and, presumably, wine) they leave to tell what they have experienced in word (“what had happened on the road”) and sacrament (“how He was known to them in the breaking of the Bread”) just as we are sent out at the end of Mass to proclaim what we have experienced. Indeed, the Mass takes its name from the sending out: “Ite, (ecclesia) missa est”.

One other thing strikes me. The stranger who speaks to them proves to be the Christ. Is that not also the case for us? “Whatever you did to the least of mine YOU DID TO ME.” Christ is always present in the stranger, and especially in the gathering of His people, when the Community, along with the Priest, the Word, and the Sacrament, is one of the four ways in which Christ is present in the Mass. In conclusion, we can never exhaust the mystery of the Mass, the “source and centre” of our Christian lives.

2nd Sunday of Easter

2nd Sunday of Easter 2026

Acts 2:42-47; 1Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

Why is today called Low Sunday? Admittedly, it lacks the razzamataz of last Sunday, but it is still part of the Easter Octave, those eight days which are treated as one, the single day of Resurrection, because Christ is risen, and will always be risen. St. Paul told us at the Easter Vigil that Christ will not die again, that “death has no power over Him any more”. He is risen, and lives for ever and for all eternity. He is risen, and He lives for us.

That is why, after this Easter Octave, of which today is the conclusion, the Easter season continues right through until Pentecost. If you were to be asked to name the longest season of the Church’s year, you might think of Lent, but it isn’t, even though it may seem to last for ever. Eastertide is longer than Lent, the season of joy longer than the season of penitence. There is a sense in which it is always Easter.

Pope St. John Paul II was fond of declaring that “we are the Easter People, and Alleluia is our song”. Yes, there will always be need for penitence, and there will be times of suffering—we are the Ash Wednesday people, the Holy Thursday night people, the Good Friday people; indeed, the Advent people and the Christmas people--but ultimately, the Easter people is our final state.

Why? Because Christ is risen for us, and He wishes to leave us in no doubt. Hence, His interaction with Thomas: “Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand and place it in my side”. This wasn’t an attempt to humiliate or embarrass Thomas, as the schoolmasters of our youth used to humiliate and embarrass errant schoolboys, so that the latter would see the error of their ways, admit their failings, and decline the offered demonstration.

The Risen Christ’s offer is genuine. He really wants Thomas to touch and feel for himself, in order that Thomas, representing us, may be left in no doubt.

There is something else which the Risen Jesus wants, in insisting on this demonstration. He wants the Church to take a great leap forward in faith and understanding. “My Lord and my God” responds Thomas, the first unambiguous declaration of the divinity of Christ. The title “Lord” may itself express a belief in that divinity, but the second part of that statement leaves no room for doubt: what “my Lord” implies, “my God” makes explicit. This man, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is none other than God, the God of the Fathers and Mothers, the God of the Hebrews, the one only true and living God.

As an expression of the faith of the Church, this is unequalled. Nor does Jesus leave it there. It is a statement for all of us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”. Blessed are you and I, and all believers throughout the ages, because we ae those who have not seen, and yet believe.

This blessing is reinforced in our First Reading, from the First Letter of St. Peter. “Not seeing Him, you love Him. Still not seeing Him, yet believing, you rejoice with an inexpressible yet glorious joy, carrying off as a prize the result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

This weekend’s celebration may indeed be less spectacular than last’s. The paschal candle is already alight: it is not lighted from the paschal fire, or carried in procession. There is no Exsultet, no renewal of Baptismal promises. Yet still we sing “Alleluia”; still we rejoice in the Resurrection; still, though seeing through a glass darkly, as St. Paul put it, we believe and, believing, are filled with joy.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday 2026

Acts 10: 37-43; Colossians 3: 1-4; John 20: 1-9

There is a trio at the Tomb: not Peter, Paul, and Mary singing sad folk songs, but Peter, John, and Mary, running, wondering, searching. Mary Magdalene arrives first, while it is still dark, says the Fourth Evangelist, not merely the darkness of night, but the darkness of lack of understanding, the darkness of incomprehension.

We need to give the Magdalene more attention than she has often received. She is the first to see the empty tomb; the first to take the news to the apostles. Later, she will be the first, with the possible exception of Our Lady, to meet the Risen Christ, and to carry that news to the apostles. Mary Magdalene is the apostle to the apostles, and the Church still has work to do in unravelling the implications of that.

Who are the other two? They are Peter, the flawed leader, the one who has wept bitterly after thrice denying his Lord. His successors, the Popes, have been and will always be flawed leaders in their turn, infallible when defining, ex cathedra, doctrines concerning faith or morals, but, like the rest of humankind, earthen vessels carrying the treasure of the faith. We have seen great Popes in our lifetime, and his pronouncements, especially concerning war and peace, indicate that we have a great Pope now, but he still stands in need of our prayers, because of the enormous responsibility which he carries, a responsibility for all of humankind and for all of creation.

The third is the Beloved Disciple whom, for the sake of argument, we identify with John the son of Zebedee. He is the contemplative, the loving follower, and, whilst always deferential to Peter, the leader, he provides the depth of insight which, like sound leadership, is also essential to the life of the Church.

What does this trio see? So far, nothing but signs and pointers. The body, of which they have come in search, is not there. Grave cloths and the face covering, are there: the latter carefully folded, at one side—have theologians pondered why that should be? They find a mystery worthy of any detective, fictional or real.

Yet something more than detective skill is required of our questing trio, and that something is faith combined with insight. The first for whom the shekel drops is John, the contemplative, the beloved, who presumably passes on that insight to Peter the leader. John, joining the clues to his faith, realises that this is the fulfilment of the promises: not only the promises given by Jesus, but also the promises of the prophets and of the entire Scriptures, the completion of the vision which he, Peter, and James had received on Mt. Tabor, but which had failed to sustain them in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Here, the trio are blessed: they have not seen yet, but they are beginning to believe. Soon, that faith  will be rewarded, first for Mary Magdalene, subsequently for the apostles, who will hear, see, and touch the Risen Christ.

What about us? That daily, crucial question, if you will pardon the pun. Still, for us, there are only the clues, the pointers—and the insights of faith. Only in eternity will we see, hear, and touch the Risen Christ. Or will we? Do we not already see Him? Do we not already see Him in His Body—that Body which is the Eucharist? that Body which is the Church? Do we not touch Him in the Eucharist and in the Church? Do we not hear Him in the Scriptures proclaimed to us?

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” the Risen Christ will say to Thomas. We have not seen the fulfilment, but we have seen enough to know and to proclaim “Christ is risen”: He is risen indeed, ALLELUIA!

Easter Vigil 2026

Easter Vigil 2026

The rubrics tell us that, however short it may be, the homily must not be omitted tonight. We have traced salvation history from creation right through to the Resurrection; we have rejoiced in the gifts of warmth and light; and, via St. Paul, we have seen the link between the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Lord, and our own baptism. Soon, we shall renew our baptismal promises, and make present Christ’s sacrifice in the mystery of the Eucharist. This is the greatest night of the year: it even knocks Christmas into a cocked hat.

In 2017, I celebrated the Easter Triduum at St. Joseph’s, Ansdell, and shortly before the Vigil, I nipped up the pulpit steps for a final look at the Gospel, having already composed mentally a short homily. My re-reading of the Gospel caused me to scrap that homily, and instantly formulate another, because I was struck forcibly by one statement which I hadn’t really noticed before: “and behold, Jesus met them”.

These women had been given the Good News by the angel, but initially they had only the angel’s word for it all. Then, suddenly, BANG! There is Jesus Himself meeting them. Any remaining doubts are scattered. Christ is risen, and is meeting them in the flesh.

What about us? We too have received the Good News, but Jesus hasn’t come to meet us—or has He? We do not yet see Him in His risen body, and to that extent we are dependent on faith, but is it true that He hasn’t met us?

Surely we have met Him in the gathering of His people—our fellow members of His body. Did not our hearts, like those of the Emmaus disciples, “burn within us” as we encountered Him in the Sacred Scriptures? And will He not meet us in His Body and Blood as we receive Him in the context of His paschal sacrifice? “Behold, Jesus met them.” Does He not come to meet us? By heck, He does!

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday 2026

Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Cor 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

You may recall that Pope Francis, instead of washing the feet of cardinals, as was customary on Holy Thursday, went into a prison, and washed the feet of inmates, including a young Muslim woman. This gave rise to shock and horror among liturgical rigorists, who raised a cry that he wasn’t allowed to do this, as the rubrics—the instructions printed in red in the Missal—specified that it was VIRI who were to be washed, in other words MEN in the literal sense of that word, namely adult males.

I suspect that they were offended also that prisoners, and especially a Muslim woman, should be chosen to represent the apostles. I must confess to having been blissfully unaware that the rubrics specified VIRI, and in various parishes had been happily washing the feet of both sexes, as I suspect had most priests. Apart from other considerations, it tends to be far easier to find female than male volunteers.

Needless to say, Pope Francis was not deterred by the complaints, and to satisfy the rigorists he simply changed the rubrics, replacing VIRI with HOMINES, “human beings” regardless of gender.

It probably goes without saying that there was more than a disregard for rubrics behind the Pope’s choice of venue and “washees” if such a word exists, as there was behind the complaints. He was making a point about the nature and role of the Church. Throughout his papacy, Francis was fond of repeating “TODOS TODOS” –“All, All!” insisting that the Church is a field hospital, another of his favourite expressions, for everyone.

I have described many times my experience at the Holy Thursday evening Mass in 1988, when I was based at the Diocesan Residential Youth Centre, and was confronted by a Peter with the dirtiest foot I have ever seen in my life; and how my attempts to keep a straight face while pronouncing “though not all of you are clean” ended in a collapse into a Brian Johnston-like falsetto scream. On reflection, I was later able to use that event as material for a homily, suggesting that, as the Church, we should be “the people of mucky feet”, mucky from treading in the less salubrious places, walking where the less respectable people are to be found.

Several years later, I was well chuffed to find Pope Francis saying the same thing in different terms, and practising what he preached. Another of his favourite sayings was that “pastors should live with the smell of the sheep”, something which he himself had carried out by abandoning the Archbishop’s Palace in Buenos Aires, and travelling to work on the bus.

Incidentally, the use of public transport is something which I would recommend to the parish clergy. It was forced on me by financial considerations and by an awareness of a reduced spatial awareness when driving, but apart from environmental considerations, it has increased my contacts with people at large, outside the confines of a car.

There is another consideration. The reduction in the number of priests means that, inevitably, they are less familiar with the people of their two or three parishes than in the days when they had a “District” within a parish which they would visit regularly, even if only to distribute tickets for the Christmas draw, a mission which drew our parish priest annually to our door. (The late and holy Bishop Foley had two definitions of a practising Catholic—the stern one being “Someone who goes to church on Good Friday”; the lax one being “Someone who buys a ticket for the Christmas draw”.)

What are some of the implications of the changed situation? Does it not mean that the laity need to be more involved in pastoral “foot-washing”, whether it be by visiting the housebound, taking an interest in the needs of strugglers, or whatever.

I recall a gentleman in a previous parish who was strongly opposed to the concept of lay extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. One summer, on holiday with his wife, he suffered a heart attack, and spent some time in hospital somewhere in the Deep South—Brighton, or Bournemouth, or another of those faraway places with strange-sounding names.

On his eventual return home, he spoke to me. “Father, I want to become an extraordinary minister, so that I can take Our Lord to people the way people brought Him to me, when I was ill.” A small miracle, if you like.

Not everyone is called to become a Eucharistic Minister, but everyone is called to wash their brothers’ and sisters’ feet in some way. That is the best preparation for receiving the Eucharist ourselves.

5th Sunday of Lent Year A

5th Sunday of Lent 2026

A fortnight ago, in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, the emphasis was on living water; last week, when the blind man was cured, we were led to consider sight and insight; today we are faced with the question of life, death, and resurrection. Lazarus dies, his relations and friends are distressed, and Jesus weeps.

Many years ago, I was called to a deathbed. When I arrived at the house, where it was the wife and mother who had died, I found her husband and adult children grouped around the bed. I prayed the liturgy for the dead, and read a shortened version of today’s Gospel. This included Our Lord’s declaration that He is the Resurrection and the Life, and His promise of Resurrection. I then read His question to Martha “Do you believe this?”, at which the whole family suddenly shouted “YES!” Martha couldn’t get her answer in!

I hadn’t been expecting that response, though perhaps I should have. Despite all the talk about a post-Christian society, belief in life after death is deeply embedded in human nature. A long time after that incident, I attended a Humanist funeral. At one point, the deceased person’s grandchildren were invited to pay tribute. All of them spoke TO their grandad, who, they asserted, was watching over them, and would continue to look after them. So much for our allegedly atheist country. It was more a question of “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, you have ordained praise”.

As the Second Vatican Council asserted, human nature rightly revolts against the idea of total extinction. This whole passage from St. John’s Gospel is a proclamation by Jesus of the reality of Resurrection, first in words, and subsequently in deeds, as He raises the dead Lazarus to life. Lazarus will die again, but this initial raising to life contains a promise that final Resurrection awaits both him and us.

The roles of Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, are interesting. They display the same characteristics as in St. Luke’s account of their hospitality towards Jesus. Then, as you recall, Martha revealed herself as the active one, bustling about preparing the meal, and rebuking her sister for sitting at the Lord’s feet rather than helping her. She, in her turn, is mildly criticised by the Lord who tells her that “it is Mary who has chosen the better part”.

Now once more it is Martha who is active, coming out to meet Jesus, whilst Mary, the contemplative, remains sitting in the house. This time, though, it is Martha who has “chosen the better part” as she elicits Our Lord’s words about Resurrection, and expresses the faith of the Church. Martha then has to call Mary from the house to meet Jesus and to witness her brother’s being raised from the dead.

Jesus’ tears, and His being “deeply moved”, involve a number of factors. There is His compassion with the grief of the mourners, His recognition of the awesomeness of death, and perhaps a renewed consciousness of what awaits Him. “Why does He weep?” you may ask, when He knows what He is about to do. True, but death is always a solemn reality, and His own death is to place Him in the hands of evil.

As for Lazarus, it is easy enough to imagine the voice of the Lord penetrating the muffling presence of his bandages, and also his nature, sunk in death. We can imagine that voice penetrating too the layers of our own sinfulness, and calling us to come to Christ to be set free, and to be led into a new life while still on this earth. One other thing: Lazarus still needs other people to unbind him and set him free. We too need the help of others, not least in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

4th Sunday of Lent Year A

4th Sunday of Lent 2026

“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” Last week, our focus was on water, which gives us life, and the living water of the Holy Spirit given to us in Baptism. Today, our emphasis is on sight, which gives us light.

True sight entails insight. That is what God has, and that is what He gives to us, if we have the gumption to receive it. This is illustrated in our First Reading, in which Samuel is sent to anoint Israel’s future King. Samuel looks, but he does not see. Eliab appears to him to be the ideal candidate, but Samuel lacks the insight to recognise Eliab’s lack of suitability. Left to himself, Samuel might have chosen any of Jesse’s first six sons but God sees beneath the surface, and rejects all of them, instead choosing David, the youngest.

How many times are we fooled by appearances? I remember a Board of Governors, who had the task of choosing a new Head for a large Secondary School. They appointed a smooth talker, rejecting a candidate whose credentials should have carried far more weight. The result was a disaster, as the smooth talker, having been appointed, succeeded only in dragging the school down, whilst the rejected candidate continued to win more accolades for the smaller school at which he remained. Sight may be a superficial thing, if it is not supported by insight. The former is a great gift from God: the latter is even greater.

The Letter to the Ephesians makes a similar point, bringing in a clear moral dimension by contrasting light with darkness. Sight without insight may be moral darkness: its works are described as “unfruitful” and as needing to be exposed. Someone may have 20/20 vision, but if they cannot discern “what is pleasing to the Lord”, then they are in darkness. Someone who is physically blind may have light through having the insight to discern good from evil.

In our Gospel, we hear of the cure of a man who has been physically blind from birth. John goes into detail about the method of the cure, and about the conversations between the man and his neighbours, and between the man and the Pharisees. (In the full length version of the story, there is some real knockabout stuff, as the Pharisees question the man’s parents who reply that he is an adult, who can speak for himself, and as the man cheekily parries the Pharisees’ questions by asking them “Why are you asking? Do you want to become His disciples?” a question which flusters them more than a little.)

Once again, we find the distinction between sight and insight. The blind man has received his physical sight, but he still lacks insight, which he receives through his final conversation with Our Lord. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus asks. When He identifies Himself as the Son of Man, He gives the man the gift of insight, and the man worships Him.

What are the implications for us, in addition to the invitation to pray for those who struggle with their eyesight? Are we grateful for the gift of sight which we ourselves enjoy? Do we judge too readily on the basis of appearances, and are we thus led astray by sight without insight? We need to pray for the ability to see as God sees, but not to convince ourselves too readily that we have that ability. Above all, we need to pray that we may live, not in darkness, but in the light of Jesus, who is Himself the light, and may always recognise, worship, and serve Him as Our Lord and Our God.

3rd Sunday Lent Year A

3rd Sunday of Lent 2026

Exodus 17:3-7; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8: John 4:5-42

From the early years of photography, it is easy to find—probably from any town or city—pictures of narrow alleys where families lived, one above another on several floors, all having to descend to street level to draw their water from a single pump. Much more recently, I remember a water shortage in 1959, when my Primary School withdrew our allowance of water with our school dinners, and also the long hot summer of 1976, when people in some parts of England had to collect their water from bowsers in the streets.

Those were difficult times, now long forgotten, as our water supplies have, by and large, returned to normal, yet in many parts of the world, the provision of water remains precarious. Bishop Swarbrick’s pastoral letter a fortnight ago described the scene, drawn from the experience of his many years in Zambia, of women and girls letting down their buckets into the well, to bring up water which might be far from clean.

Presumably there will be times when there is no water at all in the well, not least because of global warming. You may have read predictions that future wars will be fought over access to water, a situation which already occurs in parts of Nigeria.

You and I will have been thirsty at times, yet few, I suspect, have been DESPERATELY thirsty, with the sort of dehydration which leads to delirium and, finally, death. This is the situation in which the children of Israel find themselves in our Exodus reading as they trek through the wilderness with their flocks and herds, all needing water.

I don’t know about you, but I can sympathise, to an extent, with the people’s grumbling. On the other hand, it is worth bearing in mind that they were serial grumblers, even claiming that they had been better off as slaves in Egypt. It shows that human nature never changes: there will always be people who will tell you that the past was better in the “good old days” which, of course, never existed. For instance, if “then and now” photos were displayed on Facebook of the alleys which I mentioned at the beginning, you can guarantee that a majority of comments would claim “it looked better then”.

Water is essential for life. “No water” equals “no life”. Thus when Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit, the giver of eternal life, it is not surprising that He uses the analogy of “living water”—water welling up from a spring, fresh and clear. Nor is it surprising that we receive the beginnings of eternal life through baptism, water poured over us. Let us never take water for granted; let us always remember how precious it is; let us support efforts to provide clean water for those who lack it; and let water, when we use it, remind us of our baptism, and of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, and who gives us life.

One other thought: have you noticed that Our Lord seems to have a soft spot for naughty ladies? He is generous to the woman caught in adultery, His only rebuke being “Go, and sin no more”. He grants the request of the pagan woman who has answered Him back, and He reveals His Messiahship to this woman of Samaria, a “heretic” who has gone through five husbands and is now “living over the brush”. So if any of you are naughty ladies, you may be all right: naughty blokes, not so much, because that often involves domination and control.