The Holy Family

My sermon for last Sunday, the Feast of the Holy Family:

Quite often during my time as a priest I've had the experience of being told by parents that they don't believe in "brainwashing" their children about religion; that they think it's right to let their children "make their own mind up" about God and faith as they get older.

The idea seems to be that any attempt to pass on definite religious convictions is an interference with their children's freedom. At the extreme end of this viewpoint, we also have people like Richard Dawkins, who go as far as describing a religious upbringing of any kind as a form of child abuse.

Sermon at Midnight Mass

My sermon for Midnight Mass this year:

The New Testament gives us two versions of the story of Jesus' birth, St Matthew's and St Luke's. We've listened to both of them tonight, during the Carol Service (St Matthew) and then in the Mass (St Luke).

Both Matthew and Luke, in common with so many of the hymns we sing and the prayers we use every year at Christmas time, describe Jesus as a king - the divine king, the Messiah, our Lord and Saviour, God Incarnate.

Midnight Mass 2010: the "Director's Cut"

At St Joseph's this year we again had a "Service of Christmas Carols and Readings" starting at 11.00pm, followed immediately by Midnight Mass.

Here's how things looked about ten minutes before we started the Carol Service - all a bit "bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang".

Fortunately, in time-honoured fashion, people kept arriving during the service so that by the time Mass started, the numbers had doubled. Even so, there were only about sixty people (so one parishioner told me this morning after Mass) and the church seemed to be only half full.

Once Mass began we managed to film some parts. So here are some of the musical highlights. You can decide for yourself which heading sums things up best: Wales - Land of Song or Catholics Can't Sing!

Denbigh's White Christmas

Last night and this morning it was North Wales' turn to get the kind of heavy snowfall that other parts of the country have had over the last few weeks.

Here are some of the photographs I took:

late last night, outside my house....

....and in Vale Street.

Here's how St Joseph's looked this afternoon:

at the main entrance and car park....

....in the back garden of the presbytery....

and in the front garden:

Last of all, a picture of Denbigh Castle from Lon Llewelyn:

Our Saviour will come

Joseph learns in a dream that Mary has conceived her child by the Holy Spirit

My sermon for the 4th Sunday in Advent, Year A:

"This is how Jesus Christ came to be born," says St Matthew, half way through the first chapter of his gospel. The events that he goes on to describe - St Joseph's dream, Jesus' miraculous conception and, later, the visit of the three wise men from the East, King Herod's murder of all the male children of the Bethlehem area and the Holy Family's flight into Egypt - are some of the most familiar images of the Christmas story.

John and Jesus

The Christian religion teaches men these two truths: that there is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature that makes them unworthy of God.  It is equally important for men to know both of these truths, and it is equally dangerous for men to know God without knowing their own wretchedness, and to know their own wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer, who can free them from it.

Blaise Pascal

My sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Advent, Year A:

One of the things which this Sunday's gospel reading illustrates is that, although John the Baptist and Jesus were both men whose lives were consecrated to God's Kingdom, they had very different temperaments, and very different ways of proclaiming and serving God's Kingdom.

John's vocation involved reviving the way of life and the style of preaching that people associated with the great prophets of the Old Testament. John was identified especially with Elijah, who boldly confronted idolatry and called down fire from heaven.

The coming of the Messiah

My sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent, Year A:

Last Sunday I mentioned that the Season of Advent has two great interconnected themes: expectation and preparation.

Liturgically, Advent is a time of looking forward to the birth of Christ at Christmas, and the four weeks of the Advent Season create a mood of moving towards, and building up to, that event. Many of the scripture readings during Advent convey the sense of longing for the arrival of the Messiah which gripped the people of Israel and Judah at the time of Christ.