Today, as we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of (Matthew 12: 46-50) in which Jesus says, ‘Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’.

Fr Paul says we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in unity with Eastern Christianity and commemorating the dedication in 543 of the New Basilica of Saint Mary, built next to the Temple in Jerusalem. This feast celebrates Mary’s ‘dedication’ of herself to God from her infancy, inspired by the Holy Spirit, whose grace had filled her ever since her Immaculate Conception.

So today, Fr Paul invites to pray, ‘Pray for us, Oh Holy Mother of God’.