Recently the above cartoon appeared in the paper (Daily Telegraph, Monday, December 7, 2020). As you can see the Holy Family - Joseph, Mary and Jesus - are in the room and the Wise Men, following the star, have come from another country to visit the Christ child bearing their gifts of [...]
The birth of John the Baptist Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Luke (1: 57-66) and, today, we hear about the birth of John the Baptist. Fr Paul says this Gospel runs in parallel with the birth of Jesus, which we are also about to celebrate. Hearing about the birth of [...]
Mary’s Song – Lessons from The Magnificat Today Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Luke (1: 46-56) in which we hear Mary rejoicing in relation to the favours God has granted her. This prayer of Mary’s is called the Magnificat and it sums up the themes of Luke’s Gospel. In this [...]
Mary visits Elizabeth Today Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Luke (1: 39-45) which tells of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. Today we hear Mary journeying to Elizabeth’s house and as Mary makes this journey, we need to be aware of just how real an act of kindness that this is. Mary, [...]
Zechariah & Elizabeth Today, Fr Paul says, we change Gospel writers and will now be reading from Luke (1: 5-25) and this will happen right up until Christmas Eve. It will enable us to share in the experiences that happened for the birth of Jesus. Today, he says, we hear about Zechariah [...]
The Birth of Jesus Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Matthew (1: 18-24) which tells how Jesus Christ came to be born. Fr Paul says, we hear in this Gospel that, at first, Joseph is hesitant to adopt Jesus into his line, into his family, that we learned about yesterday, the [...]
The Genealogy of Jesus Christ Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Matthew (1: 1-17) in the first of a series of special readings that will take us up to Christmas Eve. Matthew, as we realise reading from Chapter 1 Verse 1, begins his Gospel about the birth of Jesus with a [...]
Are you the one we are expecting? Fr Paul reads today’s Gospel from Luke (7: 19-23) in which John is languishing in prison and doubts have started to come into his mind. John wants to know what Jesus is doing. John wants to know if Jesus is the Messiah or not, so [...]
Parable of the two sons Fr Paul reads today’s Gospel from Matthew (21: 28-32) in which Jesus tells the parable of the two sons. Matthew loves doing parables contrasting the ‘goodies’ with the ‘baddies’ like the two sons in today’s Gospel. For Matthew there is only bad and white; there are no [...]
St John of the Cross (Memorial) Today, Fr Paul reads from Matthew’s Gospel (21: 23-27) in which the chief priests and elders question the authority of Jesus. He then shares a little about the life of St John of the Cross whose memorial we celebrated today. John of the Cross was born [...]