Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Download Bulletin 25th January 2026

FR HUGH’S HOMILY FOR 3RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Simon and Andrew, James and John, are at work.  Fishing is their business.  That is how they feed their families.  Everything depends on the sort of catches they make.  So we have to translate that into the jobs we have today.  In an office, on a factory line, driving a bus.  Or perhaps we are retired so we have our own routines own home and have to work out the amount of money we have to live on.  If we are unemployed our lives are governed by appointments at the DSS office which we cannot afford to miss.  Into this routine steps a man, dressed like us, who normally walks around without looking any different from anyone else, and he says, ‘Come and follow me.’  What are the chances of us dropping everything regardless of family or any responsibilities and following him?….

Complete Homily for 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 3

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Download Bulletin 18th January 2026

DEACONS GEORGE’S HOMILY FOR SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Jews were never baptised.  They were Jews simply because they were born of Jewish parents.  Therefore, because of their Jewish birth, they were already within the faith of Judaism.  The Jews believed that they were chosen ones of God, and they were already assured of God’s salvation, and therefore they had no need of baptism.     However, for a gentile, i.e. a non-Jew, to embrace Judaism and be allowed to worship in the synagogue, he had to become a “God Fearer” or “proselyte”.  And in order to become a “God Fearer”, it was required that he be baptised.  He had to be baptised, because he had to renounce his previous sinful way of life, or former religion, in order to be cleansed and become one with the chosen people.  But then along came John the Baptist, whose personal calling from God, was to make the Jews realize their own sins, and their need of God….

Complete Homily for Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daily Prayers Week 2

Baptism of the Lord

Download Bulletin 11th January 2026

FR HUGH’S HOMILY FOR THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

In our various ways we have all had to make preparations for Christmas.  Shopping, family negotiations, and of course prayer.  All of this is done for a major event that many people depend on.  Just recently I have seen some people taking down their decorations almost with relief.   I asked one woman why she was so keen to get them down so soon and her response was, “Some of us are busy people, Father.”  That put me in my place.  Now the Jews saw washing as a ritual preparation.  John the Baptist and Jesus are both Jews.  And the way they prepared for a religious event was a ritual purification where you went down into a form of bath, a mikvah, and washed….

complete Homily for Baptism of the Lord

Daily Prayers Week One

Third Sunday of Advent

Download Bulletin 14th December 2025

Gaudete Sunday

Fr Hugh’s Homily for 3rd Sunday of Advent

Three characters are searching in the Wizard of Oz.  The tin man, the lion and the scarecrow.  Where they are headed is the wizard as they think they will find the answer there.  But until they have someone to help them they are lost.  What they do not realise is that to truly search they need to find their real selves first.  And then arrives Dorothy, all the way from Kansas in her red shoes.  So they set off on the yellow brick road.  Two things they need help to do.  The first is to discover who they really are, either what they have lost, or never found.  Once they do this then they will be able to face what they are looking for, though they do not know what that is yet.  All they know is they have to set out to do it.  So off they go, they have Dorothy for their guide, and strength, and they have the yellow brick road to follow….

Complete Homily for 3rd Sunday of Advent 

Daily Prayers Advent 3

 

 

Second Sunday of Advent

Download Bulletin 7th December 2025

DEACON GEORGE’S HOMILY FOR SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

In Israel, the great sequence of Prophets, had come to an end.  For 450 years, the people were without a messenger from God.  The people lamented that the spirit of their God had become silent.  And now, God only spoke through the echo of his voice.  But then along came John the Baptist, the last of the great prophets.  The emergence of John was like a sudden sounding of the voice of God.  He was the one who marked the end of their time of waiting.  Because, in John the Baptist, the people could see an end to God’s silence.  About thirty years earlier, an angel announced to Zechariah a priest of the Temple, that he would have a son, even though his wife Elizabeth was barren and advanced in years.  And that his son was destined to be the Precursor, who would announce the arrival of the long-expected Messiah……

Complete Homily for 2nd Sunday of Advent

Daily Prayers Advent 2

RECENT ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO ‘DILEXI TE’

 

First Sunday of Advent

Download Bulletin 30th November 2025

A PASTORAL LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF LANCASTER 

My dear people, as we begin the Holy Season of Advent my thoughts turn to Mary, our Blessed Lady, beginning the final month of her pregnancy. She is carrying Life. For eight months she has sensed this child growing within her, this child given to her, and taking from her. As unborn children we feed on our mother’s blood, warmth, nourishment. It is as though the mother says to her child, ‘Take and eat, this is my body for you. Take and drink, this is my blood for you, that you may have life from me.’ In her case of course this nourishment is of a created type. Many years ahead, she would receive food given her by her Son, food of a different type, giving her eternal Life….

Read the Complete Pastoral Letter here

Daily Prayers Advent 1

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Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Download Bulletin 16th November 2025

DEACON GEORGE’S HOMILY FOR  33rd SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

It is easy for us to love God, and praise God, when life is great, when we are healthy, wealthy, and our work is easy.  But how is our praise?  when we are seriously ill, or our finances take a tumble, or we lose our jobs.  Is our faith deep enough to get us through these difficult times.  These difficulties may not be ours.  They may be someone else’s, someone who is very close to us.  However, we still have the same feelings inside.  So, in the midst of these difficulties can we still love and praise God?  Because, today, that is what Jesus is asking of us.  Many good people lose their faith when they see all the evil and suffering in the world.  They lose faith because they find it impossible to look into the eyes of a starving child, or the faces of those bombed by their own people and yet still praise God.  They lose faith because they cannot be a witness, to all the atrocities perpetrated by man upon man and yet still believe that God cares for them…..

Complete Homily for 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time 

Daily Prayers Week 33