‘The church will declare his generosity’ (Sirach 31, 11). The liturgy takes these words and applies them to St Joachim, a man whose generosity none of us can ever match. For he has given…

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One of the features of our liturgy is the observance of octaves, an eight-day period during which we continue to celebrate certain major feasts, including the Assumption. The reason is that our joy cannot…

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One of the biggest problems people from an Evangelical background have when they explore Orthodoxy is with Mary. We can argue with them intellectually, but really Mary is not an intellectual proposition to be…

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In his Confessions, St Augustine speaks about being killed spiritually by certain scriptural passages which, when taken literally, seemed to teach perversity (5.24). Perhaps one such passage is 1 Samuel 15, which we read…

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Today we celebrate the feast of St Lawrence, deacon and martyr, put to death for his faith at Rome in 258, by being roasted on a grid-iron. Deacons remind us of two things. First,…

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‘Thou hast broken my chains asunder’ (Psalm 113, 10). How well these words apply to the feast we celebrate today of St Peter in Chains, which recalls his escape from prison, as recorded in…

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Many years ago, in what seems like another existence, I used to live not far from the basilica of Vézelay, aUNESCO world heritage site, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful…

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This month we celebrate our patronal festival, the feast of St Columba, who died June 9, 597. An Irish prince, his name means Dove, like the Hebrew Jonah. He was born in Donegal, and…

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Already before Advent begins, the liturgy speaks to us of fasting. Almost the first word we hear on the Monday prior to Advent is Joel 1, 14: ‘Sanctify a fast!’ Two days later we…

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