Here are the well-known words from Ecclesiastes, set for our Old Testament reading today: ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, […]

The Slipper Chapel, where this image is displayed, was built in the fourteenth century. Its original dedication was to St Katharine of Alexandria, who was at that time the patron saint of pilgrims to the Holy Land. The chapel served English pilgrims on their way to Walsingham, England’s Nazareth, and it was there that pilgrims […]

Today’s saint, better known as Padre Pio, said: ‘Prayer is the oxygen of the soul’. It is true, our soul cannot ‘breathe’ without prayer. He also told us that ‘Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with […]

From today’s Old Testament reading, from Proverbs: ‘The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart’. Alongside this text, here is another from earlier in the same book: ‘Keep your […]

The Gospel of St Matthew was received as divinely inspired about the middle of the third century. Origen, Eusebius, and St Jerome all bear witness to this. In addition, this Gospel is found in all the most ancient versions, among them Old Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. As we give thanks for his beautiful Gospel, we […]

Here is a line from our Old Testament reading, from Isaiah: ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near’. The impulse constantly to seek God is one of the signs of a true monastic vocation; so much so that it is included in the Holy Rule: ‘Let him examine whether […]

Today is also the day when two foundation stones of the English Church, namely Saints Theodore of Canterbury, and Adrian, Abbot, also known as Hadrian, are remembered. St Bede wrote of ‘an abbot, called Hadrian, by nation an African, well versed in holy writ, experienced in monastic and ecclesiastical discipline, and excellently skilled both in […]

‘Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep’. These words proclaiming the resurrection resound from St Paul in 1 Corinthians. St John Henry Newman, in a sermon, said: ‘Work together with God, therefore, my brethren, in this work of your redemption. While He feeds you, prepare for […]

‘Trust shows the way’. So said St Hildegarde, many centuries before St Thérèse would affirm her way of total confidence and love: ‘It is trust, and nothing but trust, that will bring us to Love’. In all that comes to us this day, may we follow the way of total trust in God. Know that […]

St Cyprian is one of the earliest of the Martyrs of Africa, now joined by the monks of Tibhirine, killed in Algeria in 1996 and beatified in 2018. In his treatise on the Lord’s Prayer, St Cyprian wrote: ‘Let us therefore, brethren beloved, pray as God our Teacher has taught us. It is a loving […]