On 22 October 1978, the day of the inauguration of his pontificate, St John Paul II spoke these words: ‘All of you who are still seeking God, all of you who already have the inestimable good fortune to believe, and also you who are tormented by doubt: please listen once again, today in this sacred […]

Here is part of Chapter 3 of the fourteenth century anonymous ‘Cloud of Unknowing’: ‘Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean Himself, and none of His goods. … For at the first time when thou dost it, thou findest but a darkness; and as it were a cloud […]

From today’s Gospel, from St Luke: ‘Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks’. Our Lord urges us towards a state of constant readiness […]

St Frideswide, patroness of the city and university of Oxford, died about the year 735. She was the Foundress of a monastery that followed the Rule of Our Holy Father St Benedict, and it is said of her that she took as her maxim, ‘Whatsoever is not God is nothing’. May she pray for us, […]

This year, we lose the feast of St Luke as it falls upon a Sunday … but we can nevertheless call upon the patron saint of healing on this day, to ask his prayers for the sick of our world, especially all those who are suffering as a result of coronavirus. The Psalmist prayed: ‘You […]

St Ignatius, while on his way to be martyred, wrote several Epistles which have come down to us as precious treasures. Here is part of his Letter to the Romans: ‘For though I am alive while I write to you, yet I am eager to die. My love has been crucified, and there is no fire in […]

This Apostle of the Sacred Heart said, ‘We must never be discouraged or give way to anxiety … but ever have recourse to the adorable Heart of Jesus’. Near us here in north Birmingham is the church of St Margaret Mary, Perry Common, and we greet Fr Simon and the parishioners there, on their patronal […]

This well-known prayer of St Teresa of Avila is particularly suited to a time of pandemic: ‘Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices’. God never changes … God alone suffices … Let us take […]

Here is part of today’s New Testament reading, from Galatians: ‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk […]

‘Give for alms those things which are within …’ How do we live out Our Lord’s words from today’s Gospel? It is through love – and love cannot but express itself in deeds. St Francis de Sales, in his ‘Treatise on the Love of God’, wrote: ‘Upon a day St Frances [of Rome] was reciting […]