Advent to Easter

Church congregations in Saddleworth will be out this morning taking part in Whit Walks. Whit Friday remains a local holiday in parts of Lancashshire. The Friday tradition was building up in the 1880s and today there is an ecumenical feel to the occasion: being together rather than rivalry. At 10am today in Top Mossley in […]

Sixty years ago we would have said that Harry and Meghan had a Whitsun wedding. Philip Larkin wrote a poem called The Whitsun Weddings. Pentecost used to be a big holiday weekend in England as it still is in France. It was in 1965 that the Whit Monday Bank Holiday was rebranded Spring Bank Holiday […]

Today is the Sunday between The Ascension last Thursday and Pentecost next Sunday. The first followers of Christ, about 120 people, spent the ten days in between in Jerusalem waiting for the Holy Spirit. They used the time to choose a replacement for Judas, the group’s treasurer, who had betrayed Jesus and triggered his arrest […]

The annual Ascension Day beating the bounds took place today in bright sunshine at All Hallows-by-the-Tower parish on the edge of the City of London. The boundary runs up against the Tower of London and along the middle of the Thames. Custom House is in the parish as is the charming garden ruin of St […]

Thursday 10 May is Ascension Day when we recall Christ ascending to heaven forty days after his resurrection. This is the climax of Easter marked in many places by tower-top singing. Choirs ascend their church tower to mark the day. It will happen at St Davids Cathedral at 5.30am; Southwark Cathedral at 7.30am, Lichfield Cathedral […]

Tomorrow is the Sixth Sunday of Easter but it is often known as Rogation Sunday because we are about to have several Rogation days in the lead up to Ascension Day on Thursday. We are coming to the climax of Easter when Jesus, having risen on Easter Day, now ascends to heaven thus ending his […]

This morning many people were up early to welcome the month of May. Morris dancers were performing on Runnymede at 5am. Choirboys sang at 6am from the top of Magdalen College Oxford. We shall see more of this on Ascension Day next week. It was also the hour for the ‘Obby ‘Oss to appear at […]

St Mark was one of the Disciples who gave us his Gospel providing a concise record of Christ’s ministry. Today Mark’s body is in Venice having been brought in 829 from Egypt where he founded the church. The 10.30am Mass for La Festa di San Marco in Venice’s St Mark’s Basilica includes trumpets and a […]

Today is St George’s Day. St George is patron of England, Moscow & lots of other places. “Of course, St George was not English and never came here,” said Dean of Southwark Andrew Nunn in a sermon yesterday. “He’s not exclusively ours and in fact is Patron Saint in one way or another of 24 […]

Southwark in London, with its ancient St George and Shakespeare associations, is always a focus on St George’s Day. The parish church is the oldest in London to be dedicated to England’s patron saint St George. The Roman Catholic Cathedral, built on St George’s Fields has a St George relic displayed on the feast day. […]