Advent to Easter

Today we look ahead to the Three Kings arriving on Twelfth Night at the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas. We remember the innocent male babies put to death on orders of King Herod who was trying to kill the Christ Child. The Three Kings, or Wise Men, had visited Herod on their way […]

Today we remember St John who was with Jesus at crucial moments in his adult life and ministry such as the Transfiguration and the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. John was the first to find that Jesus had risen from the dead. He is believed to have written one of the Gospels and so […]

Today is Boxing Day and St Stephen’s Day. This morning there will be major church services in St Stephen’s Church Gloucester Road in London, St Stephen’s Bournemouth, St Stephen’s-on-the-Cliffs Blackpool, Cathedral Church of St Stephen Vienna and many other places. For churches dedicated to Stephen today is their patronal festival. Boxing Day, the second day […]

Today is Christmas Day when famous churches suddenly receive media coverage. St Peter’s Rome and Church of the Nativity Bethlehem will probably bee seen in news bulletins. In Rome there is another is another focus today. The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, once called St Mary of the Crib,  holds what is claimed to be […]

It’s Christmas Eve but not Christmas yet. Today is the 4th Sunday of Advent. The fourth candle on the wreath represents the Virgin Mary. We first keep today as Sunday because the Church always remembers Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week. What happened at Easter is even more important than Christmas. We […]

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God. Today’s O Antiphon, the last of the series,  is heard before the Gospel at Mass and bookending the Magnificat during Evening Prayer.

O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay. Today’s O Antiphon is heard before the Gospel at Mass and bookending the Magnificat during Evening Prayer.

Today Thursday 21 December is Old St Thomas Day. This is Thomas the Apostle or Doubting Thomas who at first could not believe that the crucified Christ was alive. So, although we now keep St Thomas Day is July, today is a reminder of the later years of the Christ Child. Some Anglican churches still […]

Today Wednesday 20 December is the fourth day of the O Antiphons: O Key of David. O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness […]

Today Tuesday 19 December is the third day of the O Antiphons: 0 Radix Jesse. Hear the words from Isaiah before today’s Gospel at Mass and before and after the Magnificat at Evening Prayer.