Advent to Easter

The Immaculate Conception on 8 December is when we recall the conception of the Virgin Mary by her parents Anne and Joachim. Immaculate refers to their daughter being born free from sin in preparation for her destiny as Mother of Jesus. This afternoon the Pope would normally place white roses at the base of the […]

‘St Nicholas’ will arrive at Canterbury Cathedral on Sunday, the eve of St Nicholas Day. The St Nicholas Family Service is at 5.30pm when there will be a chance to find out more about the original Father Christmas before St Nic appears. Music is being provided by children’s choirs and bands and the Canterbury Cathedral […]

The last day of November is special in Scotland because it is St Andrew’s Day. But St Andrew, brother of St Peter, is also patron of Greece, Poland, Romania and Russia. Andrew was martyred today in Greece by being crucified upside down on an X shaped cross which is recalled by the St Andrew cross. […]

The pandemic has made a lot of people lose a sense of time and season. The virus has also caused a huge loss of income for shops resulting in the earliest ever display of Christmas decorations in shopping malls and an unseasonal appearance of Father Christmas. If you celebrate early what happens when the real […]

The ancient Holy Week service of Tenebrae is now often held on Wednesday and this year there are opportunities to be present online. ‘This arduous service has mystical beauty,’ observed art historian Brian Sewell who described it as ‘the most disturbing and convincing service’, which was also ‘poetic, theatrical and terrible’. The responses in this […]

‘Holy Week … is the peculiar privilege of Christians and should be their delight, their share in the sacred act of theatre, their most important week of all the year,’ wrote Observer journalist Patrick O’Donovan. Holy Week, which begins tonight with Christ arriving at Bethany, enables us to live with Christ his final week on […]

Today Thursday 25 March is a bright pause in Lent to look ahead nine months to Christmas. If Christmas is on 25 December so 25 March must be the Annunciation. On this day we recall the Virgin Mary being visited in her Nazareth home by an angel and informed that she would give birth to […]

Today Friday 19 March is St Joseph’s Day and we are remembering him in this year of St Joseph marking the 150th anniversary of Pope Pius IX declaring St Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church. He is also patron of workers, including carpenters, and fathers. We know Joseph as Jesus’s step father who accepted Mary […]

Today’s 17 March St Patrick’s Day celebrations will for a second year be muted by the virus. But this is not rare for until very recently St Patrick’s Day in Ireland was a quiet family day like Christmas Day with even the pubs closed. Patrick is also patron of Montserrat in the West Indies and […]

If it’s Mothering Sunday it’s the middle of Lent. Mothering Sunday, 14 March this year, is about both remembering our mothers and acknowledging our Mother Church. This is why in normal times at some parish churches the congregation marks Mothering Sunday by going outside, joining hands and surrounding the building. They hug their church. But […]