Transfigured

“In the dark night of hopelessness the light of God shines, and a human heart finds in God the power which turns dying into victory” (Karl Rahner)

Thought for the Week

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." - Denis Waitley

Ash Wednesday Evening - Snowfall

The last of today's liturgies has finished and the view from the church of the street and the rectory has vield the area with beauty

Ready for Lent.

Yesterday we prepared the church of St Patrick's, Niagara Falls for the holy Season of Lent

Niagara Falls Pictures

I arrived in Toronto on Tuesday evening to a mild snowfall and below freezing temperatures. After the frozen highlands, though I felt well prepared. I am slowly getting a feel for the place and people seem really friendly. The church of St Patrick's is beautiful and the rectory is warm and comfortable. Today I visited the falls for the first time. Visibility wasn't great but and my pictures don't do the view justice but hopefully you can get a feel for their majesty.

January Retreat

After a busy Christmas in our south London parish, I have been able to begin a sabbatical. This isn't time off, but a time to pursue something different. I began with a month long retreat in Craig Lodge, Dalmally. it was a wonderful blessed time and I came away refreshed, relaxed and renewed. Retreats always stir things up for me and this was certainly the case in Craig Lodge. I have been thinking alot about forgiveness and of my need to forgive people. I need the liberation of forgiveness, because frankly I have been holding onto resentments as a security blanket and I need to move on. much to ponder as I begin my time in Canada. More of the later, meanwhile Scotland pics!

Christmas Blessings

The Nativity by Michael D O'Brien

Well the feast is on us again and I am pondering my Christmas homily. O'Briens image of the Nativity always moves me and my reflections of the feast have this year been shaped by the books '10 things they never told you about Jesus - A beginners guide to a larger Christ'. So I'll leave you with his words to ponder

An Alternative 'O little town of Bethlehem.' by the Rev. John Bell

O little town of Bethlehem, how rowdy you appear
as homecome emigrants are buoyed
by sentiment and beer.
The long haired tearaway returns
grandfatherly and grey,
and former glamourpusses’ pasts
emerge in all they say

Who knows if Ned the publican
whose rooms could take no more
would pleasantly or angrily
greet strangers at the door?
Who knows if he had cats and dogs
around his cattle shed,
or whether robins twittered on
or even Mrs Ned?

But if he let his stable out
to be a labour room
for some expectant teenage mum
and her embarrassed groom,
the breath and stink of tethered beasts
would set the midwives wild
If keen to minimise the risk
to Mary and her child.

And would poor shepherds, when disturbed
from midnight peace and calm,
presume a newborn baby boy
would want to hold a lamb?
And if the magi from the East
did ‘enter in all three’
were they distinctly Siamese
In bending just one knee?

And did the baby never cry,
and was the mother mild
when Herod sensed that he’d been duped
and let his men run wild?
And was the father pre-programmed
to take a passive part
when one old man foretold the child
would break his mother’s heart?

Christ was not born at Christmas time
invoked by practised choirs,
embrace by plastic mangers
and fulfilling our desires.
No kindergarten was his home,
no drummer boy his page,
no earth had frozen snow on snow
when God had come of age.

Instead, on the periphery,
eccentric through decree,
the power behind the universe
was born a refugee;
A refugee from heaven above
Is the world’s creator,
and chose an unknown peasant girl
as host and liberator.

May God bless you and those you love.