May God bless and keep you and your loved ones throughout this coming year.

The Shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them (Luke 2:20)

One of the books which I recently bought is entitled “The Art of Christmas” by the theologian, Jane Williams. It is a series of meditations on the birth of Jesus as depicted in some of the world’s greatest paintings.  One of the paintings is by El Greco (1541-1614) -  “Adoration of the Shepherds” -  which is now held in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. It is considered to be his last painting and was meant to hang over...

One of the things that priests are trained to do is theological reflection. It becomes second nature and, in my case, it’s sometimes prompted by adverts. It happened a few weeks ago when there was a stushie about a Marks & Spencer Christmas commercial. It showed a group of rather alarming people trashing elements of a traditional Christmas – blowtorching a pile of Christmas cards, upsetting a game of Trivial Pursuit by dumping the cards and pieces into a tank of tropical fish and burning three party hats in a grate. The strapline at the end of the commercial was...

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you ... blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus.”

The annunciation story most be one of the most widely artistically depicted passages from the Bible. In continental Europe you would be hard pushed to find a church without an annunciation painting and in the art galleries of almost every town you are bound to find at least one painting of this episode in our faith. But ‘Why?’ might be a good question to ask.

When you think of it, it is a pretty...

“Who are you?”  It’s the key question in today’s Gospel. If we look at the Gospel carefully, we can deduce the tone of voice in which that question was put to John the Baptist. The Gospel calls John’s answer his “testimony” and tells us that John “confessed” and “did not deny”. This is the kind of language we associate with the Sheriff Court. John is being cross-examined. 

“Who are you?” It’s a question about identity. For some people, identity is something constructed from a set of personal choices, a rather consumerist notion of what it is to be human and...

If like me, you are a fan of historical novels you will be quite familiar with messengers arriving and shouting out their news (and there is a lot of shouting going on in today’s readings). Usually, in the novels the news they bring is, more often than not, unpopular - well you wouldn't want to spoil a good story. In most cases the herald is exhausted having travelled far to proclaim their message. Sadly, some of them end up dead - either because others do not want the message to be delivered or the recipient doesn't like what he or...