Electric Prayer

The Christmas season definitely, finally finished yesterday with the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, and by now all the cribs will have been taken down and put away. It’s a pity that we don’t have installations like the crib to mark other seasons of the year, but in just two weeks’ time it will be Ash Wednesday and the churches will be a dark and sombre purple: so we will once more see at a glance what season it is.

‘The Creed in Slow Motion’ again

My book The Creed in Slow Motion came out in August 2022, which is pretty appalling because it still feels like only the other day! Many you have bought it and loved it: I know because you have written and told me.

If you don’t know the book yet (or even if you do already), you may be interested in a conversation I had about it with Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg recently. It must have been a success, because several people whom I barely knew came up to me in the days following the interview and told me they had discovered it online and greatly enjoyed it.

I think you will enjoy it too. Sir Jacob is intelligent and knowledgeable, and he has a serious and professional approach to interviewing. He had read my book from cover to cover and thought about it a lot, which made the conversation very interesting indeed. Getting people to think was a big part of the reasons why I wrote The Creed in Slow Motion in the first place.

The interview is half an hour long, and you can watch it on YouTube. The link is here.

The weekly podcasts

Here are the episodes which have come out since the last newsletter. You can listen by clicking on the link. Each is around 20 minutes long.

11 January 2026: The Three Kings, the crib, and the reality of Christianity. The meaning of our past. Baptism of the Lord. Baptism. Commemorating our own baptism. The uncanonised Henry Edward Manning.

18 January 2026: What! No wedding feast at Cana?? Universalis to the rescue. Plus a constellation of saints across the centuries and across the world: Publius, Marianne, Wulfstan, Henry, Henry, Cyprian, (Agnes, Fabian, Sebastian), Francis, and the Holy Child.

25 January 2026: Sunday of the Word of God. Reading; listening; commentaries. Lectio Divina. Saint Thomas Aquinas.

1 February 2026: The 100th episode! Candlemas, the feast of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of the Lord. Purification. The celebration and sanctification of transitions.

Many thousands of people listen to the podcast, from all over the world. Sometimes by themselves in the car, sometimes sitting at home with the whole family. If you haven’t listened yet, do. If you have, and you like it, tell all your friends.

• Here is a link to the Podcasts page. You will find all the weekly episodes listed there, right from the very beginning almost two years ago.
• If you use podcast apps, there are links to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube at the bottom of this newsletter. The Podcasts page has some more links.
• If you don’t want to have to send your friends a link, tell them to go to the home page at universalis.com and they’ll find a Podcasts button at the top right.
• All the Universalis apps and programs will show an alert in the About Today page whenever a new podcast is ready.

New podcast episodes come out on Friday or Saturday each week.

Thank you all for using Universalis. If you have trouble or questions, or suggestions, do write to us at universalis@universalis.com or use the Contact Us button in one of the apps. Let us all keep one another in our prayers, as always.