We will all be celebrating the Ascension in a few days’ time. The event is a joyful feast for us, who know what it led to, but it must have been grim for the disciples, who knew that they they would never again see Jesus on earth. Who was this mysterious promised Advocate?

God preserves our freedom by not telling us exactly what he has in store for us, and God can always be trusted. Nevertheless, it is hard for people who find themselves in a situation where, like the disciples after Ascension and before Pentecost, they can do nothing but pray and wait. Let us remember them in our own prayers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Lent has been going for two weeks now, so we really ought to have settled into it. By a pleasing coincidence, March this year ends on the Tuesday of Holy Week, which makes it easier to get an idea of how far through Lent we are.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Want to subscribe to the monthly newsletters? Click here.

Welcome back to Advent! Glory is on the way. The liturgy is full of the prophecies of Isaiah, which were first given for consolation to the Jews 2,700 years ago (the same sort of time as the legendary foundation of the city of Rome). They were fulfilled once over in the first century BC when the Son of God became man as the baby Jesus – and still those prophecies speak to us of the Second Coming of Christ.

Read the rest of this entry »

Want to subscribe to the monthly newsletters? Click here.

November is the month of the dead: a month of celebration rather than mourning. Unreliable statistics suggest that out of all the Christians there have ever been, 1 in 3 are living now. This means that for every one of us on Earth, there are two team members who have passed through death; and we are united into one single community by prayer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Want to subscribe to the monthly newsletters? Click here.

After Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis, Pope Leo is canonising Blessed Peter To Rot this coming Sunday, the 19th. You can read about him in the Universalis pages for his feast day, 7 July. Here is a link to the About Today page for that day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Want to subscribe to the monthly newsletters? Click here.

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis were canonised by Pope Leo on 7 September, and the podcast of that date tells you more about these new saints (you can find a link to it below). They will be a ‘saint for me’ for some people who, looking at the calendar of saints, can’t see anyone who could be their ‘friend in heaven’. But even for the rest of us, their lives have a lot in them to teach us and inspire us. I wish I had been able to be like Frassati in my early twenties, but I didn’t even know it was possible. Is it too late now? No, with God nothing is too late.

Read the rest of this entry »

Want to subscribe to the monthly newsletters? Click here.

August sounds as if it ought to be a quiet time, but it has had some glorious feasts in it. The greatest ones have been the Transfiguration of the Lord on the 6th and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the 15th: a much-needed midsummer public holiday in many countries.

September is going to bring its own treasures, including a long anticipated multiple canonisation on Sunday the 7th; and of course it ends with a bang with St Michael and the archangels.

Read the rest of this entry »