When I first began taking an interest in gardening, I had difficulty sometimes in distinguishing between what looked like a weed but turned out to be a flower, and vice versa. If you are an inexperienced gardener or have an untrained horticultural eye, you can get it badly wrong and rip out what would have…
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Homily, 15th Sunday of the Year (A) 2020
Last week I was able to go walking in the beautiful Northumberland countryside. After spending over 100 days in isolation here in the city, albeit in leafy Jesmond, it was a delight to experience once more – but in a more heightened way this year - the world of nature in all its glory. In…
The Pandemic’s Invisible Victims
By Mary Wakefield in 'The Spectator', 4 July 2020 I sometimes pick up some food at Tesco for an 86-year-old pensioner who lives a few streets over. At the weekend, I brought him milk and cornflakes. He opened his front door; I put the bags down, retreated the required two metres, but when I looked…
Let’s be cautious about going back to church
Let's be cautious about going back to church By the Editorial Staff of The National Catholic Reporter (USA), 2 July 2020 An informal poll around NCR's virtual newsroom found that, as of the beginning of July, only a small number of our staffers had returned to in-person Mass. Perhaps we are a cautious bunch. Or,…
Homily, 14th Sunday of the Year (A) 2020
One of the significant legal changes to occur in the UK over the last thirty years has been the implementation of the Children Act that was passed by Parliament in 1989. It imposes duties on local authorities, courts, parents, and other agencies in the United Kingdom to ensure that children are safeguarded and their welfare…
A modest proposal: Make today a new day
By Garrison Keillor The beauty of quarantine is that you don’t have to see people you don’t want to see, which simplifies life, just as memory loss does. Life comes down to basics. Sleeping, eating, talking, reading, writing, cooking, doing your business. Days are so quiet that a cup of ginger tea might be a…
In the Harsh Light of the Virus
Michael Banner in THE TABLET, 25 June 2020 A leading moral philosopher argues that the coronavirus has not posed new ethical problems, but it has strikingly illumined two major features of the social landscape that society and the Church usually prefers to ignore: race and class Academics, living sheltered lives (and in the case of…
Homily, St Peter and St Paul 2020
The Church is honouring today two of its great preachers and missionaries – St Peter to fellow Jews and St Paul to ‘the nations’ (Gentiles). Both suffered martyrdom under the reign of the Roman Emperor, Nero. Following the great fire (64-67AD) that destroyed much of Rome, Nero persecuted Christians. Peter was crucified on the Vatican…
Bishops outline ‘new normal’ for Masses
By Liz Dodd in THE TABLET, 25 June 2020 The Sunday obligation to attend Mass in England will not be reintroduced when public worship resumes on 4 July, the Metropolitan Archbishops said today in a statement outlining the “new normal” for liturgies as lockdown eases. In a message to Catholics this morning Cardinal Vincent Nichols,…
We need the facts if we are to take risks
By Jenni Russell in THE TIMES, 26 June 2020 Risk preoccupies us all. Set free, told by the prime minister that hibernation is over, what daily choices should we make between safety and the chance of debility or death? Lockdown was the simple stage. It offered maximum security. Now the continuous assessments of the risks…
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