Here is a sonnet for Ascension Day, the glorious finale of the Easter Season. In the mystery of the Ascension we reflect on the way in which, in one sense, Christ ‘leaves’ us and is taken away into Heaven, but in another sense he is given to us and to the world in a new and more [...]
As we walk together into the Easter season I thought I would post again two sonnets reflecting on the encounter two disciples had with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. These two sonnets form part of a sequence of fifty sonnets on the sayings of Jesus called Parable and Paradox. They were published by [...]
I am told that the chief Rabbi of Ukraine has asked Christians to join him in reciting Psalm 31 for the beleaguered cities tonight, so I thought I would also post this poetic reflection on that harrowing and comforting psalm. Psalm 31 is one of those psalms that express best the paradox of the whole [...]
Ash Wednesday Receive this cross of ash upon your brow, Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday’s cross. The forests of the world are burning now And you make late repentance for the loss. But all the trees of God would clap their hands The very stones themselves would shout and sing If you could [...]
Here is a sonnet I composed in honour of the original St. Valentine. I notice some Facebook posts implying that as an early Christian martyr he has nothing to do with Romantic Love and should be dissociated from it. I believe that on the contrary there is every reason why he should be the patron [...]
Here are three sonnets on the three temptations of Christ in the wilderness. You can read my commentary on these in The Word in the Wilderness. […]
It is true that some Christians have disagreed with one another bitterly about her, but equally, in every age and every church she has been, for many Christians, a sign of hope, an example of prayer, devotion and service, and an inspiration. In a strange way, which I will write about one day, she was [...]
Two days after Christmas, on the 27th of December, the Church keeps the feast of St. John the Evangelist. It is fitting that the Gospel writer whose prologue delves so deeply into the mystery of Incarnation, and whose words “The Word was made flesh” are read at every Christmas Eucharist, should have his feast-day within the [...]
Last year I was asked by the Precentor of Wells Cathedral if I would write an extra 8th Antiphon sonnet to go with the special 8th O antiphon, O Virgo Virginum, which was used in English churches and Cathedrals in the middle ages, as distinct from the usual seven on the continent. He explained that the Cathedral was [...]
On July the 11th the Church celebrates the feast of St. Benedict of Nursia, the gentle founder of the Benedictine order and by extension the father of Monasticism. A moderate and modest man he would have been astonished to learn that his ‘simple school for prayer, ’his ‘modest rule for beginners’ led to the foundation of communities [...]
The 29th of June is St. Peter’s day, when we remember the disciple who, for all his many mistakes, knew how to recover and hold on, who, for all his waverings, was called by Jesus "the rock," and who learned the threefold lesson that every betrayal can ultimately be restored by love. It is fitting [...]
Continuing my cycle of sonnets for the Church year below is one for Trinity Sunday. By coming to us as the Son, revealing to us the Father, and sending to us the Spirit, Jesus revealed the deepest mystery; that God is not distant and alone, but is three in one, a communion of love who comes [...]
June the 9th is Saint Columba’s day, a saint who has a special place for me, as somehow, he feels bound up in my own journey to Faith. When I was 19, and moving from atheism, towards a greater spiritual openness, but by no means yet a Christian, I went for a long slow walk [...]
The 25th of April is the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist, and this is my sonnet on St. Mark’s Gospel, one of a set of four sonnets on each of the four evangelists. For each of these sonnets I have meditated on the way the traditional association of each of the evangelists with [...]