Peter Blog a few random thoughts

To all my readers: Have a very happy Christmas and a blessed New Year. I have placed a link to the Song I have used in my Christmas Homily. God Bless you all. Fr Peter And all this happened because the world is waiting, waiting for one child A Child that will grow up and turn tears to laughter. Hate to love, war to peace. And every one of everyone’s neighbour Misery and suffering will be words to be forgotten forever. The Song as you may well know was sung by Jonny Mathis and comes out every Christmas. IT tells us the story of a Child that brings peace to the word. It is also a song of hope that we will learn from this child what it means to love one another. But, when we see a newly born baby what does it teach us about God and his love for us. A baby is totally dependent on its parents.  And so should try and become like little children and become dependent on God. A Baby brings also people together we only have to see that in the story of Christmas where the wise men a...

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There is a serious question that needs to ask in the Gospel today. For today we have the annunciation of Mary. It is a story of the start of the Infancy narrative that we hear so much about next weekend as we celebrate Christmas. But, also today is a story of Vocation. It is a story of discovery for Mary about what God had chosen her to do. So let us take a closer look at what this story says to us today. The first thing that we notice is that angel says “Rejoice.” For Mary had been chosen. But, Mary was afraid even though the Angel said that you would not be doing this alone for the “Lord is with you.” To follow the Lord is hard it takes both courage and also we too can be afraid. We also don’t believe all the time that the Lord is with us. I remember for years in my own vocation that I thought that I could do it alone. I too was unable to see the hand of God in my life. I realise now that I was afraid. I thought that I could not possibly follow the Lord be a priest because...

Have you ever been in a place where you know well but because it is dark it feels very unfamiliar. We feel our way and what appears normal with the light on is very different in the dark. But, then we the light on and we draw a collective sign of relieve because we realise where we are. The gospel today is about light. And where there is light there is hope. This is something that as Christians especially in this advent season we can really draw upon. We are people of the light and of hope. We can see this is our language even in this winter season. I have had so people say that it's ok the shortest day is next week and then it starts to get lighter. Again this weekend we meet the rather strange character of John the Baptist: This time from the Gospel of John. We notice that he says that he is not the light " I am not the light." the noticeable words in this sentence is the words "I am." the listeners would have remembered the story of Moses and the burning ...

I need to  explain  here that there are two homilies here for the price of one. I got a bit carried away the other day when writing them. This does not mean that you will get three homilies next week. That is just  being  greedy There is no surprise in the first line of today’s Gospel. Mark quite simply states that he wrote his work for the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. But, what maybe is quite surprising is the emergence of what that the first hint of what that proclamation not comes from Jesus himself but from a rather way wood person John the Baptist the Wildman of the Wilderness. A man that does not belong to any religious group or political persuasion and what does he preach repentance and forgiveness. Mark pretexts this with a quote from the prophet Isaiah so that the listeners are in no doubt that it links with the Old Testament prophecies of the coming of the Messiah But, surely this quote also links in with the message of John the Baptist...

It seems that because of the way that we live our lives at such a pace that we have become less patient. Let us look at the reasons why I say this. Have you ever stood waiting at the Bus stop and it has not come exactly on time and you start to tut or you a train is slightly late leaving the platform we start to wonder why. It seems that the world has speeded up and we get caught up in this rat race and we find it very difficult to slow down and therefore I think that we lose patients.   Sometimes we have to be patient. Things do not come to us straight away. We have to prepare and get ready. This is another danger in this Advent season to think that we are already emerged in Christmas. Instead of waiting and preparing for the birth of Christ: Often we are all Christmased out by the time it comes to the 25 th December. So we need to learn to wait patiently and prepare well for the coming of Christ so that the coming of Christ at Christmas does not end in an anti climax. The clu...

The other day I was watching one of my favourite programmes called 30Rock. It is a comedy about film studio. In this episode they had decided to make a charity programme to raise money for a disaster that had not happened yet:  So that their channel could be the first to get on the band wagon when the news of the disaster comes into their rolling news channel. These run on charity programmes raising money for all different causes are part of our national conscience from the recent poppy appeal to Children in Need to Red Nose day. They are all very important and it is good to give money to charity and it helps millions of people not only in this country but in other countries too and it makes us feel good a warm feeling in our hearts that we have done some good. I remember a few years ago listening to this Gospel and feeling quite good about myself because of the charities that I had given to throughout the year. So we had gone into Lunch with the parish priest and tucking into ou...