Thought for Holy Cross Day

It’s a big day for me today, which is Holy Cross Day, as I’m a priest of the Society of the Holy Cross. 

Today, 14th September, is the day we celebrate Jesus’s death away from Good Friday. Keeping of Holy Cross day came from fourth century worship in Jerusalem in the years just after Christianity was made legal by Emperor Constantine.

The lifting of Christ upon the Cross draws us like a magnet towards the divine mercy. It is represented in Luke's account by the Lord’s plea for his executioners, 'Father, forgive them'. That plea ascends for us and for all from the foundation of the world to its consummation. Like any word of God it has transformative power and we find that power in confession and absolution.

One of my greatest privileges as a priest is to pronounce words of absolution to penitent sinners, as from Christ's Cross, by his authority vested in me - and to hear those words for myself in confession. Although the forgiveness won for us by the Cross and resurrection can come through prayer or scripture, the one to one encounter with a minister of absolution provides powerful assurance.

‘Father, forgive them’. The most effective Christians are those who live knowing their day to day need of that forgiveness granted us from the Cross. There atonement was made once for all between sinners and a holy yet loving God through the lifting of his Son on Calvary.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

I had a rough sea crossing the other week on a short outing from Newhaven to Dieppe. There was a gale and we were warned against going on deck. From the ferry you could see the rise and fall of the sea and smaller boats in the English Channel perilously bobbing up and down.

On board there was a gentle motion on account of the stabilisers which counter the rocking we’d otherwise have felt directly. It was a great parable of Christian faith which doesn’t take you out of troubled seas but helps you sail through them with peace passing understanding.

The same week I’d experienced a bereavement. Whilst the pain of loss was there I found it allayed by knowledge of the risen Lord, through whom we know life is changed and not ended by death. 

Jesus Christ is our stabiliser as we voyage through the stormy seas of life. His Church - the immense body it is - sails like a boat towards the eternal shore and, as the song goes, ‘with Jesus in the boat you can smile at the storm’. 

You can smile, but, as on my ferry, you still feel the sea’s movement. No boat is aloof in a storm even if its passengers benefit from those wonderful stabilisers below deck.

Like me you may be travelling now through a storm in your life. Put faith in Jesus Christ as your stabiliser and keep fellowship with others in the ferry which is his Church. You’ll one day reach harbour and be part of the rejoicing felt after a stormy voyage!

It’s a new month in a new year of tumult in our nation.

At this time the credibility of Parliamentary democracy has taken a tumble, with that of ministers, politicians and the media, leaving many bewildered not knowing who to trust.



Fear not - trust! Trust God - he is above all to be trusted!



In the tumult of an earlier age, as the Roman Empire fell apart in the 5th century, St Augustine of Hippo preached on the message of the Christmas angels in these words: ‘Fear not the coming of your God: fear not his friendship… Fear is a suffering that oppresses us. But look at the immensity of love.’

 To believe is to have the capacity to rise through natural fear into the glorious liberty of the children of God. To know you are loved, that God’s Spirit has been poured into your heart, is to connect through trust in God with the centre of the universe and see his perfect love casting out fear and its oppression over you.

In the tumult we’re living through over Brexit, believers refuse what Augustine calls ‘the suffering fear brings’ and immerse ourselves in the immensity of God’s love, wide as the ocean!

I believe this to be a month in which people who do so will become like beacons in this storm, drawing people towards ultimate security in the peace of Christ that passes understanding.

Fear not - trust! Trust God - he is above all to be trusted!

To listen to the full broadcast try https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Inspirational-Breakfast

Premier Radio thought on St John Bosco

John Bosco who’s commemorated on 31 January is a Saint associated with mission to youth. His work with poor boys in 19th century Turin was fuelled by his own humble origins as a shepherd, his struggle to become a priest and his belief that love rather than severity was the clue to forming children up into godliness.

‘A main trick of the devil is to make people believe serving God is synonymous with a dull life’ he taught. ‘This is not true at all. I should like to teach you a method of Christian life that will make you happy and content finding joy and pleasure’. John Bosco learned how to juggle as a youth. He used that gift as a way of entertaining young people and earning the right to speak of the Lord to them.

It was prison visiting, seeing 12 to 18 year olds locked up for petty crimes, that fuelled Bosco’s resolve to make a difference to youngsters. He sought  employment for them. With his mother’s help he accommodated scores of children from whom came Christian leaders who in turn helped transform 19th century Italy.

John Bosco was a dreamer. In his early days God spoke to his passion to help the youth in a dream, words he came to live by which summarise the challenge of today’s Saint: ‘You will have to win these [young] friends of yours… with gentleness and kindness… to show them sin is ugly and virtue beautiful’.

May our engagement with young people be blessed after John Bosco’s example with holy love from above!

To listen to the full broadcast try https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Inspirational-Breakfast


Today’s the Feast of St Thomas Aquinas who lived in the thirteenth century and was expert at putting faith into words. He saw, to quote him, how the light of ‘faith wakens us to the mystery of God’.

Those words came back to me on a stormy sea journey when at one point on our crossing of the Channel the sun broke through the storm clouds. Light streamed on the turbulent sea reflected forwards in a scene of extraordinary beauty. You couldn’t look at the sun but you could feast on a remarkable display of light reflected from the moving waters. Their threatening look was changed into a scene of immense beauty.

So, in Aquinas’s thinking, the light of faith transfigures life’s dark circumstances showing us God in the midst of it all. ‘It is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ writes Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:6.

When I feel threatened by my circumstances I put faith in God. I ask for the light of faith in him to shine and change the look of things so I can persevere and do right. By that light I see beyond what’s facing me outwardly to God’s hand outstretched to me beyond those circumstances. As Aquinas writes in a hymn: ‘faith our outward sense befriending makes the inward vision clear’.

So be it for us all!

For full Thought of the Day listen again at https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Inspirational-Breakfast

Today’s the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi which reminds us how one person can change an era.

Almighty God when the world was growing cold, to the inflaming of our hearts by the fire of your love you raised up blessed Francis we pray in celebration today and we do so in an era of spiritual coldness to rival the thirteenth century. Francis gained approval for a group of monks known as friars to bring the good news of God’s love outside church walls to the poor. At one point he received stigmata or wounds in his hands, feet and side that established him as a Christ-like figure. He brought the memory of Jesus alive in his age, demonstrated in healings, miracles and a work of reconciliation reaching into the Muslim world.

Francis brought the 13th century Church alive - how much we need similar figures raised up by God to bless the 21st century with what Paul calls the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

It's hard to challenge apathy and unbelief. Francis did it using imagination and humour. To him we owe the invention of the Christmas Crib, Christian ministry to animals and a sense of the splendour of God in creation.  Chesterton wrote of St. Francis ‘The sense of humour salts all his escapades’. On his feast day we ask God to inspire all marked like him by Christ with an engaging humility and humour gifted to warm the spiritual coldness of our own day.

Full Thought of the Day listen again at https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Inspirational-Breakfast

It's a big day for me.

Today’s St Bartholomew’s day and we’re keeping our patronal Feast at the Church I’m helping out at in Brighton whilst it lacks a parish priest. It’s a high Church in more sense than one, the tallest parish Church in England with a great choir and worship tradition.

As we worship this weekend we’ll be doing so before the towering altar with angels ascending on immense mosaics behind the holy table illustrating today’s Gospel from St John’s Gospel Chapter 1 verse 51 where Jesus says to Nathanael known as Bartholomew: Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

We know little about apostle Bartholomew save this promise Our Lord gave us through him that we would see his glory. As Jacob in the Old Testament saw heaven open and angels ascending and descending on a ladder Christians are promised a taste of heaven as they worship in Jesus Christ, God’s provision for access to himself.

O saving Victim opening wide the gate of heaven to man below we sing to Christ in a favourite hymn at St Bartholomew’s. With angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify thy holy name evermore praising thee and singing: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee O Lord most high!

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!

So be it - with St Bartholomew and all the Saints - glory to God!

Thought of the Day broadcast Friday 24th August 2018 on Premier Christian Radio

https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Inspirational-Breakfast