Sheep(dog) Sunday
Today is not liturgically designated as “Sheep Sunday”, but our lectionary readings effectively render it so, as up and down the country preachers dust off their ovine metaphors and try…
Meditation and Reflection
Enforced Sabbatical: Rest and Be Thankful
This is the 17th contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. The author wishes to be known that he is a feckless waster saved by grace. On a map it’s called the A83 Trunk Road.…
The Supper at Emmaus
Today’s Gospel reading gives me the opportunity to share with you one of my favourite paintings, that of The Supper at Emmaus, by the Italian Renaissance genius Caravaggio. It hangs…
Adam was patient zero: he passed his virus on to all of us
This is the 16th contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. It comes again from the Rev’d Ian Chidlow, Curate at St Mary’s Parish Church, Cheadle. …
The mission of the Church is not ‘right ethics’
This is the 15th contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. The author wishes to be known as The Snail @. He has a background in…
‘I am the resurrection and the life’
No matter how many times this day comes and goes; no matter how many years of how many decades and centuries Easter Sunday passes with a myriad of sorrows or…
Holy Saturday: the Harrowing of Hell
Each Easter, those charged with preaching sermons have the opportunity to refresh their understanding of the story. Being human, not all of us do so each and every year. Life,…
Good Friday is good enough
The crucifixion of Christ remains the event of salvation-history: it is the defining pivotal moment of creation, redemption and reconciliation. It is the nexus of the realm of eschatology, without…
Maundy Thursday: the invisible and the distant
This 13th contribution comes courtesy of Alison Bailey Castellina MA (Oxon), who founded the forerunner of The Tymes Trust national charity for children with ME, and led the national Christian…
Nobody claps for Jesus
This is the 12th contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. It comes from Mike Stallard, who has been in education all his life, and is…
Whisky Priests Galore
I have a sense that many clerics today find themselves no less confused and variously out of sorts than their widely dispersed flocks. Some report being frazzled with too much…
Coronavirus and the Kingdom of God: we reap what we sow
This is the 10th contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. It comes from Graham Wood, an ex-police local government officer, now retired, and author of…
‘Church locked for coronavirus’ – but it was last year, too
This is the ninth contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. It comes from Mike Stallard, who has been in education all his life, and is…
The Human Touch
This is the eighth contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. The author is a Christian and key-worker, who has had a busy week. Were…
The real presence of Christ in the community of the virtual Church
This morning I want to depart from our Lectionary readings to offer a text which inspired a first-class sermon which I once heard at Rochester Cathedral. A few years ago,…
The Plague of Cyprian
This is the seventh contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. It comes from Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage and Father of the Church, from his work…
The end of freedom?
Last night the Prime Minister placed the UK in lockdown to help abate the spread of coronavirus. You should be staying at home unless you must travel for essential work,…
The Tower of Babel
This is the sixth contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. It comes from the Rev'd Robert Jackson, a sector chaplain. Over 3,000 years ago,…
Revealed, reclaimed, restored
This is the fifth contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence. The author has a 30-year itinerant preaching and teaching ministry. He leads a large public…
“Death is a natural part of life” (Yoda)
The fourth contribution to His Grace’s emergency team ministry during the coronavirus pestilence comes from the Rev'd Ian Chidlow, Curate at St Mary’s Parish Church, Cheadle. Since Adam brought…