Category: Sermons

Welp, I got a decent night’s sleep, and ran a wooden two miles this morning, fruit and toast for breakfast, and the Easter Sunday service went swimmimgly. I’ll add the sermon below, in the ‘More’ zone.

Margaret spent all day yesterday baking two Easter Lamb cakes, one black (chocolate) and one white (vanilla). The baking worked out perfectly (with the help of some carefully planned toothpick infrastructure), though the frosting challenged her. The final results, though, were according to one parishioner ‘too cute to eat’.

Narrator’s voice: ‘But nonetheless, they were eaten.’

Continue reading “Risen Indeed”

Just for the curious, below the ‘More’ fold I will drop this morning’s sermon and the handout from the Faith Forum talk I gave on the Incarnation.
Continue reading “Homily and Handout”

I’ve let sermons back up a bit. Below the fold, as it were, I’ll post Sunday’s sermon, then Sunday evening’s homily from the Healing and Wholeness service, then this morning’s homily from the 10:30 Communion service. Sometimes people ask — the answer is, ‘here’.
Continue reading “Homiletical Tripleheader”

Two miles at a mid pace, rolling average creeping up to 20:09; coffee and fruit, say Morning raayer, then after a while, coffee and toast; shower, dress, fine-tune sermon (in the ‘Continued’ section), then to church for Mass and sermon. I’ll preside at Evensong tonight. Continue reading “Fun Day”

I was meditating on the Feast of All Souls, and sought to remember whether I hasd preached on this feast. So I searched my trusty outboard memory when sure enough, in the year 2022, Fr George Westhaver invited me to preach at Pusey House. I brought the day and the readings in conjunction with one of my favourite poems, and the result made for a good sermon, I think — worth offering to you, anyway. (Click below for the PDF.)

At the end of this post, I’ll add the sermon I preached for a dear former student of mine’s First Mass, on St John’s Day — that’s the rationale for the title.

Otherwise, a pleasant enough start to the day: two miles in the warmest early-morning temperatures of the year, fruit and coffee, cleaning up, Morning Prayer, further coffee and a pain au raisin with Margaret at R&R, where several friends stopped by to chat. Did some shopping, came home to the ladies in time for lunch, and now settling down to do some actual scholarly reading and (heven permitting) writing (!). But first I will post the sermon in question.

Got up, grudgingly, to run my miles and have a fruit and coffee breakfast. Said the Morning Office at home, fine-tuned today’s sermon a bit, cleaned up, and meandered down to St Helen’s for the first Mass in a couple of months, I think. After checking through the liturgical pattern at my home base (after serving for a couple of months, if not more, at the different St Nic’s and the very different St Michael and All Angels), I presided and preached, and came home to two fretful dogs. They were bereft, cos Margaret went to Oxford to Mary Mags this morning. All well.

(Oh, the three nativities are those of Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist, the three births observed in our liturgical calendar. Otherwise we observe the saint’s entry into the Church Triumphant, or the translation of their relics, or another ritually significant date.)

Two miles in pleasant weather (at a decent pace), Morning Prayer, hot breakfast, Pentecost Mass at St Nicolas’s, home to unwind for the early afternoon. Sermon below.

In a couple of hours, we’ll connect with family and friends in Connecticut for a memorial to my sister Holly. Then sleep, and begin a fresh week.

Walked and ran my two miles (usual route) this morning, fruit breakfast, got cleaned up and dressed, went to St Nic’s and prepared for the service, preached and celebrated, drifted home, and have been sitting mostly comatose since then. We were planning to go to Edith Wren’s birthday party, but the willing spirit, flesh, and so on.

In keeping with my new policy, here’s today’s sermon. I think it hasn’t fully matured — a couple of days of living with it would help — but it was well received, so…

My back and legs are still stiff from my over-eager book shelving extravaganza on Tuesday; yesterday I struggled on my morning run, so today — instead of running this morning — I walked most of my two miles. I walked, so as not to let my muscles entirely off the hook, but walking concedes that running was just too uncomfortable to press through.

Yesterday didn’t make that any easier. I raced from Morning Prayer to Oxford for my morning tutorial, then after lunch had a long consultation with a PG student, then a revision, then the long bus ride home, a hasty dinner, then off to St Nic’s for the Ascension Day Mass. At length, I stumbled home and collapsed in a heap on the living room sofa.

In keeping with my new resolution, I’m attaching the sermon below. I didn’t feel as though I had the rhythm of the sermon, but people’s responses suggest that they didn’t sense a problem.