Luke’s writing encourages us to rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit to discern how best each of us should witness the Good News of Jesus in our lives and actions. The Spirit is an important person in the Gospel – present at key moments in the life and ministry of Jesus – and  [Read More]

Last week the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee published its report on ‘The UK’s footprint on global biodiversity’ which highlighted the growing number of animal and plant species that are threatened with extinction. The UK’s consumption patterns, the report concluded, remain unsustainable and overseas development assistance that seeks to integrate poverty and environmental objectives  [Read More]

This week the church celebrates Saint Matthew, patron saint of bankers, tax collectors and accountants. In our Start:Stop reflection we ask whether it is time to take stock and reconcile the balance sheet of our own lives? Are we properly valuing our assets – those things that are dear to us. Are we taking proper  [Read More]

Psalm 30 is the song of thanksgiving of someone who has survived a terrible crisis, the nature of which is ambiguous but clearly perilous; the psalmist states that their foes were rejoicing over them, that they were in the “Pit”. As we read on we learn that their cries for help were heard; God turned  [Read More]

It’s not just in the workplace that we face role conflict, but within all areas of life – and perhaps especially at the point at which the different areas of our lives meet. Nor is it always a third party – another person – who places these pressures upon us; it is just as likely  [Read More]

Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth century Carmelite Lay Brother seemed to perfect the art of being ‘constant in prayer’ – of making prayer ‘business as usual’. But isn’t that what monks are supposed to do? His letters and conversations published under the title “The Practice of the Presence of God” reveal that the life of a lay  [Read More]

It seems as though more and more of our knowledge is now being stored “in the cloud” – even our knowledge about God, about ourselves and our memories of others – and our cloud keeps growing. That might sound a bit scary to some – but according to an anonymous mystic, writing in the late fourteenth  [Read More]