There are no Whit Walks, no Goosnargh cakes, no petal showers and no rushes strewn in the aisles. But Sunday is Pentecost. “The churches are still locked,” writes Christopher Howse in Saturday’s Telegraph. “But that has never been an obstacle to the Holy Spirit.”

The sixth Sunday of Easter is also known as Rogation Sunday since many of this week’s Rogation walks now normally happen on the Sunday. Without the virus there would have been a tour of parish boundaries, known as beating the bounds, in Cambridge (Little St Mary’s), a procession through the town at Leighton Buzzard (The […]

Tower top singing at Magdalen College Oxford has been taking place early on May morning since 1509. Will it happen tomorrow? Yes, although not from the Great Tower. The 28 members of the choir will be singing the Hymnus Eucharisticus and a traditional madrigal remotely from their homes around the country. To follow at 6am […]

No egg rolling at Preston or hare pie scrambling at Hallaton but it’s still Easter Monday. And it is still the second day of Easter. It will be Easter every day for forty days to Ascension Day on Thursday 21 May when we hope and pray that life will be a little better.

We might not have Easter eggs, or even fresh eggs, lamb or Easter cake but we can still recall why today is Easter Day just as prisoners of war or those behind the Iron Curtain did. We can live the first Esater Day in real time. What happened today Matthew 28.1-15; Mark 16.1-18; Luke 24.1-49; […]

A Good Friday meditation before the crown of thorns will be broadcast live from inside the Notre-Dame Cathedral this morning. The event is being streamed online by France’s Catholic television station, KTO, from 10:30 to 11:30am. The Good Friday Liturgy with Pope Francis can be seen on Vatican TV at 5pm. What happened today Matthew […]

The word Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum meaning commandment found in the gospel acclamation for today: Mandatum novum de vobis (I give you a new commandment: love one another just as I have loved you) from St John’s Gospel 13.34. On the first Maundy Thursday, Christ commanded followers ‘to love one another’ and […]

Today, on the way in to Jerusalem for the third time, Jesus and his companions pass the fig tree which appears to have withered. In the city he spends the day teaching in the Temple where the wary chief priests asked him, without direct success, by what authority he acted and spoke. But he attempts […]

The late Patrick O’Donovan of The Observer said that Holy Week was the peculiar privilege of Christians and their most important week of the year. This year it will be unseen by many without the reminders of the outdoor Palm Sunday processions and pictures of The Queen distributing Maundy money. But throughout the world thousands […]

Not so many flowers will be presented to mothers this Mothering Sunday. But we shall be seeking, maybe via phone and email, to help and thank our mothers who have looked after us and, in many cases, worked hard to make home a special place for the coming months. We pray for mothers alive and […]