SE15

The ancient Holy Week service of Tenebrae is now often held on Wednesday and this year there are opportunities to be present online. ‘This arduous service has mystical beauty,’ observed art historian Brian Sewell who described it as ‘the most disturbing and convincing service’, which was also ‘poetic, theatrical and terrible’. The responses in this […]

The ancient Holy Week service of Tenebrae is now often held on Wednesday and this year there are opportunities to be present online. ‘This arduous service has mystical beauty,’ observed art historian Brian Sewell who described it as ‘the most disturbing and convincing service’, which was also ‘poetic, theatrical and terrible’. The responses in this […]

‘Holy Week … is the peculiar privilege of Christians and should be their delight, their share in the sacred act of theatre, their most important week of all the year,’ wrote Observer journalist Patrick O’Donovan. Holy Week, which begins tonight with Christ arriving at Bethany, enables us to live with Christ his final week on […]

Today Thursday 25 March is a bright pause in Lent to look ahead nine months to Christmas. If Christmas is on 25 December so 25 March must be the Annunciation. On this day we recall the Virgin Mary being visited in her Nazareth home by an angel and informed that she would give birth to […]

Today Thursday 25 March is a bright pause in Lent to look ahead nine months to Christmas. If Christmas is on 25 December so 25 March must be the Annunciation. On this day we recall the Virgin Mary being visited in her Nazareth home by an angel and informed that she would give birth to […]

Today Friday 19 March is St Joseph’s Day and we are remembering him in this year of St Joseph marking the 150th anniversary of Pope Pius IX declaring St Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church. He is also patron of workers, including carpenters, and fathers. We know Joseph as Jesus’s step father who accepted Mary […]

Today’s 17 March St Patrick’s Day celebrations will for a second year be muted by the virus. But this is not rare for until very recently St Patrick’s Day in Ireland was a quiet family day like Christmas Day with even the pubs closed. Patrick is also patron of Montserrat in the West Indies and […]

Today’s 17 March St Patrick’s Day celebrations will for a second year be muted by the virus. But this is not rare for until very recently St Patrick’s Day in Ireland was a quiet family day like Christmas Day with even the pubs closed. Patrick is also patron of Montserrat in the West Indies and […]

If it’s Mothering Sunday it’s the middle of Lent. Mothering Sunday, 14 March this year, is about both remembering our mothers and acknowledging our Mother Church. This is why in normal times at some parish churches the congregation marks Mothering Sunday by going outside, joining hands and surrounding the building. They hug their church. But […]

If it’s Mothering Sunday it’s the middle of Lent. Mothering Sunday, 14 March this year, is about both remembering our mothers and acknowledging our Mother Church. This is why in normal times at some parish churches the congregation marks Mothering Sunday by going outside, joining hands and surrounding the building. They hug their church. But […]