Viewing all items in Resource Category: Holy Days

A time to celebrate male role models In the UK, USA and Canada, the third Sunday in June is Father’s Day. It’s usually a good time for sons and daughters to take their father to his favourite restaurant, or to watch a favoured sport, or whatever else he enjoys doing. How will you celebrate it...

June, of course is the month of the summer solstice, the month of the Sun.  Sol + stice come from two Latin words meaning ‘sun’ and ‘to stand still’.  As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky. The Summer Solstice results in the longest...

Alban should be the patron saint of anyone who impulsively offers to help a stranger in need… and finds their own life turned upside down as a result. The story goes that Alban was a Roman citizen quietly living in England in the third century.  Then, miles away in Rome, the emperor, Diocletian ordered a...

On June 22nd the Church remembers St Alban, who was put to death on that day in 250AD, on the site of the town in Hertfordshire that now bears his name and has a splendid cathedral which houses his shrine. Christianity was struggling to survive in third century Britain under Roman rule. In the middle...

Alban was the very first Christian martyr in Britain – or at least the first we know of. A ‘martyr’ is someone who has died for the faith – the word literally means ‘witness’. He was probably killed during the persecution under the emperor Diocletian in the early years of the fourth century, in the...

Preparing the way for the Messiah John the Baptist is famous for baptising Jesus, and for losing his head to a woman. He was born to Zechariah, a Temple priest, and Elizabeth, who was a cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. John was born when his mother was advanced in years, and after the...

When many of us think of a ‘Maximus’, we remember the popular film Gladiator and Russell Crowe starring as a Roman general who ends up as a slave successfully defying the Emperor. But Maximus of Turin, the first Bishop of Turin, also led a tumultuous life in fighting evil. He had seen violence and suffering...

The two most famous apostles are remembered this month, for they share a feast day. St Peter, ‘the Rock’ St Peter (d. c. 64AD), originally called Simon, was a married fisherman from Bethsaida, near the Sea of Galilee. He met Jesus through his brother, Andrew. Jesus gave him the name of Cephas (Peter) which means...

“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth” Acts 1:8 We all get tired and battle weary sometimes. The disciples of Jesus had just been through a three-year long roller coaster...

Sundays of the Month 3rd        5th Sunday of Easter 10th      6th Sunday of Easter 17th      7th Sunday of Easter 24th      Day of Pentecost – Whit Sunday Editor:  As the Church’s year does not change, much of this material has appeared before.  The item on John Calvin is new.  1                      May Day...

May is the month when the ancient pagans used to get up to ‘all sorts’! The Romans held their festival to honour the mother-goddess Maia, goddess of nature and growth. (May is named after her.) The early Celts celebrated the feast of Beltane, in honour of the sun god, Beli. For centuries in ‘Olde England’...

One thing for sure:  the apostles were not self-obsessed. In fact, many a church historian has wished that they had left us just a few more personal details about themselves in the New Testament. James the Less is an excellent example. This is the name we give to James the son of Alphaeus, but beyond...