Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

We live in a world where we can expect the sun to rise tomorrow and the milk to pour out of the bottle when we tilt it over our cereal. But for God, the properties of matter and the biological processes that we know and read about in textbooks are simply the usual ways He...

The more things change, the more they remain the same. You could read Meinrad’s story today in the newspapers of any large city. He was born near Wurtemberg of a free peasant family and he became a monk at Reichenau (Switzerland). In 829 he moved to Einsiedeln to be a hermit, where he lived quietly...

The Bishop of St Albans, Alan Smith, convenor of the Bishops in the House of Lords, and the Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, who speaks on poverty issues in the Lords, have recently responded to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn statement. They said: “It is heartening to hear the Chancellor single out the needs...

January is a time for thinking about New Year Resolutions, even though we can struggle to keep them very long! However, this month is a good time to re-set our spiritual disciplines. These practices, which engage our whole person, help our spiritual growth as disciples of Christ. If we want more of Jesus’ presence in...

Your dog and cat should be allowed to be the wonderful animals that they are, and not treated as if they were small humans. That is the advice of ‘EthicsFirst’, a group of campaigning vets and academics who are urging pet owners against the ‘Disneyfication’ of their pets, such as imposing dog jumpers and vegan...

Jews had come to Poland from all over Europe, where they found freedom to worship and trade. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were 3.5 million Jews in Poland, or a little over 10 per cent of the population. In the Polish town of Osweicim, that figure was 58 per cent. Jews were...

Agnes should be the patron saint of all the young Christian girls alive today who live in areas of the world where they face kidnap, rape, forced marriage, persecution and even death – simply because they are Christian. Agnes, born c 291, probably came from a noble Roman family. She converted to Christianity at the...

Last month I wrote about the use of flowers to decorate the church during Advent and Christmas and how they reflected our faith and the time of year.  Did you manage to see any of the three I mentioned: poinsettias, lilies or even irises? They each have a ‘meaning’ which tells you part of the...

The Bible Society is helping women in Pakistan learn to read by holding regular Bible-based literacy classes in the Khyber region. “Before the Bible Society came, there was not a single school for girls in this region. Education for girls was considered immoral,” says Beena, a former hospital cleaner and mother of eight children. “Now...

The current fashionable middle-class lifestyle trend of cold-water swimming is putting thousands of new converts in danger, as they swim in cold water for longer than their bodies can take. One lido in London recently reported that they were having to deal with cases of hypothermia every day, as some people insisted on staying in...

Could you help support Christians in Central Asia this winter?  As most of them are converts from Islam, they have been rejected by their relatives and community, and are struggling to survive the bitter winter weather. As Azamat, a church deacon in Central Asia explains, he works in a factory, but the wages are so...

Never under-estimate a deacon. After all, the first-ever Christian martyr was a deacon in the church of Jerusalem – St Stephen.  And the first-ever Christian martyr in Spain was a deacon of the Church of Saragossa – St Vincent. By now it was 304AD, and the Roman Emperor Diocletian was persecuting Christians.  When his edict...