Viewing all items in Resource Category: Editorial

What creepy crawlies are lurking in your allotment? This year, National Allotment Week has teamed up with the Big Bug Survey to try and find out. The theme of the week is Bugs, Bees and Broccoli, and the aim is to acknowledge the importance of gardening with nature in mind. As the National Allotment Society...

Raymond Nonnatus (1204 – 40) is a good patron saint for anyone who does not take life for granted. The account of his own life begins with the story of how his mother died just before his birth, and of how Raymond was somehow extracted from her dead body just in time to save him.(‘Nonnatus’...

 Children and young people have been the focus of this year’s grants from the Cathedral Music Trust (CMT).  A total of £400,000 has been awarded to choral foundations in the UK to enable young people to participate in cathedral music. The individual attention from an experienced vocal trainer, as well as the change to build...

One of the latest trends in fun home decorating is to ‘dress’ your fireplace. Known as ‘mantelscaping’, it can range from simply rearranging your favourite things among seasonal flowers, to creating a huge and dramatic floral display with the help of bunched chicken wire that waterfalls down your mantelpiece in a grand sweep to the...

Compassion, the humanitarian aid organisation, is very worried about the rising cost of living in the developing world. As a spokesman explains, there are already 365 million children worldwide living on less that £1.45 a day. No wonder that the UN has recently declared that social conditions in many developing countries are now “at a...

Here you can download ALL of the High Days for July in one document.

Most Christians in the UK have heard of the Church Mission Society or CMS.  Far fewer have heard of the Revd Henry Venn (1796-1873), whose father, the rector of Clapham, founded CMS in 1799, and who himself became the greatest missionary strategist of the 19th century. Not that Henry Venn ever became a missionary himself;...

If you are thinking of turning your back on wealth and privilege, in order to do something you feel God is calling you to do, St Theobald (1017 – 1066) may be the saint for you.   He was born into an aristocratic family at Provins in France.  But he became a hermit with a fellow...

Do you ever admire relief workers?  Those hardy folk who regularly appear on our TV screens, actively seeking out the disease-ridden, starving, destitute people of the world, instead of avoiding them, as most of us try and do. John Francis Regis (1597 – 1640) could be a patron saint of relief workers.  It all began...

Thomas, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, was an impulsive, confused, honest sceptic.  Jesus could understand and work with such a man.  Thomas’ impulsiveness was evident when Jesus prepared to visit Lazarus in Bethany.  It was a dangerous trip to make, because of the Jews, but Thomas urged his fellow disciples: “Let us also go, that...

St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271 – 1336) could be the patron saint of all well-to-do women who have compassionate hearts.   As wife of Denis, the King of Portugal, Elizabeth became a byword for her acts of piety and charity to the poor.  She founded convents, hospitals, and shelters for prostitutes.  After Denis died she became...

These days, lawyers and politicians are held in the lowest esteem by the public, along with tabloid journalists and estate agents. St Thomas More was both a lawyer and politician, who is today much admired for holding steadfastly to his faith-based principles. He lived in dangerous times, when anyone, even queens, who displeased King Henry...