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The Rectory St James the Least of All My dear Nephew Darren I am glad you enjoyed your conference, but please do not be deluded into thinking that conferences are there to teach you anything. Conferences exist to provide another entry on your CV, to give you time off while flattering yourself that you are...

(Micah 7:19) The Bible is very expressive when it comes to speaking about how God can forgive our sins. It uses many descriptions to tell us how our sins are both forgiven and forgotten. Here is a sample of these great promises. Our sins are  ‘forgiven,’ (Ps. 32:5); ‘washed thoroughly’ and ‘blotted out’ (Ps. 51:2,...

Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester from 1062 to 1095, occupies a unique place in British church history. He was the last surviving pre-Conquest bishop, the first bishop to pay homage to William the Conqueror after the battle of Hastings, and one of the few Saxons to keep high office to the end of William’s reign. On...

1          The naming of Jesus 1          Have you ever wondered where the name ‘Jesus’ comes from? 2          Basil the Great – champion of the Church 2          Basil and Gregory – lives of costly discipleship 5          Simeon Stylites – one of the weirder saints! 6          Epiphany 6          Where did the Wise Men come from?...

Matthew and Luke tell how the angel instructed that Mary’s baby was to be named Jesus – a common name meaning ‘saviour’. The Church recalls the naming of Jesus on 1st January – eight days after 25th December (by the Jewish way of reckoning days).  In Jewish tradition, the male babies were circumcised and named...

The name Jesus is a transliteration of a name that occurs in several languages. It is of Hebrew origin, ‘Yehosua’, or Joshua. There is also the Hebrew-Aramaic form, ‘Yesua’. In Greek, it became ‘ Ἰησοῦς’ (Iēsoûs), and in Latin it became ‘Iesus’. The meaning of the name is ‘Yahweh delivers’ or ‘Yahweh rescues’, or ‘Yahweh...

Basil was most people’s idea of the perfect diocesan bishop. He was a theologian of distinction, who as a monk devoted himself to much prayer and teaching. He leapt to the defence of the Church from the persecution of the Arian emperor Valens, but also appreciated great secular literature of the time, gave away his...

‘Discipline’ is now virtually a banned word, along with ‘risk’, ‘problem’ and ‘failure’. They seem to have been replaced respectively by ‘focus’, ‘safety’, ‘challenge’ and ‘opportunity’. On the occasions when we do recognise and applaud the virtue of discipline, it’s usually in the lives and activities of soldiers, police officers, dressage horses and the dog....

Quite frankly, this hermit was about as weird as they come. But he loved God, and God blessed him, strange though he was. So perhaps Simeon Stylites (390 – 459) should be the patron saint of all REALLY eccentric people. Simeon was the son of a shepherd on the Syrian border of Cilicia. He joined...

On 6th January we celebrate Epiphany – the visit of the Wise Men to the baby Jesus. But who were these Wise Men? No one knows for sure. Matthew calls them ‘Magi’, and that was the name of an ancient caste of a priestly kind from Persia. It wasn’t until the third century that they...

Magi from the East – it isn’t a lot to go on. The Magi had originally been a religious caste among the Persians. Their devotion to astrology, divination and the interpretation of dreams led to an extension in the meaning of the word, and by the first century the Magi in Matthew’s gospel could have...

The story of the coming of the Magi grew in the telling. By the 6th century they had acquired names: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. By medieval times they were considered to be kings. Whoever they were, we do know from Matthew that they brought three gifts to Jesus. What about their gifts of gold, frankincense...