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Editor:  Lent is a time for taking stock of oneself spiritually. It is a time for ‘walking in the wilderness’ in preparation for Easter.   With this in mind, we offer: The devil wrestles with God, and the field of battle is the human heart. – Fyodor Dostoevski The fundamental deception of Satan is the lie...

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....

Editor:  We have featured mainly Lent books this month, to give your readers time to choose one before Lent begins on 17th February. Living His Story – Revealing the Extraordinary Love of God in Ordinary Ways Rooted in Love – Lent Reflections on Life in Christ Opening our Lives – Devotional Readings for Lent The...

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...

– revealing the extraordinary love of God in ordinary ways By Hannah Steele, SPCK, £7.99 This, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 2021, explores evangelism as a way of sharing God’s love with people. How can we convey the love of God to our neighbours in a post-Christian world that has largely forgotten the...

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...