Viewing all items in Resource Category: Holy Days

2013 marked the 1450th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity in the UK.  It was brought by St Columba from Ireland to Iona – a tiny island off Mull, in the Western Highlands. Columba (c. 521 -97) was born in Donegal of the royal Ui Neill clan, and trained as a monk.  He founded the...

Are you going to Cyprus on holiday this year?  If so, spare a thought for the Cypriot who played such a key role in the New Testament. He was Joseph, a Jewish Cypriot and a Levite, who is first mentioned in Acts 4:36, when the early church was sharing a communal lifestyle.  Joseph sold a...

Antony of Padua knew St Francis of Assisi.  Both men were true followers of Christ in a time of great religious confusion and social turmoil. Like Francis, Antony (1193 – 1231) was born into a wealthy family.  Antony’s father was a nobleman of Lisbon, Portugal, who sent his son at 16 to study the Bible...

If Richard Baxter were alive today, he would probably be contributing to the Thought for the Day on Radio 4, because he had a gift for the sound-bite.   Try these memorable quotes: Preaching a man a sermon with a broken head, and telling him to be right with God is equal to telling a man...

For anyone interested in Christian mysticism, Evelyn Underhill may be a good place to begin.   She died on 10th June 1941 after a life full of remarkable achievements:  author of more than 30 books that explored the intersection between the spiritual and the physical, the first woman ever to lecture to the CofE clergy, the...

Trying to explain the doctrine of the Trinity has kept many a theologian busy down the centuries.   One helpful picture is to imagine the sun shining in the sky.  The sun itself – way out there in space, and unapproachable in its fiery majesty – is the Father.  The light that flows from it, and...

Wanting God more clearly, dearly and nearly Ever wonder where the prayer … ‘May I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly, day by day’ comes from?  Richard of Chichester, a bishop in the 13th century, wrote it. He began life as Richard de Wych of Droitwich, the son...

In the UK, USA and Canada, the third Sunday in June is Father’s Day.  It’s 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 this year?  If your own father cannot be...

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 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...

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...

St 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...