Viewing all items in Resource Category: Holy Days

Easter is the most joyful day of the year for Christians. Christ has died for our sins. We are forgiven. Christ has risen!  We are redeemed! We can look forward to an eternity in His joy! Hallelujah! The Good News of Jesus Christ is a message so simple that you can explain it to someone...

As the traditional Easter story is rehearsed again this month, you may notice that there is one name that frequently occurs. It is that of the ‘other’ Mary – not the mother of Jesus, but Mary of Magdalene, who stood by her at the cross and became the first person actually to meet the risen...

Easter is the most joyful day of the year for Christians. Christ has died for our sins. We are forgiven. Christ has risen!  We are redeemed! We can look forward to an eternity in His joy! Hallelujah! The Good News of Jesus Christ is a message so simple that you can explain it to someone...

The following list of witnesses may help you put all those references in order…. Mary Magdalene                                Mark 16:9-11; John 20:10-18 Other women at the tomb                Matthew 28:8-10 Peter in Jerusalem                             Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5 The two travellers on the road        Mark 16:12,13 10 disciples behind closed doors     Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25 11...

How do you make sense of the Resurrection? Dead men don’t rise, so why believe that this particular dead man did rise? At the end of St Luke’s gospel we read that: “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement” (Luke 24.4). This is highly significant. The Gospels do not show us a...

William Law is the saint for anyone forced to choose between losing their job or losing their integrity. It had all begun so straightforwardly. Born in King’s Cliffe, Northamptonshire in 1686, William had studied at Emmanuel College Cambridge, been ordained a deacon, and been made a Fellow of the college in 1711. But soon politics...

– the more things change… Zeno of Verona (d. 371) should be the patron saint of all ministers who suspect that the more things change, the more they remain the same. For instance: ethnic diversity…church-planting… teaching…. concern for the poor… women’s ministry in the church… sound like modern-day Christian concerns? Not a bit of it...

 – martyrs of the Early Church In the month of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice of Himself for us, the martyrdoms of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonice are well worth remembering. What they said as they died could be said by the many thousands of Christians who are facing persecution all over the world today. Carpus, Papylus and...

Alphege is the saint for anyone who refuses to let others suffer on their behalf. His is a tale of courage and self-sacrifice, with some details that are still poignant, even down 1000 years of history. Alphege began like many other leading churchmen of his time; born of a noble family, with a good education,...

– the man who proved there is a God Anselm is a good saint to remember next time someone asks you to prove that there is a God. His brilliant and original Proslogion, written 1077-8, sets out the ‘ontological’ proof for God’s existence. Nearly ten centuries later, it is still studied by theological students as...

The English have a patron saint who isn’t English, about whom next to nothing is known for sure, and who, just possibly, may not have existed at all. But that didn’t stop St George being patriotically invoked in many battles, notably at Agincourt and in the Crusades, and of course it is his cross that...

The Saint of an English Army before he was Patron Saint of England, St George may have been a soldier, but he was no Englishman. Some stories say that he was an officer in the Roman army under Diocletian, who refused to abandon his faith during the Terror, and was martyred at Lydda in Palestine...