Short Talks
This section of the website comprises short stand-alone talks and articles on different aspects of the Christian Faith, including the teaching of Jesus, the seasons of the Church’s Year and Feasts and Festivals. More talks/sermons/homilies/articles will be added in due course.
The section of the website entitled The Christian Faith provides more extended teaching on larger content areas, such as the Creed and the Sacraments.
Rogationtide
Rogationtide is a very ancient season of the Church’s Year. In 470 AD the town of Vienne in France had the misfortune to be visited by a series of earthquakes and accompanying storms of great violence which threatened to cause so much destruction to crops as to bring about a grave shortage of food. Whereupon Mamertus, the good bishop of the place, called his flock to prayer and vowed to institute processions on the three days before Ascension Day. The storms abated and this observance of Rogationtide spread widely, and already existed as a custom in England in the year 747 when it was definitely ordered to be held annually.
Asking in prayer
Jesus said, “…if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (NRSV, John 16:23)
There are few people who do not pray in time of great trouble or danger, but how many are really convinced that this promise of Our Lord is true and that whatever they ask of God in his Name, they will actually be given it? Indeed, many believe that they have already proved for themselves that his promise was false.
Saints A - G
This is a new section in the Holy Faith website. We start with St George but more saints are gradually being added.
References
Biblical references are included in brackets in the text. Other references are listed at the end of each meditation. The Scripture quotations are mostly from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The initials NRSV are used at the end of these quotations.
A few quotations are from the Jerusalem Bible, copyright © 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday & Company, Inc. The words Jerusalem Bible are used at the end of these quotations.
An occasional quotation is from The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1965, 1966 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ‘Catholic edition RSV’ appears at the end of these quotations.