Here I have put together a selection of homilies. The Word of God is ‘alive and active’ says the Letter to the Hebrews. That is not to say that it lives a hidden organic life we can trace through a microscope, as if it were a virus; but that it is inspired, a bearer of God’s eternal Spirit. Therefore it resounds to this day with quite as much force as when it was first spoken. It ever has something new to say. The preacher’s first task is to listen intently to this Word at once ancient and new, then to make his own, necessarily limited words its vehicles. I have not been able to provide translations of texts in other languages; but if you rummage around a little you will find a fair amount of material in English.

Not Divided

11 October 2024 Palendriai
What dignity in a life wholly given up! What sadness in an offering withdrawn or compromised! Continue reading

27. Sunday B

6 October 2024 Palendriai
Never have I more clearly realised the dignity of one who offers his life as an unconditional gift - such a gift structures existence, enabling stability and growth. It just isn't the same to give a little bit here, a little bit there. Continue reading

Job’s Insight

3 October 2024 Birgittaklosteret, Tiller
The world remains in birth pangs even unto the end of the age. To be stuck within them cannot but be traumatic. Continue reading

26. Sunday B

29 September 2024 Fountains Abbey
We have the potential to reveal God to one another, and we can likewise conceal him from each other. It is a terrifying prospect - by my actions I may effectively block another from seeing God, from reaching true freedom, happiness, and beatitude. Continue reading

Bellarmine

18 September 2024 Storfjord
One of the Second Vatican Council's choicest fruits is the catechism published in 1992. It received much attention when it came out, but do we read it now? Continue reading

24. Sunday B

15 September 2024 Trondheim
The cross, for being ‘ours’, must not shut us in; it must break us open, making of our lives a source of consolation for others. This consolation must be evident in deeds. Continue reading

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

14 September 2024 Trondheim
A dizzying thought - there might be material objects around that were physically touched by God Almighty! It is small wonder that Constantine set out to search for the greatest relic of all, the Cross on which Christ died. Continue reading

What is Love?

12 September 2024 Trondheim
At all times men and women have loved to talk about love; our time is no exception. It has this peculiarity, though, that discourse about ‘love’ these days tends to have an edge of anger. Continue reading

21. Sunday B

25 August 2024 Trondheim
It is immensely satisfying to be in the vicinity of a categorical imperative. Indeed, it can happen that we are deeply moved by our own capacity for greatness before we think, 'Still, there's no rush', and potter home to flick on the telly. Continue reading

Assumption of Our Lady

15 August 2024 Mount St Mary's Abbey, Wrentham
If we look closely at the liturgy for the Assumption, we find traces of the Ark everywhere. Pictorially it is a less alluring symbol than the cosmic lady: an ark, after all, is just a box. Continue reading

19. Sunday B

11 August 2024 Mount St Mary's Abbey, Wrentham
In Gilead, the Rev’d John Ames remarks, ‘I have always liked the phrase “nursing a grudge”, because many people are tender of their resentments, as of the thing nearest to their hearts.’ It is true and pathetic - no human attitude is more utterly unproductive of good. Continue reading

Olsok

29 July 2024 Nidarosdomen
Olav reminds us that is is possible to fight against our vices, to form our nature, to overcome conditioning in order to let Christ be formed in us, to make us bearers of his blessing. Continue reading

Vigil of Olsok

28 July 2024 Stiklestad
There's a risk that we believers create for ourselves a schizophrenic universe. One pole is represented by the religious dimension of life with sublime notions of God, providence, creation and redemption; the other pole represents concrete daily life marked by political worry, rising prices, relational conflicts, and dreams of looking swell in a swimsuit. Continue reading

Requiem for my Father

16 July 2024 Trondheim
Origen says somewhere that at judgement we shall all pass through fire; and that in us which is fireproof will remain. My father carried much that is fireproof. Continue reading

St Benedict

11 July 2024 Quarr Abbey
In 1981 Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that ‘the barbarians are not’, now, ‘waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time’. How one would love to be able to say that he has since been proven wrong. Continue reading

Our Lady of Providence

9 July 2024 St Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde
If only we had a bit more of that trustful, serene, God-oriented, oblative madness in the Church today. Who knows what might happen. Continue reading

Randomness & Order

2 July 2024 St Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde
Living in a world of balances upset ecologically, anthropologically, culturally, we are exposed to much randomness, haunted by the inconstant spectre of Artificial (or Inhuman) Intelligence. Who knows what it will lead to? Continue reading

Sts John Fisher & Thomas More

22 June 2024 St Mary's University, Twickenham
Fisher and More had this in common: their speech was ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; and no threat of terror could make them substitute one for the other. Continue reading

St Aloysius Gonzaga

21 June 2024 St Mary's University, Twickenham
In a fallen, pragmatically motivated world, it will rarely work to combine the royal and priestly charism effectively in a single person. The pitfalls of politics and frailties of character are too great. Continue reading

St Alban

20 June 2024 St Mary's University, Twickenham
Today’s Church faces competing absolute claims, even though the dictatorship whose tentacles reach out for us is one of relativism. A radical stance is called for, and radical measures. Continue reading

10. Sunday B

9 June 2024 Trondheim
If we only consider Jesus from the outside, proudly and imprisoned in preconceptions, we shall lack discernment in theological questions, at risk of committing categorical errors and yet be convinced that we are right. We see countless examples of this in Scripture and in Church history, even in our time. Continue reading

The Sacred Heart

7 June 2024 Trondheim
The way of contemplation is a way of slow, essential transformation that unites us with the contemplated object so that we can stay in it. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a universe in which we are invited to live. Continue reading

Corpus Christi

2 June 2024
When the Christian code of law prescribed the building of churches throughout the land it wasn't primarily to facilitate democratic conference; it was so that the entire people might gather before the Lord's altar to receive his Body and Blood, the foundation of the new and eternal covenant which then, in turn, would reshape the country through an awareness of communion based on brotherhood. Continue reading

Pentecost

19 May 2024 Trondheim
We recognise the Spirit's work in us when Jesus's oft-repeated words, 'Fear not', turn out to be a commandment we can heed, when we freely step outside the prison of anxiety and ask ourselves, 'What on earth was I doing in there all that time?' Continue reading

Ordination of Florian Pletscher

18 May 2024 Trondheim
It is the priest's privilege to facilitate the encounter between the one who thirsts and the Source, in order then to withdraw discreetly in thanksgiving and intercession. For a priest is one who 'prays much for the people'. Continue reading