How familiar are you with farming? That was my opening line last Sunday, and I have to repeat it again today because the parable we’ve just heard requires quite detailed agricultural knowledge, as well as geographical and historical. I’m not going to pretend I have such knowledge off the top of my head, so let me share with you what…

How familiar are you with farming? I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man (though I am one and even have the T-shirt), but it seems that with each new generation we gradually lose the connection between the food on our tables and plants growing and animals living in the fields. Once I took a couple of my…

How ironic that we are celebrating this feast of Jesus’ sacramental, the most tangible presence, in a virtual, physically absent way! This sacramental presence is so vital for the life of the Church that it has a special solemnity, held on Thursday, ten days after Pentecost Sunday (in Scotland it’s moved to Sunday for practical reasons). In normal times the…

The virus is dead. That’s a matter of scientific fact. A virus is a string of genetic code, unable to do anything on its own. It’s not alive. To thrive it needs a host, namely a living cell. Without such a hospitable environment, it can at best (from its point of view) lie in waiting, disintegrating quickly when exposed to…

Lord, we do not know where you are going. This short phrase from today’s gospel can summarise how many of us feel after two months of Great Eucharistic Deprivation and – in many cases – facing personal or domestic challenges, troubles or tragedies caused directly and indirectly by the pandemic. Even if we fully accept the restrictions on the cognitive,…