Once a month we, the students in the seminary, had a talk by our rector. Every time he was talking about the spiritual life, current affairs and recent happenings. I held a genuine respect for that man, but in his talks he tended to pick up negative examples from seminary life and consequently the overall picture was always pretty gloomy…
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At the beginning of the Scottish leg of my priestly career, I was talking to a local man at a reception. In our casual, informal chat I shared my general views on the British and their habits. The first sentence I heard after I’d stopped was: ‘Father, I’m Scottish, not British.’ At that time it was a surprising declaration for…
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Last Wednesday, 4 June, President Obama joined many other world leaders gathered in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, for a special celebration, which surprisingly was completely overlooked by the British media. Exactly 25 years earlier anti-communist opposition had a landslide victory in the first free, though constrained, general election since World War II. The domino effect soon followed in…
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So, Jesus has gone. We will not see him any more. What are we supposed to do? I think these or similar thoughts were lingering in the Apostles’ heads after they had said goodbye to their master. I’m pretty sure that, after so intense a time that they had spent following him, all of a sudden they somehow felt abandoned…
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A few months ago there was a hot discussion on one of my favourite radio shows about the words used by farmers to call up their sheep. It turned out that they were distinctively different in different regions of Scotland, though working well for those using them. My personal experience is that, everywhere I come across sheep while walking, they…