• Sermon - Year A

    5th Sunday in Ordinary time

    The sun was shining from the clear blue sky, the air was still, filled with the pleasant smell of the forest and rather shy trill of birds. As I walked through the Forest of Glen Tanar last week, across the exposed slopes, I had to take off my jacket, gloves, hat and scarf – it was so pleasantly warm. But…

  • Outdoors

    Free at last

     I guess the title sounds overly dramatic, but – trust me – in the context of the last year it does reflect my feelings when I walked through the forest of Glen Tanar.  The walk, about 4-hour long, at various stages resembled many walks I’d done in Moray. There was a stretch along the edge of a meadow, a forest…

  • Sermon

    The Presentation of the Lord

    Over the last few years, we’ve seen the arrival of various religious communities in our diocese. The most recent are the Apostolic Sisters of St John who now live as a small community in Aberdeen. Such arrivals thrill many across the diocese; the enthusiasm and great expectations are unnaturally high. Perhaps we are so enthusiastic about these newcomers because their…

  • Sermon - Year A

    2nd Sunday in Ordinary time

    A wee boy was sitting in the pew and looked with confusion at a priest in front of him. The priest was holding something white in his hand, both his hands raised above his head; clearly, the priest was showing something. The boy’s confusion sprang from the obvious disparity between what was being shown and the words uttered by the…

  • Sermon

    The Epiphany of the Lord

    Have you made your New Year’s resolution? Mine’s is to help all my friends gain twenty pounds, so I’ll look slimmer. And I decided to read more this year, so I put the subtitles on my TV. New Year’s Day is the accepted time to make our regular annual good resolutions; now, a week later we can begin paving hell…