05 March 2025 – Ash Wednesday, Year A (1) Joel 2:12-18 Return to me with all your heart. Spare your people, Lord “Now, now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord, your God,…
04 March 2025 – Tuesday of Week 8 Optional Memorial: St Casimir, 1458-84, patron of Poland. 1st Reading: Sirach 35:1-12 The wise person is generous to the poor and abhors extortion The one who keeps the law makes many offerings; one who heeds the commandments makes an offering of well-being. The one who returns a…
Presider’s Page for Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025) Welcome to the season of Lent. Today we begin the journey of penance and reflection that will bring us to the celebration of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter time. Let us pray for the grace to keep Lent faithfully… (Pause for silent prayer: the…
03 March 2025 – Monday of Week 8 1st Reading: Sirach 17:24-29 Repent from sin while you are still alive. The dead cannot praise God Turn to the Lord, plead before his face and lessen your offence. To those who repent God permits return, and he encourages those who were losing hope. Return to the…
02 Mar 2025 – 8th Sunday (C) Our Lord invites us to take the plank out of our own eyes before we try to take the splinter out of others’ eyes. It is good to take a hard look at ourselves and our own shortcomings (1) Sirach 27: 4-7 Three images about our ways of…
01 Mar 2025 – Saturday of Week 7 Optional Memorial: St David, patron saint of Wales. Taught many Irish monks and influenced monastic development in Ireland. He died in 603. 1st Reading: Sirach 17:1-15 God made us in the divine image, and looks with favour on us The Lord created human beings out of earth,…
28 Feb 2025 – Friday of Week 7 1st Reading: Sirach 6:5-17 Let your friends be tried and trusted.A faithful friend is a tonic Pleasant speech multiplies friends, and a gracious tongue multiplies courtesies. Let those who are friendly with you be many, but let your advisers be one in a thousand. When you gain…
27 Feb 2025 – Thursday of Week 7 Optional Memorial: St Gregory of Narek, c 950-1003, a monk of the Armenian church, abbot, doctor of the church, mystic, poet. Best known for Lamentations, aka Narek, a collection of 95 prayers, each with the title Conversation with God from the depth of the heart. 1st Reading: Sirach 5:1-8 Rely not…
Presider’s Page for 2 March (Ordinary Time 8) Words matter. What we say has an effect on others, for good or ill. God’s word to us is spoken in Jesus, the Word made flesh, in whose name we gather each Sunday. • Today, the last Sunday before Lent, is Temperance Sunday. Penitential Rite At the…
26 Feb 2025 – Wednesday of Week 7 1st Reading: Sirach 4:11-19 Seeking wisdom brings happiness and reveals life’s deepest secrets Wisdom teaches her children and gives help to those who seek her. Whoever loves her loves life, and those who seek her from early morning are filled with joy. Whoever holds her fast inherits…
25 Feb 2025 – Tuesday of Week 7 1st Reading: Sirach 2:1-11 Those who hope in the Lord are not forsaken My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing. Set your heart right and be steadfast, and do not be impetuous in time of calamity. Cling to him and do…
24 Feb 2025 – Monday of Week 7 1st Reading: Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 1:1-10 All wisdom comes from God and returns to him All wisdom is from the Lord, and with him it remains forever. The sand of the sea, the drops of rain, and the days of eternity, who can count them? The height of heaven,…
23 Feb 2025 – 7th Sunday (C) Today’s Eucharist celebrates Jesus as Lord of compassion and love. If we carry hatred in our hearts against others, we cannot properly approach the Lord’s table. We ask him to heal us of our petty vengefulness 1st Reading:1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 Saul, jealous of the young…
Presider’s Page for 23 February (Ordinary Time 7) Loving the enemy and praying for those who make life difficult are two marks of a Christian, or so Jesus teaches us today. We gather, aware of how difficult love can be, yet united by the saving mercy of God, on which we rely. Penitential Rite As…
22 Feb 2025 – Chair of St Peter the Apostle 1st Reading: 1 Pet 5:1-4 Peter’s advice to his fellow Church leaders: feed God’s flock with loving respect Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort…
21 Feb 2025 – Friday of Week 6 Optional Memorial: St Peter Damian, 1007- 72, teacher, hermit, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, church reformer. 1st Reading: Genesis 11:1-9 When people sought independence from God, their language is scrambled Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east,…
20 Feb 2025 – Thursday of Week 6 1st Reading: Genesis 9:1-13 The rainbow, a perpetual sign of God’s covenant with Noah and the human race God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal…
19 Feb 2025 – Wednesday of Week 6 1st Reading: Genesis 8:6-13, 20-22 The Lord promises never again to destroy the earth At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried…
Presider’s Page for 23 February (Ordinary Time 7) Loving the enemy and praying for those who make life difficult are two marks of a Christian, or so Jesus teaches us today. We gather, aware of how difficult love can be, yet united by the saving mercy of God, on which we rely. Penitential Rite As…
18 Feb 2025 – Tuesday of Week 6 1st Reading: Genesis 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10 The universal flood; the Lord’s regret at creating the human race The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord…
