Third Sunday of Easter

Fr Dominic’s Homily

It’s the day after the resurrection of Jesus. The apostles are still trying to get their heads around everything. It’s a lot to take in. And we hear that the apostles had gone fishing on Lake Galilee.

Maybe they were a little bit disillusioned and so had gone back to what they were used to. Or maybe they were just hungry and needed some food.

So they spend the whole night fishing but caught nothing. John’s Gospel is making the connection between darkness and the absence of God. Anything cut off from God will always be futile and never be fruitful. But then morning breaks and the light appears. And a stranger calls out to them from the shore. “Throw your nets out in a different way and you will catch something.”

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Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Fr Dominic’s Homily

As well as being called Palm Sunday today is also Passion Sunday because we read the Passion Gospel. It is a combination of the joyful entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem combined with his betrayal, rejection and persecution.

We hear that Jesus was first welcomed into Jerusalem by people waving palms as we have done today. Palms are used as a sign of welcoming a royal king. They also spread their cloaks in front of him. Cloaks had a special meaning in those days. They were a sign of life and dignity. So to lay them on the ground was a great sign of reverence.

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Glastonbury Shrine
Fifth Sunday of Lent

Pastoral Letter on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 5/6 April 2025

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I wish to speak with you today about the process in which our Parliament is currently considering legalising assisted suicide through the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. As I have made clear earlier in this debate, as Catholics we have maintained a principled objection to this change in law recognising that every human life is sacred, coming as a gift of God and bearing a God­ given dignity. We are, therefore, clearly opposed to this Bill in principle, elevating, as it does, the autonomy of the individual above all other considerations.

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Fourth Sunday of Lent - Laetare Sunday

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Today is Laetare Sunday and is the half way point through lent towards Easter. (A bit like Gaudete Sunday in advent) The colour of the vestments represents joy.

And this ties in nicely with the theme of the Gospel today. We have the story of the prodigal son. Prodigal referring to his loose lifestyle when he squanders his father’s inheritance. Excessively extravagant. But perhaps a better title would be the story of the merciful father because this is what the main theme is.

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Third Sunday of Lent

Fr Dominic’s Homily

As you may know one of my brothers is also a priest based in Poole in the diocese of Plymouth where he runs two parishes. A couple of weeks ago he was speaking to the head of his finance committee who was off to visit his family based in Nairobi for a few days.

Chris my brother was telling him to have a safe journey to which the man jokingly replied “Don’t worry Father – It’s a dangerous place but I hope to see you soon”

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Second Sunday of Lent

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Where do you go to pray and how do you pray? Do you pray in the mornings? In the evenings? At night? Do you pray alone or with others?

Today we hear that Jesus goes up a mountain to pray. Mount Tabor. And he prays to his Father in heaven probably for the whole night.

He has taken Peter, John and James with him who also came to pray - but who probably fell asleep after an hour or so. They probably didn’t pray the whole night.

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Pilgrims of Hope
Pilgrims of Hope

On Friday 7th March our first group of pilgrims to visit Our Lady's Shrine were 135 children from St John's, Bath.  They had initially climbed the Tor and had waved their coloured ribbons of hope at the summit. 

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First Sunday of Lent

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Yesterday David Baldwin gave us a terrific talk about Pilgrimage. The do’s and don’ts and what to pack in our rucksacks. What to bring and what to leave behind despite temptation.

Today we hear about the temptations of Jesus in his wanderings in the desert. And we hear that Satan tempts Jesus in three quite specific ways.

So why does Satan use these three ways of temptation? It’s because they exactly mirror the three ways in which Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden all those years before when they took fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why was Eve tempted by the fruit originally?

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Ash Wednesday

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Today we mark ourselves with ashes as a sign of our humility in front of God and that we will return to him at some point. We came from him and we will return to him. And this should form how we live our short span of life in this world.

And lent is a time of fasting when we think about maybe giving something up or taking something on that is good. 6 weeks or just over 40 days. 40 having significance of spiritual preparation in the Desert in the scriptures. We allow ourselves to enter the desert a little.

Lent of course is the old English word for spring. Because we have the lengthening of days. And Lent is a time to remind us of our complete dependence on God and not on other things.

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