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"From the Vicar"
Regular reflections from the Great St Mary's clergy team. You can also read these reflections by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, the eMag:
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Merry Christmas
All together now: ‘On the 34th day of Christmas my true love sent to me …’ Yes, today is the 34th day of Christmas. Good, isn’t it? For...
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Jan 27, 20222 min read
Being Brim-full
Cana of Galilee was not quite what I’d expected – then again, I’m not quite sure what I had expected. A few palm trees dotted around,...
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Jan 21, 20223 min read
The Defenestration of Norbert
When do you take down your Christmas tree? Are you like me (5th January, Twelfth Night), or do you push into the 6th (Epiphany) – or...
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Jan 13, 20222 min read
It was, you may say, satisfactory
A friend of mine and I were talking about Köln – Cologne if you prefer. I was perplexed, as he said he didn’t think very much of it. It...
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Jan 6, 20223 min read
Tidings of Comfort and Joy
I smile wryly at the dry humour on display in the face of the spread of the omicron variant. First lines of Christmas carols seem to lend...
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Dec 23, 20212 min read
The Omicron Variant: A Pastoral Letter from the Vicar
Dear friends, Together with the Director of Operations, Richard Summers, I have been giving very careful thought to how Great Saint...
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Dec 17, 20212 min read
The Shining
Jerusalem at dawn (Pixelchrome) The epistle we shall hear on Sunday morning invites us to ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say,...
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Dec 9, 20212 min read
Back to our Roots
Advent is the season of the vocative. Last Sunday night reminded us of this, a liturgy shaped around the great O antiphons of Advent, and...
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Dec 2, 20212 min read
When you're near
I don’t much like the celebration of New Year, with its mixture of late night, enforced jollity, and a certain nervousness about what is...
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Nov 25, 20212 min read
Every inch a King
www.papalencyclicals.net may not be one of your regular online haunts, but, believe you me, it’s fascinating. Here is the place to find...
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Nov 22, 20212 min read
Devotion and Discipline
Today, as well as being Armistice Day, is St Martin’s Day. Martin was born in 316 AD in what we now know as Hungary. He was soldier who,...
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Nov 11, 20212 min read
The Month of the Dead
As descriptions of November go, it’s a pretty stark one. Perhaps more so when you know where I first heard it. Aged 19, with some fellow...
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Nov 4, 20212 min read
If not you, who?
For the last few weeks, you will have seen a picture of your beloved Vicar in this publication, grinning from ear to ear next to this...
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Oct 28, 20212 min read
Read Mark and Learn
The story goes that, aged 31, Augustine of Hippo was in a personal crisis. A distinguished young professor of rhetoric in Milan, he was...
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Oct 21, 20212 min read
Jesus bids us shine
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be...
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Oct 14, 20212 min read
Seasonal confusions
As servants of the message of hope, we are being asked to make autumn feel like spring. Andrew Read, Diocesan Director of Education &...
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Oct 8, 20212 min read
Be an angel
Yesterday, two angels began new ministries in the church of God. One angel (I can hardly believe I’m writing this), our very own Andrew...
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Sep 30, 20211 min read
Regathering the gathered
Last Saturday the Parochial Church Council (PCC) spent a happy and productive day together at Lucy Cavendish College. The day was made up...
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Sep 23, 20212 min read
Surprised by a stone
Today – as you perhaps know – is St Ninian’s Day. The primary sources for what we know of Ninian is Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis...
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Sep 17, 20212 min read
Anger and Kindness
In these days when everybody hates everybody else, anyone who is not snarling at something – or everything – is an anachronism. That...
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Sep 9, 20212 min read
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