To ask “What is at the heart of Christmas?” may seem a very obvious question – but is it really? Answer honestly; if Christmas was cancelled – and I mean really cancelled, not just scaled down like last year – what would you miss the most? Would it be the family gatherings? The excessive quantities of food and drink consumed?

November is traditionally a time for remembering: All Saints and All Souls, along with Remembrance Sunday, are key parts of the opening half of the month in the church calendar. The last of these in particular is one which has a resonance for many people who still have memories of the Second World War or more recent conflicts, or who have themselves been in the forces.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; ….

Coventry Cathedral is a striking building in many ways, but one of its most memorable features is the large, bronze sculpture of Michael defeating the devil on its east wall. The work of Jacob Epstein in 1958, it is a vivid reminder of the cathedral’s dedication to St Michael, but it is a popular theme around the Christian world. A stone’s throw from the Anglican Cathedral in Miraflores, Lima, Michael presides over a roundabout from atop a column.

I love the Lake District, Cumbria and, in particular, St Bees. Unless you’re very new to the area, or have been living under a particularly dense rock for the last seven years, you’re probably thinking: “Yes, Sarah, we know! Tell us something new!” There is, however, a reason for me repeating this well-known fact. Whenever I am in that area, I cannot help but realise afresh, what a truly beautiful, “green and pleasant land” we live in. Much of the greenness may be due to the often-bemoaned high level of rain we experience, but even this is a blessing many people in other countries would love to share.

The clergy chanted in the choir, children screamed in the nave; the cries of screaming babies and the grieving of their mothers gave the response to those singing the office.

This evocative image, of the monks carrying on with the daily office in the choir while the nave was a scene of chaos, the transcendent song from one mingling with the piteous lament from the other, is a description by a local chronicler of Worcester Cathedral in early November 1139. Civil War between King Stephen and his cousin Empress Matilda had just begun in earnest, and men from Gloucester, loyal to the empress’ half-brother Robert but also seeking to attack their commercial rivals, were marching on Worcester. Forewarned, desperate citizens sought sanctuary in the cathedral with their most prized possessions, turning the church into what a modern historian describes as a ‘giant warehouse and refugee camp’.

What a difference a year makes!
Last year I sat alone in my kitchen early on Easter Day, reading the familiar and much-loved accounts of the first Easter. The experience was both deeply moving and deeply lonely.
This year I celebrated Easter in church, with flowers, lights, music and, most importantly, people!

​Following the very sad news of the death of His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, today 9th April 2021 the Union Flag was raised to half-mast on the tower and then the sixth bell was tolled 99 times

I stared, uncomprehending, at a square of blistered black paint. My friend was doing her PhD in Soviet art history and I had agreed to accompany her to the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. I love art and art galleries, but it baffles me that people look at Caravaggio, with his magnificent use of light and shade to skilfully portray a gritty reality, in the same category as Jackson Pollock, who threw paint at a canvas.