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Ever wonder why we eat pancakes just before Lent?  The tradition dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, when Christians spent Lent in repentance and severe fasting. So on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the church bell would summon them to confession, where they would be ‘shriven’, or absolved from their sins, which gives us Shrove Tuesday.  ...

Who will your Mothering Sunday card be addressed to this year?  If that sounds a silly question, consider this: last year, for the first time in the UK, you could choose between cards that called your mother Mother, Mum or – Mom. Paperchase was the company who brought in the American flavoured ‘Mom’, and the...

Eusebius is the saint for you if you believe in the Bible, and also in providing hospitality.  He was born of a good family in Cremona, Italy, in the fourth century, and felt called to become a monk.  As Eusebius was ascetic by nature, he sought out St Jerome in Rome, who advocated an austere...

Isaiah’s account of God calling him to be a prophet makes me ask, what does it mean to be ‘called’ by God? What does God want from me? Isaiah offered himself willingly when God asked whom He could send to speak on His behalf to Israel.   And Isaiah was given a difficult message to proclaim...

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday.  But why ‘Ash’ Wednesday?  The reason has to do with getting things right between you and God, and the tradition goes right back to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Israelites often sinned.  When they finally came to their senses, and saw their evil ways as God saw...

Have you ever stepped back and reviewed the friendships in your life? According to the anthropologist Dr Robin Dunbar of University College London, the maximum number of relationships we can have peaks at about 150, known as Dunbar’s Number. He then divides this into:  five close friends, 15 good friends, 50 general acquaintances, and the...

Spring is coming.   If you feel you simply HAVE to do something about your body shape, here are some ideas.  They will improve your fitness, energy levels and quality of life: Aim to work out two to five times a week.  Exercise for at least 20 minutes, lasting up to an hour.  Some days you...

Many years ago, at the Pleasure Beach at Blackpool, there was a certain ‘ride’ or amusement that was strictly for the physically fit.  It consisted of a flat wooden disc about 20 feet in diameter and set at an angle of 45 degrees in the floor.  When it began to rotate, the aim was to...

Have you done something which haunts you?  Which makes you feel restless and defensive, every time you think of it?  Why not deal with it this month, and put it behind you?   Whatever your mistake has been, consider what the Bible has to say to you: ‘I have not come to call the virtuous but...

A popular way to ‘show off’ these days seems to be telling people on Facebook that you are too busy to accept their invitation to whatever.  This lets everyone know that you are in more demand than they are, and that they would be lucky to get five minutes with you.  You are a busy...

This story could come straight out of modern Africa.  Perpetua was a young married woman of 22 who had recently become a Christian.  But the authorities had forbidden any new conversions, and soon she and some other catechumens were arrested and sentenced to death.  This was not under Islamic State, nor Boko Haram, but under...

Here’s a ‘saint’ that the Church of England remembers from the 1st World War –  the Revd. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy MC,  or ‘Woodbine Willie’, as everyone knew this popular, much-loved army chaplain on the Western Front. Studdert Kennedy (27th June 1883 – 8th March 1929) had been born in Leeds as the seventh of nine...