Sermon - The uncomfortable truth about God's love

James Janknegt (b1953), The Day Laborers

A sermon given during the Sung Eucharist at St George’s Bloomsbury on Sunday 24th September 2023 (The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity), Year A, Proper 20, based on readings from Jonah 3.10-end of 4, Psalm 145.1-8, Philippians 1.21-end and Matthew 20.1-16

Homily - Freedom and Judgement

The Three Judges, Georges Rouault (Tate Gallery)

A Homily given during Choral Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 17th September 2023 (Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity) based on readings from Job 1 and Matthew 7.1-14. In this homily I sought to explore personal disclosure, as part of my curacy training. 

Sermon - An unattainable ideal or a living reality?

Instant City, Archigram/Peter Cook, 1969 

A sermon given during Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 17th September 2023 (The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity) based on readings from Galatians 6.11-18 and Matthew 6.24-end. In this sermon I explored the notion of challenge in preaching, as part of my curacy training.

Further Prayers for Choral Evensong on Sunday 10th September 2023

Zandile Tshabalala, Untitled, 2021

Further Prayers written for a service of Choral Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields based on text from the hymn ‘O Perfect Love’ by Dorothy F. Gurney (1883), Psalm 119.46-64, Proverbs 31.10-31 (‘The Valiant Woman’) and Matthew 6.19-34.

Lessons from a "well seasoned" Saint

Autumn Landscape with Four Trees (1885) by Vincent van Gogh

Message for the Parish Magazine of St Giles-in-the-Fields, September 2023:

On the day the church remembers St Giles, the patron saint of leprosy sufferers, summer turns to autumn in the UK meteorological calendar. Seasonal change was a pet topic of the pioneering ecologist, ornithologist and priest Gilbert White. While many of his conclusions have since been disproved by modern science - such as his belief that swallows hibernate underground (rather than migrate) in winter - his observations about leprosy appear to be borne out, in part. 

The Life of St Giles in Scripture

Detail - Saint Giles from The Hermit Saints Triptych by Hieronymus Bosch

If we wanted to meditate on the Life of St Giles using scripture, which passages might we choose?

The different accounts of the Life of St Giles (summarised in a post at this link) offer a number of possibilities:

The Life of St Giles - a Living Text

The Mass of Saint Giles, by The Master of St Giles c1500 (The National Gallery)

My parish church is dedicated to St Giles whose feast day is September 1st. Surveying recent scholarship on surviving manuscripts shows how the ‘Life of St Giles’ is a living text - how his story has evolved as he inspired each new generation. How do we respond to the text today?

A Bouquet for Saint Giles

Saint Giles and the Deer by The Master of Saint Gilles, c1500 (National Gallery)

‘Saint Giles and the Deer’ by the mysterious ‘Master of Saint Giles’ originally formed one section of a multi-panelled altarpiece dating from the early 1500’s. 

The painting and its companion piece ‘The Mass of St Giles” depict two of the three most popular stories about the saint mentioned in the accounts of his life, the most recent of which being The Golden Legend, a famous medieval hagiography.

 

Both paintings can be seen in The National Gallery and their website allows us to zoom in to see minute detail. The commentary for St Giles and the Deer states: “The different types of plants and flowers in the wilderness are perhaps a reference to the legend that the desert flowered around Giles’s hermitage.” Tantalisingly no description of the flora or what it might symbolise is offered - nor in The Golden Legend or other versions of the Life of St Giles - so I have attempted to make an educated guess!

Sermon - Forgiving the Unjust Steward

Fraternal Forgiveness, Andrey Yanev

A sermon given during Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 6th August 2023 (The Ninth Sunday after Trinity) based on readings from 1 Corinthians 10.1-13 and Luke 16.1-9

BOOK REVIEW : Praying the Psalms by Thomas Merton

Abbey of Gethsemani – August 1962 by Pimon Singhasin

Since starting at St Giles-in-the-Fields I think have said more psalms each day than ever before! The Book of Common Prayer is the basis for all the liturgy here. In it, all 150 psalms are said consecutively, with the Psalter dividing the text into sixty groups of Psalms to be said each day of the month at Morning and Evening Prayer.  When a month has thirty one days, the psalms set for the thirtieth day are repeated. 

‘Praying the Psalms’ is a short essay by the Catholic Priest and Trappist Monk Thomas Merton. In it he offers advice on how to gain a “lived sense” of the Psalms - something he says is vital if we are to truly pray with them. 

Sermon - The Miracle of Multiplication

Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish. Jesus Mafa Project, Cameroon

A sermon given during Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 23rd July 2023. The Seventh Sunday after Trinity. Based on readings from Romans 6.19-end and Mark 8.1-9 (BCP).