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Sometimes I find myself worrying about the world my children are growing up in. Not in any dramatic way, and not because I think everything was better when I was young. Every generation has had its troubles. But when I look at the world around me, listen to the conversations we have, watch the way people treat one another, I do wonder what sort of world we are building for our children, and for theirs after them. There seems to be so much anger. So much division. So much ener

Have you ever sat with your family, only to realise that you haven't really been with them at all? You're in the same room, perhaps watching television, listening to a conversation or sitting at the football. But your mind is somewhere else. You're thinking about work, the email you haven't answered, the job waiting for Monday morning or the hundred other things competing for your attention. You're physically there, but are you actually present? It's an uncomfortable question

We are all pretty good at creating an image of ourselves. Not necessarily a fake one. Just a version of ourselves that we would quite like other people to see. The person who works hard. The person who puts their family first. The person who is patient with their children. The person who is there for their friends. T he person who has their faith sorted. The person who can be relied upon. And most of the time, there is some truth in that image. But there is a question I find

Forgiveness. What a difficult concept. We can talk about it quite easily. We can tell our children they should forgive. We hear it in church, read it in Scripture and nod along with the idea. But then someone actually hurts us. Someone says something they shouldn't have said. Someone lets us down. Someone betrays our trust. Someone treats us unfairly. And suddenly forgiveness feels very different. Because part of us wants an apology. We want them to admit they were wrong. We

There are days when I am not the person I want to be. I am tired. I am short with the children. I have less patience with my wife than I should. I put something important off because I cannot be bothered. I reach for my phone instead of giving someone my attention. And then there are the days when it is more than that. Days when temptation feels particularly persuasive. When selfishness is not just a passing thought but a comfortable place to sit. When the weight of life beco

One of the most dangerous sentences in modern life might be: "I just feel that..." Because increasingly, what we feel has become what is true. What I want becomes what I deserve. What I desire becomes who I am. What makes me uncomfortable must be wrong. And anyone who challenges me must be judging me. We live in a world where the individual is increasingly becoming the ultimate authority. I decide what is true for me. I decide what is right for me. I decide who I am. I decide

We have become very good as a society at deciding who people are before we have really met them. We make quick judgements. The confident person is successful. The quiet person is awkward. The difficult person is just difficult. The person who gets angry is aggressive. The person who keeps to themselves doesn't want to know us. We see a behaviour, a job, a social media profile, a political opinion, a mistake — and somehow think we have seen the whole person. We haven't. The pr

There is something instinctive about protecting the people we love. You don't have to teach a parent to worry when their child is ill. You don't need a manual for the feeling you get when your child is walking home later than expected. And when someone threatens the people we love, something inside us says, stand between them and whatever is coming. We protect. Sometimes badly. Sometimes imperfectly. Sometimes we get it completely wrong. But we protect. If we stop and reflect

I always thought that I would be a parent who planned for the big moments, the big conversations, who would be able to prepare for these. As my children grow into a difficult and controversial world I am humbled in the realisation that so much of parenting happens in moments that don’t feel like parenting at all. Moments I am not prepared for. Moments that present themselves to me, rather than crafted by me. It happens in the car after school when the radio is on. Around

There are few words more difficult to say than: “I was wrong.” Not “I made a mistake.” Not “Things got out of hand.” Not “I’m sorry if you felt hurt.” Just: I was wrong. Marriage has a way of exposing us. Family life strips away the version of ourselves we present to the world. At work, we can often hide behind professionalism, emails, meetings, and titles. At home, there is nowhere to hide. Your partner sees the tiredness, the impatience, the pride, the defensiveness, and th

There is something deeply reassuring about the familiar. The Sign of the Cross. The smell of incense. Kneeling in silence. The words of ancient prayers spoken by generations before us. The rhythm of the Mass that has shaped saints, sinners, families and ordinary people for over two thousand years. We live in a world obsessed with the latest update. New phone. New trend. New opinion. If it's old, it's often dismissed. But Jesus doesn't think like that. In the closing words of

I spend far too much of my life waiting for the big moment. "When work settles down..." "When the kids are older..." "When I've got more time..." "When I feel closer to God..." The trouble is, life doesn't seem to work like that. Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed. Tiny. Easy to miss. Almost insignificant. Which is probably why I overlook it. I want mountain-moving faith. Jesus starts with something you'd lose if you dropped it on the floor and may

There are moments when people don't need our advice. They don't need us to solve their problems or have the perfect answer. They just need someone who will really hear them. Jesus ends the opening of today's Gospel with a challenge: "He who has ears, let him hear." At first, it sounds obvious. Of course we hear. But hearing isn't the same as listening. How many times has your child started telling you about their day while you're halfway through replying to an email? Your p

It's been nearly a month. Not because I've run out of things to say and not because faith has somehow taken a back seat. Quite the opposite really. Life happened. School trips, revision, stepping onto the stage for concerts and the school production. My wife somehow managed the impossible task of running the whole show while keeping everything else moving. Work became heavier than usual with extra marking and all the demands that come with teaching at this time of year. Then

You can't parent, or be in a relationship, or even work productively without listening, sharing or being present. The same is true of God. He does not save the world from a distance. He enters into it. "For God so loved the world..." Love is about moving towards someone. Love isn't a stationary concept: It reaches out. It gives itself away. It breaks itself for others. All of these things we can see, if we look, in what God does. The Father sends the Son, not because t

Pentecost does not arrive quietly. It arrives like a rushing wind through locked doors and frightened hearts. Everything changes. And maybe that is uncomfortable for us, because many of us have built a version of Christianity that is carefully managed, deeply private, and asks very little of us beyond attendance. But the Holy Spirit was never given so we could simply maintain a religious routine. The disciples in this Gospel are hiding. The doors are locked. Fear has shrunk

There’s a dangerous lie most of us quietly believe. That if we work hard enough, stay disciplined enough, become confident enough, organised enough, clever enough — then we’ll finally become the person who “made it.” Self-made. Self-built. Self-sufficient. But the older I get, the more I realise how little of life is actually done alone. No one survives alone. No one heals alone. No one becomes who they are meant to be alone. And in today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us of som

There’s a strange pressure in the world at the moment to become a polished version of someone else. Be more successful. More confident. More attractive. More productive. More spiritual. More like them. And somewhere along the way, many of us quietly start believing that who we are right now is not enough. We edit ourselves depending on the room. Shrink parts of our personality. Hide weaknesses. Tone down what makes us different. We spend so much time trying to fit in