Reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news.
Reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news.
Good morning. I have a sense today of a country in limbo, eking out the last days of holiday and anxious about what the new year will hold. All the hard things we face together are surely right there where we left them. We owe ourselves a pause, an opportunity to step off the treadmill of consumption that rushed us through preparation for Christmas, right into new years’ resolutions and worries about the future. The Christian practice of gratitude, properly understood, can help us find that pause, to feel better, and do better. For some people, the return to routine can’t come soon enough. Not all can afford time off work, and many suffer with closure of regular care or support services. Even those whose Christmas and New Year conformed to the popular script of family and feasting can end up feeling overwhelmed, weary, and out of pocket. Marketers amplify our moods - they know that my trousers are somewhat tighter now than last week, that I’m sick of London’s grey pavement and that the new stain on my carpet makes me ripe to be sold a new one. So it is out with TV ads about party food and perfume, in with cleaning products, diets, and package holidays. It is easy to believe I had no choice but to buy things to prepare and now more things to recover. If I’m not careful, I will have not only failed to ‘make memories,’ as the popular phrase has it, but also have missed out on appreciating things the first time around. Here is where the habit of gratitude, the habit of it, helps. It begins with being present in the moment, to look and see and feel. St Paul gave Christians the command to ‘give thanks in all circumstances’ to encourage people living with evil that God was not finished, not to say suffering was God’s will. It is not God’s will that anyone spent this holiday in a home that was unsafe, or lonely. A habit of thanksgiving is an antidote to denial as it names what’s good and puts it in the foreground AND EXPOSES bad things for what they are. Today, just as for Paul, gratitude refuses to let evil have all the airtime, even when it shouts the loudest. Today, gratitude might mean pausing to ask what has surprised me with joy? What has pricked my conscience, or broken my heart? What do I NOT need to pick up again in the new year? Then we can approach 2026 with truth telling, wonder and curiosity: then we can make resolutions that do more than loosen our tight waistbands. And good news: it costs us nothing.
T’was the week after Christmas, and all through the town People were taking their lights and trees down They’ve been up since November, no wonder we’re sick All of our homes must be wrestled back from St Nick. But now there is darkness where the bright tree once stood A space to be filled because we feel that we should. Never fear, for January is here to step into the gap A new year, a new us! How the gym owners clap. We’ll be better than before, all shiny and new. The lies that we tell, the plans we’ll never see through. It’s the bleak mid winter, when the holly wears a crown, This is the season for hunkering down. Save new commitments for spring, when things are less blue Christmas isn’t yet over, there is still work for it to do. Yes, it’s a new year but still the same old you. What’s needed right now is something more solid, more timeless and true. I have my faith, but I don’t always know what’s best to say. To deliver a Thought for the Year and not just a Day. Finding joy in January is hard, making it easier to doubt So what do we do when the lights all go out? It’s a challenge to remain hopeful when all around us is bare. But the eternal hope of Christmas is a truth for all to share. That shepherd’s watched while glory shone around Gives us hope for the weary, that the lost may still be found. That angels touched earth with their wings all unfurled Gives us strength to resist being dimmed by the world. In a year riven with anger, intolerance and hate. We must consciously keep light burning, lest shadows await. It’s a light that still shines, as fierce as can be It’s a stubborn little light that no one can see. It has the power to soften the heart and make it less numb. Darkness doesn’t vanquish the light, which can’t be overcome. The church are custodians of a story, of holy time and sacred place. We herald love coming down from heaven, to show us God’s face. This story remains true, long after the decorations are gone The Word is enthroned in flesh forever, and so the light shines on. So take down the lights and take down the tree But keep one light shining, all the year to see. For now, Christmas continues, ere it goes out of sight So: Happy new Year to all, let us be keepers of light.
Sooner than we know, New Year’s Eve has come round again. Will you be making the same old resolutions to make yourself feel better? Or could this be the year to rethink the ritual by looking outwards?
To be specific, rather than agonising about reinventing yourself, should you instead discover the rewards of selfless service … service to one person, one family or even an entire community? In the depths of World War 2, C.S. Lewis went to the heart of the matter when he wrote: “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
But what, exactly, does it take to be able to serve selflessly? The answer lies not in tedious aspirations to some kind of perfection, but in building on your strengths, making the best of what you already have.
“Start from where you stand.” I first heard those words 35 years ago at World Youth Day in Kraków, the home ground of Pope John Paul II. I had the chance to talk to him about Christian values, such as humility, and their role in service.
Though already working on Wall Street, I still felt a calling to the priesthood, and ventured to ask the Holy Father for his thoughts. He looked me straight in the face and said: “You will have greater impact outside the Church. Be guided by your faith and do God’s will ... Start from where you stand. You are an original, and you must encourage others to be originals. That changes things.”
We all have it in us to be an original. After all, no one else in the world has exactly the same beliefs, passions and talents as you do. You can seek advice from people you trust, but in the end it’s for you to determine just how you use your time, not in serving yourself, but in serving other people.
Starting from where you stand, you can be an original in your own, quiet, honest way. The scope of your ambitions does not have to be radical. Just look around you. In the words of Romans 15, verse 2: “Each of us should please our neighbours for their good, to build them up.”
Resolutions come and resolutions go. But your life, like other people’s lives, can be transformed if you take concrete action – even in a small way – for the common good.
Never mind that idealised list of personal goals. Start now and prepare for the multiplier effect. You will see how the waves of generosity will ripple outward, growing to reshape your life in 2026.
29 DEC 25
Good morning. ‘Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.’ So says Jane Austen of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. But she could equally have said it of herself. Jane Austen’s 250th birthday this week is being widely celebrated on this network. She was swathed in the practice of faith: her father and two of her brothers were ordained, and two visits to church on Sunday were her lifelong pattern. She certainly knew the shortcomings of religion: parodying the servility and self-importance of the parson Mr Collins, she says he ‘was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society.’ Her gift is to turn the interactions of family and community, and especially the elaborate dance and fragility of finding a marriage partner, into a whole moral universe. Her characters transcend their surroundings. One, Mr Bennet, says laconically, ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?’ Another, Mr Knightley, says poignantly to Emma Woodhouse, ‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.’ It's a truth universally acknowledged that it’s never been clear what it actually means to be a Christian. Some insist on adherence to specific doctrines. Others on obedience to identifiable moral codes. Others point to formation in a traditional culture. A woman of her time, Jane Austen’s participation in worship and devotion was socially conventional. But she has her own answers to this perennial question. If she were to identify a favourite parable, my guess is she’d choose the story of the two sons, one of whom refused his father’s request to go into the vineyard, but did; while his brother said, ‘I will,’ but didn’t. For Austen, Christianity’s about actions not words. ‘Christian’ is more of a verb than a noun. The many suitors are sifted out not by their protestations of love, but by their true character. Of Fanny Price, we’re told, ‘She made herself indispensable to those she loved.’ Which connects Jane Austen in a significant way to Christmas. For the Christmas story’s not about what God says. It’s about what God does. In Northanger Abbey, Isabella Thorpe exclaims, ‘There’s nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves. It’s not my nature.’ Coming in person as a vulnerable baby is communicating by action rather than by word. Maybe Jane Austen knew exactly what she thought being a Christian meant. It meant not loving by halves. Perhaps she’s more of a theologian than she’s usually given credit for.
Good Morning,
‘Hark!’ ‘Do you hear what I hear?’ ‘They said there’d be snow this Christmas; they said there’d be peace on earth’ ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ ‘I pray God it’s our last!’ Throughout the land the lyrics of Christmas songs are being piped in shopping centres and pubs and, loved or loathed, we sing along.
This year’s official Christmas No1 will be decided on Friday. Current favourite is Kylie, with oldies from George Michael and Slade chasing hard. As Slade’s Noddy Holder sings; ‘Does your granny always tell ya that the old songs are the best.’
Then, in a tradition begun by Lennon and taken up by Rage Against The Machine, there are the Christmas protest songs. This year’s from Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel with ‘Lullaby’, a song for Gaza, and Billy Bragg’s ‘Put Christ Back Into Christmas’, with Bragg asking us ‘to stand with those who need the most’ and reminding us that Christmas celebrates the birth of a refugee.
It seems very British to me that we are free to mix protest in with sentimentality and silliness. The Christmas story is spacious enough to contain all our hopes and fears, our joy and praise, our rage and indifference. Even our scrooge-iest revulsion. For I contend that the birth of Christ is itself a kind of cosmic protest song.
The original Christmas No.1 was after all sung by angels to people at the margins of society: the young Mary and Shepherds, those far from the corridors of power and status; a startling song that announces a change to the status quo, a tune sweeter and louder than the prevailing mood music of despair, the monotonous dirge of violence and oppressive power, of one bad thing after another: ‘Do not be afraid’ it declares. ‘There will be peace on earth.’
It’s arguable that we might never have heard this story had the message not been sung to people who were immediately in tune with it, and able to sing back in words of astonished wonder and praise: ‘he has scattered the proud, put down the mighty, exalted those of lowly degree.’ Or ‘My eyes have seen your salvation.’ Once you’ve ‘hailed the incarnate deity’; or seen the Godhead veiled in flesh, the chances are you’re going to sing about it.
Christmas invites the world to sing a different tune. I’d even suggest that part of the reason we still sing about it – even if we stray into sentiment - is that its core melody is like a pop tune or great carol you can’t help but sing along with. ‘No. I can’t get you out of my head; because God and sinners are reconciled; because mild he lays his glory by; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee; And so this is Christmas.’
Good morning. This year, for the first time, I've bought a real, 6-foot Christmas tree - and I hit the shops in search of baubles and tinsel.
The only problem? Fashions have changed. I want the kind of tree I remember from the 80s: a multicoloured glitter bomb that looks like a dozen boxes of quality street.
Alas, things have gone posh. It's all pink and white now, or cold blue; coordinated and minimalist. As if decorating a hotel foyer. I stared for days at my naked tree, preferring that to the retail option, and wondering why I was so bothered.
Well, trees clearly do still matter because people are furious that a public tree was cut down at Shotton Colliery in County Durham, a green spruce the village planted over a decade ago in remembrance of the dead from two world wars. . It reminded me of the grief that was felt when the Sycamore Gap tree was butchered in 2023.
Christmas trees are far more than decoration. One legend has it, that they were introduced by Martin Luther, when he was out walking one winter night and saw the stars twinkling around the top of a fir. He put a tree hung with candles in his home, to remind onlookers that Jesus came from Heaven.
This German tradition was imported to Britain by Queen Charlotte, who, in 1800, decorated the first known royal tree at Windsor - with fruits, toys, raisins and candles.
It was already custom here to hang greenery indoors, probably to cheer us up while, in a colder age, the view outside the window was barren and white. To this pagan-ish spirit was added a Christian spin, the sparkling Christmas tree, like Christ, suggests light in the darkness and the promise of new life. For nature this comes with spring. For human beings, with resurrection.
Faith, far from being at odds with the tangible world of nature, sacramentalises it. In psalm 96, "the trees of the forest" are ordered to "sing for joy" in praise of God. The author of the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood encounters a talking tree that provided the wood for Christ's cross, bedecked with gold and gems.
This fits with my instinct that Christmas trees should be sparkly and bright, so bright that when the lights are switched on they’re visible from space.
A wise friend pointed out that most Christmas decorations are not bought in one go, but accumulated over a lifetime. When they’re taken out of the attic and hung from the tree, the odds and ends are a trip down memory lane. Christmas trees invite wonder. Adults, I suspect, think of childhoods past. The tree connects us to mysteries of time and nature and promise.
Over the next week or two – whatever your degree of vocal prowess or religious belief – you are likely to join in some form of communal singing.
Whether it’s ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ or ‘Feliz Navidad’, you will be obeying the exhortation of Psalm 100: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come into His presence with singing.”
Carols and seasonal songs are so integral to this time of year that we don’t probe the reason for their presence in churches, homes and so many other shared spaces. St Augustine of Hippo, born in the fourth century, can enlighten us. He said: “Cantare amantis est.” In other words, “To sing is the act of a lover,” or, as the Pope put it at the Jubilee of Choirs in Rome last month, “Singing belongs to those who love.” When we love deeply, silence is not enough. Love, with all the trust and joy it engenders, seeks expression, and it finds expression through song.
Christmas is the feast of God’s love made flesh. Our carols are songs of love to the God who comes among us. As Pope Leo reminded the singers assembled in St Peter’s Square, song can be a way of praying, lifting the soul towards the mystery we celebrate. When we sing, we join the angels who announced “Glory to the newborn king”.
Of course, the spiritual power of song is not restricted to Christmas and the people who celebrate it. It was in Judaism that the Psalms first became shared prayers, and at Hanukkah – the festival of light that so often coincides with Advent or Christmas – families and congregations sing to glorify God as candles glow.
In the Qawwali music of Sufi Islam, voices weave together in devotion. In Hinduism there are bhajans, in Buddhism chants, all expressing the universal impulse to give voice to love and reverence. To return to Psalm 100, our songs will ring out as we enter God’s gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.
In a world that is so often fractured, communal singing produces both musical and spiritual harmony. So let us sing – not because custom demands it, but because love compels it. Through the simple and affirmative act of raising our voices together in this season of joy, and as members of the human race, we both convey and embody a crucial message: that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.
Good morning, This time yesterday I was sitting in a cosy barn in the Chilterns, surrounded by a herd of goats and a surprisingly well-mannered donkey. A friend had kindly loaned me his farm to broadcast a live nativity to forty thousand primary school children across the country. During the broadcast, we linked up with Kakuma Refugee camp in northern Kenya. Ajok, a 17-year-old from Sudan, explained what life was like for her there. She told us that her camp houses 200,000 refugees, and that each day she walks 5 kilometres to get to school, where she learns in a class of 130 students. When she gets home, she has to beg for food so her family can eat one meal a day. Despite all the hardship she is a young woman full of hope planning to graduate and become a teacher. A friend at the UNHCR, who runs her refugee camp alongside the World Food Programme and the Kenyan Government, explained to me that, due to international aid cuts, supplies in the camp are severely limited. Ajok’s family have been categorised as “low need,” which means they now receive no food assistance. Ajok’s Christmas will, sadly, be very different from mine. Yet it is her story that echoes most clearly the grittiness of the first Christmas. Her experience of being displaced is not dissimilar from Mary and Joseph’s - who were forced from their home at the worst possible time. Her anxiety over the lack of basic necessities reflects the Holy Family’s desperate search for accommodation in Bethlehem. It is no wonder that Jesus identifies with the vulnerable and the outsider. Matthew’s gospel records him saying: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” Many of us miss this central message of hospitality to outsiders in the Christmas story. Some of us get distracted by the superficial, synthetic trappings of the festive season, others by the belief that immigrants are threatening our nation’s Christian culture. Both approaches fail to grasp the core of the Christmas story and its call to open our doors, our hearts, and our lives to those who need welcome most. Mary and Joseph welcomed precisely those others would have turned away - humble shepherds and road-weary foreigners, sent to them by God himself. Little did Mary and Joseph know at the time that they too would suddenly find themselves fleeing across the border to Egypt - refugees reliant on the kindness of strangers. This is why, in this time of Advent, it is people like Ajok —those struggling simply to get by who have much to teach us. The nearer we draw to the real Christmas story, the more we see just how the true Christ of Christmas is still breaking down walls, restoring dignity and inspiring generous hospitality.