Every bowl of dirty water gets carried out into the garden to keep the plants alive as the drought gets worse.

Be wary of outward signs of God’s presence, and look instead for the quiet ways he does & will work within us. Those who make a great hoo-haa about their visions need to be reminded that such experiences must be judged by their results.Let's get on with quietly serving others.

We tend to think of God either as a power a long way away from us, or as a power deep within us, in effect of God as a thing separate from us. But God is not a thing, a power, outside us, and outside creation. He is better described as the power underlying creation, within nature

Listening to others is at the heart of persuading others of our beliefs. It's no good spouting at people, or in the case of a priest preaching at people, if they don't think they are being listened to. To listen diligently is an example of love, and love is a powerful persuader.

Even in our busy modern world, most of us will offer at least a cup of tea or coffee if a visitor calls, whilst the moments when we sit down for a real meal with friends or family are very special indeed.

This is a brilliant book that I wish I had written but he expresses in a much better way things about God that I try to put into my weekly Homilies/Sermons.

Sad to meet Christians who've been brought up to fear God & try hard to meet God’s high standards. Such people sadly have little joy. Being a Christian means knowing we're loved by God & that God loves us when we fail. That gives us deep joy. Whatever we face, God is with us.

Off to Shrivenham Memorial Hall tomorrow afternoon to celebrate a Wedding Anniversary. The Hall looks lovely doesn't it? I hope to see lots of old friends from the extended Smith Family.

How to be linked with God? Do we "Abide" or "Remain" No, I like "Make your home in me." or the gardeners' word "Be grafted on to me." Jesus also simply says "Be part of me" as branches are part of a Vine. Whatever, we need more than just to vaguely believe, don't we?

The parable of Jesus, of selling everything to buy a field in which treasure is hidden, reminds me that following the way of Jesus is a risky business. Living with risk is an important part of being a Christian. Real love for others is always risky. One can easily get hurt.

How to discern what God's will is in any situation is not an easy thing to do, but it needs doing. It may well mean doing things that are difficult or painful. That is what Jesus knew when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

On the 29th Anniversary of my Ordination as a Catholic priest (23 years before that as an Anglican clergyman.) Here again is my Homily/Sermon for today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0e-... Text on website www.thebibleatmass.com/latest-homil....

I wonder if some of the pressure for assisted dying comes from a desire to get it over quickly. It is hard to be a friend or a relative of someone who is dying slowly. Assisted dying isn’t meant to help those caring for the dying, but I sometimes think it lurks in the background

Busy keeping the house clean and doing the cooking (the latter under supervision to get the timing right). Just about finding time to write my weekly Homily. This one on we humans being too hasty. God's time is quite different.

My wife Frances got a new Hip with keyhole surgery on Monday and is now home with lots of equipment to help her as she recovers. This is all free of course. Many people in the UK do not realise how blessed we are to have a National Health Service.

When asked why his great Basilica in Barcelona (the Sagrada Familia) was taking so long to build, the architect Antoni Gaudi looked up into the sky and said "My client isn't in a hurry." How easily we hasty humans want quick answers and quick solutions. We need to learn from God and from the Trees.

So glad to hear this from the BBC. Labour leader-in-waiting Andy Burnham has issued a formal apology for the party’s initial response to Israel’s military action in Gaza, stating they “didn’t get it right” and promising a tougher policy on Israel under his leadership.

Lucky to have a Recreation Ground next to our Estate with Football pitches and a Playground. This shows how long my shadow is on my early morning walk before it gets too hot!

Phew. It's hot. I had my walk at 6.30am. Now at 7.30am I am doing the weekly vacuum cleaning. Then shave and keep cool! Here is a photo of the ancient woodland at Blenheim.

Teaching by Frances Flatman on next Weekend's Bible Readings is on the website. www.thebibleatmass.com/bible-backgr...

The Christian approach to problems we face is sometime the wrong idea that God is a magic superman who puts things right for us. In this view, all we have to do is sit back and wait for God to do his work, rather than actively participating in finding a different outcome.

At Fr Jonathan Henry's 1st Mass at the Church, where I said my 1st Mass in 1997, so a very special moment for me. At the end of the Mass, he began to weep as he thanked his parents, & I was very moved. Lovely to meet many old friends from my time as a priest there in Oxford.

Easy to become oppressed by the way people use worldly power in all sorts of awful ways. Jesus doesn’t say he can completely cure this, but teaches us to use his power of love whenever we can. St Paul says “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord"

God has given us great power. We can use this power to make and do wonderful things for our world and for one another, or we can use it to pollute the world and kill one another. It's up to us.

Teaching by Frances on the background to the Readings for next Sunday. www.thebibleatmass.com/bible-backgr...

Jesus says that it is he who reveals to us what God is like. Jesus then is the most perfect expression of God, so when Jesus says he is “Gentle & lowly in heart" we have to accept that this is what God is like & that our worldly view of what is big & powerful is not God's way.

The power of healing (which is the power of God) is in each one of us. When I cut myself, unless the wound gets infected, I heal. When a surgeon cuts out half the oesophagus & connects the healthy bit to the stomach, the new join heals. We need that healing power within our lives

Worth noting that when St Peter says “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he is not expressing some well worked out theology of who Jesus is. No, what he is doing is expressing his love for this man who is his teacher and his friend in the best words he can think of.

Weekly Teaching by Frances Flatman on the Readings for next Sunday is on the Website ihttps://www.thebibleatmass.com/bible-background.html In teh YK we keeo it as the Feast of St Peter and St Paul

I am not convinced at the way all our more recent Popes have been declared to be Saints. It all seems to be about all the wonderful things they have said and done. This surely goes against all that Jesus teaches, summed up in his statement “No-one is good but God alone.”