Fr Robert’s January 2025 Parish Letter
My dear friends, I am typing these words a few days after Advent Sunday – the start of the Christian Church’s new liturgical year – ready for 1st January 2025 and the start of a new calendar year. Many people make New Year’s resolutions on 1st January each year: they...
Fr Robert’s December 2024 Parish Letter
My dear friends, Some of the best hymns are those written for the different seasons of the Church’s year. My favourite Advent hymn is ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel!’ which begins: O come, O come, Emmanuel! Redeem thy captive Israel, That into exile drear is gone Far from...
Fr Robert’s November 2024 Parish Letter
My dear friends, November has sometimes been called the ‘Month of the Dead’ because on 1st November the Church celebrates All Saints Day and on 2nd November All Souls Day. A week later we have Remembrance Sunday. I have always taken very seriously my ministry to the...
Fr Robert’s October 2024 Parish Letter
My dear friends, When I was a boy, if I was fussy or picky about my food, I would often hear my mother or grandmother say: “You’d eat that if there was a war on”, or sometimes “I don’t know how you’d have got on in the war.” Older readers of this parish letter will...
Fr Robert’s September 2024 Parish Letter
My dear friends, I write this September magazine letter at the beginning of August when the weather is hot and the roads are busy with holidaymakers enjoying the beautiful Sussex countryside and the south coast. However, it can be surprisingly cold first thing in the...
Fr Robert’s July letter
Parish Letter – July 2024.My dear friends,I met a delightful Roman Catholic priest in Lourdes in May who told me that he realised God was calling him to be a priest as a young man when he went to help a drunken man whose false teeth had fallen out – it is...
CHRISTMAS 2023
CHRISTMAS 2023 One of the difficulties I sometimes encounter in my work is dealing with people who have rather funny ideas in their heads about what God is like. They may, indeed, be quite clever in other areas of their lives, but when it comes to God, they are...
Fr Robert’s December letter
December 2023 Parish Letter My dear friends, I am typing this letter at the start of November, when the situation in both Gaza and in Ukraine is still unbearably heartbreaking. It is a reminder of just why Our Lord Jesus Christ had to be born of the Blessed Virgin...
June Parish Magazine Letter
My dear friends, June 2022 is a very special and unique month in the annals of our country’s long history, when we shall enjoy the great pleasure of celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Amongst The Queen’s titles is that of ‘Defender of...