Fr Luke Miller

Fr George Congreve SSJE was a great spiritual writer. I hope my study of his thought and writings will appear next year. This is from an essay written in South Africa on The Incarnation of Our Lord . By a Divine act God has raised creation up to a new relation to Himself for ever It is not that the Christian poets have struck a new vein of joy in a higher and more hopeful way of looking upon nature and man's destiny, which is expressed in the story of Bethlehem: but that by a Divine act God has raised creation up to a new relation to Himself for ever. Fallen man had always an obscure fellowship with nature in sorrow and desire; but by the Incarnation their fellowship is advanced to the joy of an immeasurable hope, and of praise which cannot be expressed. For on a certain day the Eternal Son of God took His place in creation and became the Head over all things, in order to sum up the created universe in Himself, and present it to the Father, raised to the height of the Divine pur...

As Advent draws to a close my Twitter feed is full of contrasts. From Elanor Parker there is this beautiful reflection on Our Lady in Advent, full of biblical and Anglo Saxon text and imagery. 'How rightly all speech-bearing ones throughout the world address you and say, joyous in heart, that you should be the bride of the best Gift-giver of the skies.' An Anglo-Saxon reflection on Mary, peace-weaver and the door in the wall between the worlds: https://t.co/5dK5A52Guf pic.twitter.com/H3295Mfd1N — Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) 23 December 2017 Then there is the Christingle Selfie Station at Christ Church Southgate. Thank you, yes the Christingle Selfie Station is always a hit with all ages :-) pic.twitter.com/tcBbnmkK83 — Christ Church S/gate (@ChristChurchN14) December 23, 2017 This surely is the thing about incarnation. It is for all cultures, high and low, and for all people rich and poor.  Meanwhile there are also tweets about people getting engaged ...

Carol services are an extraordinary mission opportunity. In the course of any given December the churches of the City of London will see at least 500 Carol services. Some of the churches are doing 23 services in the course of 18 days. The same pattern is true across the West End. One of the larger parish churches has 25,000 go through the doors, and the five churches in Trafalgar Square and along the Strand will see 100,000 visits during the course of the month. We have an Anchor: Old RN College Chapel As I have written elsewhere , there are two sorts of time in this season. Internally the church waits w ith hopeful expectation in the subdued light of Advent. Externally we anticipate the celebration of  the feast,taking the opportunity to share with the world the joy that God is with us. In amongst all of these many services I had a hand in the organisation of the London Area Sea Cadet Carol Service. In the magnificent setting of the Chapel at the Old Royal ...

Today in the Diocese of London we welcome Bishop Sarah Mullally as our new Bishop, though of course she won’t start for a while yet. We all have the framework given both by the London Plan and by the Five Guiding Principles Five Guiding Principles  which will allow us to continue to work together under the Grace of God for the growth of the church in faith, love and numbers of those believing. I have always served as far as possible in the mainstream; my wife is a deacon (she has no problem with the ordination of women to all three Orders), so I can hardly avoid the issues. Archdeacon Rosemary and I have worked together these last two years, and our article in the forthcoming edition of New Directions offers a report of a public reflection we made at the City Deanery Chapter earlier in the year. The experience has changed us both. There are only four traditionalist archdeacons in the country. In fact Bishop Sarah has this all too uncommon experience in the diocese of Exeter....

Once a month I go to Mass with my family and am just on the ordinary rota in the parish. This was today's sermon. God has called you and he will not fail you. 1 Thess 5:24 Last week I went to a meeting in the Bank of England about how to build trust in the financial services sector. The things I end up doing for the Kingdom! Whenever you make an investment there is the warning: ‘past performance is not a guarantee of future results.’ Now that may be true in the world of finance, but in our consideration of God and His care for us, past performance is precisely the guarantee of future results. The idea that God is faithful, that ‘He will do this,’ and that He acts consistently with His past actions and with His word, is central to our hope and to the way we live as Christians. God has called you and he will not fail you. In advent we are preparing to celebrate the birth of the Saviour in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. That moment is the centre of History: He was hoped for, ...

Sermon for the Bishopsgate Institute Carol Service I am a Trustee of the  Bishopsgate Institute  in my capacity as Priest in Charge of S Botolphs Bishopsgate. The Institure describes its vision on its webiste:  ' Bishopsgate Institute's   vision : Dedicated to opening minds, challenging perceptions and enriching lives. Since 1895 we have been a home for ideas and debate, learning and enquiry; a place where culture, heritage and learning meet, and where independent thought is cherished. ' It was to Shepherds that the Angels gave the good news of the birth at Bethlehem. Shepherds were thought of as being pretty disreputable people. No one wanted to do the job of a Shepherd, because it was dangerous, cold, wet, and very badly paid. Shepherds were proverbially rough types. Forget Little Bo Peep, and think about slightly violent, slightly drunk rough sleepers and you have the picture. Yet it was to these people, living on the edge of society, to whom...

S Bartholomew's Hospital & S Joseph's Hospice Annual Memorial Service 2017 Rev 21:1 I saw a new heaven and a new earth When I was a parish priest I took the funeral of a lady I had come to know quite well in the last few years of her life. In old age she had had bad feet, and she always wore trainers. It was our practice to invite the family to place objects on the coffin in the church to help them to remember their loved ones. This lady’s grandson brought her trainers, and put them on the coffin. “Me and my gran were the only ones who wore trainers,” he said. And with his black suit he wore his trainers to her funeral mass. Things like that help: but they can also be so painful. The mementos mix, as a poet once said, memory and desire, and the mix can stir grief most terribly. Recently, at the funeral of a friend of mine, many of us who had met on our first day at college spontaneously brought photos, though no one had organized that we should. There we all ...

A commonplace book is a place to note all sorts of things. This is where I note some of them. It's a new thing - in the last few years I have done most things on Twitter  @ArchdeaconLuke but there is some longer material it is good to find a place for. This is where I shall put it.