Fr Luke Miller

A Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Family Luke 2: 41-52   Luke 2:49   “ Why were you searching for me?”  he asked.  “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Our Father who art in Heaven ; at the very beginning of our prayers is the language of the family. It is repeated all through scripture, and is characteristic of Christ’s teaching about God. He could have used the language Lordship, “you call me Master and Lord, and rightly so, for so I am.” ( John 13:13 ) But he preferred the titles of relationship and love: Son of Man; Son of God. He said that anyone who does the will of the Father is “my sister and mother and brother.” ( Matthew 12:46-50 ) The language of family relationships is used in Scripture to describe the profundities of our relationship with God: the church is the “bride of Christ” and Christ is her Head as the husband is the head of the household. ( Ephesians 5:25-33 ) Despite the failure of some fathers, and concern about ...

When He came into the World He said, “Behold I come to do your will.” Hebrews 10:5;7 Are we nearly there? Some homes are full of children brimming with excitement. Others are just jaded with weeks of anticipation. We have gone through Black Friday  and Cyber Monday and goodness knows what. Office Christmas parties and school plays and lunch club Christmas lunches all the other anticipations of Christmas make almost any assertion of the need to keep Advent seem out of touch at best, and at worst, so stubbornly insensitive most people’s experience that we are making ourselves irrelevant by hanging on to the purple and the restraint and saying ‘yes, we are nearly there, but we are not there yet.’ We are very nearly there: but not quite yet! The Christ Child is with us: His incarnation began when He took flesh in His mother’s womb. Nine months ago on Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation , 25 March we celebrated his coming to earth. Angels in Nazareth; the unexpecte...

It is a year today since it was announced that Bishop Sarah was to be the new Bishop of London. As we scurried through the passages under S Paul’s cathedral and to the Chapter House for the ‘reveal’ I was still working out what it would be like to work, as a traditionalist, with a Bishop whose sacramental ministry I cannot receive. I can say unequivocally that it has been good. At the time I posted here that I thought we could make it work and if we can make it work, we can bring a gift to the whole church. Nothing in the time since has given me any reason to change my mind on that. There has been much said about mutual flourishing in the Church of England and a determination to ensure that the hopes can be turned into reality. I think Bishop Sarah and I have demonstrated a little bit of what that reality might mean. The willingness of the Bishop to live and breathe her commitment to making everyone’s ministry flourish, including mine and that of other traditionalists and...

It must be a number of Christmases ago now when we were sitting round as a family and somebody, possibly one of my sons, asked my father-in-law about D Day. He’d been there on a merchant ship serving with the DEMS . Neither he nor my mother-in-law had ever really talked about those days and she suddenly interjected into the conversation. She had been a Wren , and she had realised that the plot on which she had been marking the ships must have included the one in which her future husband was serving. She realised she had been quite literally pushing him around. The D Day Plot at Southwick House (HMS Dryad) We’d sort of known that Nandad had been in the battle but Nannie’s role had been one of those hidden things, hidden courage. Christmas is a story of hidden courage. And that is particularly the case when we turn our minds to Mary. First she needed the courage, the courage shown by so many of you and your predecessors in the women’s Royal Naval service, to accept the call....

Uniformed youth organisations are on the up. It is well known that Scouts and Guides would grow bigger if only they could find more adult leaders. The Boys Brigad e and Girls Brigade have development officers seeking to increase the number of Companies, and the Sea Cadets for whom I am the London Area Chaplain are seeking to expand the number of Units. In recent years the reformed and reinvigorated police cadets have grown to 5000 members in the Metropolitan Police Area from a standing start. Army and Royal Air Force Cadets and the CCF are also popular. BB Evening making Christmas cards with a local artist  Younger BB at the Advent Activities making decorations for church Despite the idea that young people are all laid-back and messy, it seems that tens of thousands of them enjoy what look like thoroughly old-fashioned organisations. Why might this be and what can the church learn from it? Sea Cadets at the Lord Mayor's Show Great Activities...