Fr Luke Miller

The birth of Jesus is a celebration you can join with in so many different ways. For many of us it means beautiful worship, profound reflection on the good news of Peace and Goodwill to all people that the angels announced. For the Christian Christmas is a renewal of our faith in the love and care of God. Christmas is not just about directly religious observance. It also means visiting family and friends; volunteering to help the needy; having some blessed time off. It is a time when many have lots to eat and drink, presents to give and receive, decorations and lights to enjoy. You can join in whatever your faith and whatever you might think about the child born in the manger. The world honours power and strength, fame, charisma, success and wealth. Christmas is about none of those things. Jesus was a baby, and that is his power. Just as when a baby reaches out with a tiny hand, grips our finger and holds us with the power of trusting weakness, so the Christ Child draws us ...

I was privileged to give the annual Sheffield Diocesan Lecture on Catholic Mission, sponsored by the Diocese of Sheffield and the Church Union. The Lecture is on YouTube

Sermon preached at S George's Hanover Square at a mass with renewal of marriage vows on Sunday 14th July 2019 Readings from the Book of Common Prayer for Trinity 4 which can be read here Romans 8:18-23 Luke 6:36-42 Romans 8:21 The Glorious Liberty of the Children of God When we got married it was a very long church service. It was not particularly meant to be, it is just that we had a nuptial Mass and lots of hymns, and lots of communicants and to be honest my father who took the service was a bit ponderous in his delivery and it all went on a bit. I was told afterwards that as the service entered its second hour one of the clergy in the congregation was heard to mutter “how long is this going on for?” To which a another priest sitting nearby said, “this Father, is holy matrimony, it lasts a lifetime.!” It lasts a lifetime. It is a new way of living and being. It is a gift of God in creation which is more than a human institution or a social tradition. It is a gift g...

From AM Farrer Lord I Believe I Believe Jesus Christ Died and Rose God has no sort of use for hateful things, and therefore it is that his hatred of them is absolute. His hatred of my failures of love and corruptions is exactly proportioned to His love for us. He who loves me, loves my health, He who loves my health hates my sickness; if his love for me is infinite, His detestation of my evil is immeasurable. … And what is the fate of things which earn the detestation of Almighty love? Is it not that they should be abolished? God's hatred or wrath is, indeed, nothing but this, a simple desire for the abolition of its object. It is not, like mine, a passion. … He hates the sin, but loves the sinner. Here is a saying which must be true in substance if there is to be any hope for sinful men; yet it is misleading and dangerous, if it suggests to me that my sin is not myself, but somehow detachable. … The death of Christ has been called the reconciliation of God's wrath and lo...

This annual sermon was instituted  in the will of John Norton, d 1612 to be preached annually at the beginning of Lent in S Paul's Cathedral. Readings 1 Kngs 19:1-9   Matthew 9:14-19 We began with the Elgar Ave Verum Corpus  sung so brilliantly by the choir of the Stationers' Crown Woods Academy . John Norton was granted the office of King's Printer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in 1603, following the accession of James I. Norton, a Shropshire man who started out in the printing and book trade in Edinburgh, was a great supporter of the new King. Indeed he was probably involved in the machinations behind the scenes in 1601 to ensure that James would succeed Elizabeth I, and in 1603 his press in London rushed out James’s manifesto on good government, Basilikon Doron selling thousands of copies in London before the King himself arrived in the south. In this Norton demonstrated the development of his business: the first Edinburgh edition of 1599 sold just seven ...

Ecclesiastes27:4-8 1 Cor 15:54-58 Luke 6:39-45 Danke für die Einladung auf Deutsch zu predigen. Ich hoffe das Wort Gottes nicht durch mein schlechtes Deutsch behindert werden wird.  Ich habe viel zu lernen. Und das ist der Bedeutung von unserem heutigen Predigttext. Wir haben alle viel zu lernen. Ein Junger steht nicht über dem Meister. Unser Meister ist Christus, und egal was unsere Sprache ist, es ist von ihm dass wir lernen müssen. Und was müssen wir denn lernen? Was ist unser Lernziel? Jüngern Christi zu werden und gute Fruchte hervorzubringen. Es geht in unserer ersten Lesung um ‚die Prüfung‘ und die Erprobung des Menschen. Und im heutigen Evangelium spricht von dem ‚guten Menschen.‘ Die Jungen Christi sind ganz menschlich; und laut Heiliger Irenaeus: Das Leben des Menschen ist die Schau Gottes; der Jünger steht nicht über dem Meister, aber, muss wie sein Meister sein. Wir müssen deswegen überhaupt wollen wie Christus sein. S Benet's Ke...

A Sermon preached at the church of S Sepulchre without Newgate, at the Institution of The Rev’d David Ingall Titus 2:1-14; Luke 17:7-10 Titus 2:13  Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Why are we doing all this? Pomp and circumstance, celebration and legal formularies; all to mark the beginning of something which began some time ago. It is not, David, because of you. Do not get me wrong, you have done an absolutely brilliant job, and we are all really grateful to you for all the work that you have put in. It has been wonderful that the Patrons have agreed with all of us locally that there is no one else more suited to carrying forward the work here at S Sepulchre’s. But actually, we would not mark that with all of this. The Lord is clear with a message almost harsh in its austerity: “ when y ou have done everything you were to...

Fr George Congreve In 1866 Fr Benson, Father Founder of the Society of S John the Evangelist, ( SSJE ) conducted an interesting correspondence on the matter of vows with Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford in seeking his original permission to establish his ‘college of clergymen’. Responding to Wilberforce’s initial refusal to allow the new Society vows, Benson wrote: “ the blessedness of a vow consists in the faith that God will give special gifts as a covenant to those who thus definitely give up some possible future of earthly enjoyment for him ” naturally, it would be “mischievous to make a thing accidentally sinful to ourselves which would not be sinful naturally.” Faith however “seeks to give up natural possibilities for divine promises.” Writing in 1896 George Congreve, a slightly younger member of the Society became in the 1890s the great teacher in the Church  of England about  how to form  and live the Religious Life. also commented on Vows: “the Religious vow...

Dedication of a memorial plaque to seven Jesuit priests hanged drawn and quartered at Tyburn and interred at S Giles in the Fields A sermon preached in the week of prayer for Christian Unity at Evensong to mark the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate the burial at S Giles in the Fields of seven victims of the "Popish Plot". Bishop Paul McAleenan, Auxiliary Bishop in the Diocese of Westminster was in choir, and the plaque was unveiled by Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, Parish Priest of The Church of the Immaculate Conception Farm Street 1 Cor 1:25 The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men The Plaque at S Giles Church A little while ago we were having one of those meetings in which we were thinking about the mission action planning of the church over the next few years. Then in the midst of all this strategizing, someone asked simply, Do we expect persecution? A foolish question? But the foolishness of God is wiser than m...