Fr Luke Miller

  John 19:26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. I remember once I was in a bus held up at a traffic light when a big car with outriders swept through the junction. It had the Queen in the back. Loads of cars have been past junctions while I have been sitting in busses, but that is the only passenger I noticed. Looking is not something passive. To give attention to something is a choice. We give attention to what we think is important or interesting or beautiful or titillating. The kind of attention we give is also a choice, a moral choice. If I look at a person, I may see someone to exploit or use; or perhaps someone to respect or to love. He saw His Mother standing there with the Disciple He loved. In His looking He taught them to see each other differently: Son , behold thy Mother; Mother ...

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...

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...

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 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....

Reflection in S Stephen Walbrook at the launch of the Musicians' Church Website S Cecilia  was a martyr who had nothing specific to do with music. The story has it that she was a young girl who was to be married to a rich Roman who required her to adopt paganism. She refused, asserting her faith and that she was betrothed to Christ, and was sentenced to death. They put her in the hypocaust to suffocate her. It did not work, so her throat was cut. Following  Jesus Christ was and for so many is a matter of sacrifice, and the fine music of a S Cecilia Mass does not mask the fact that the feast celebrates the martyrdom of a young woman.  The antiphon for the opening of her mass used to run: As the organ played for her wedding, music sounded for her in heaven . Later the main school for church musicians in Rome was next to her church and she was their natural patron. From the act of witness of a young girl so much great good has come since she has inspired ...

I preached this afternoon at Westminster Abbey. I never quite say what I have in the text in front of me, for a sermon is a living thing, open one prays to the Spirit even in the process of delivery. So, though  this was not quite what I said, this is the text I took with me.  The readings were: Job 13:13-14:6 and Hebrews 2:5-end A few months ago one of my sons was walking down the corridor in his regional university when a couple of lads and will up to him and asked him in the patois of the London gangs, “what is your Ns mate?” Having been brought up in North London he gave the right postcode and a sticky moment passed off safely. Part of the terrible attraction of the gangs which are causing so much grief and fear in so many parts of London is the search which is summed up in our text this evening: what is man that there are mindful of him? Young people search to know who they are and in a perverse way membership of the gang gives the security, structure and fami...

John 20:9 Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Sermon Preached at S Mary Paddington Green Easter Day 2018 The resurrection is not described in the Gospel. What is described is the way that the followers of Jesus came to realise it had happened. Peter and John running to the tomb and finding it empty, with that wonderful human detail that makes it so real: John is younger and can run faster, but Peter, the elder, impetuous Peter, he is the one who goes into the tomb first. The women meeting the angels but, “do not look for the living among the dead.” Mary of Magdala does not recognize Him, but supposed Him to be the gardener . Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead. If they hadn’t how can we – how can we understand the teaching of scripture that He has risen from the dead? Because He has – this our whole purpose in being here today,...