Revd Caroline's Retirement Thoughts

  8th February 2026 Horspath   I often see this quote or something like it.   “If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world.   If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.   If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week.   If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment or torture, or the horrible pangs of starvation you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering.   If you can read this message, you are more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read it at all.”   I fall into every single category on that list, yet do I live a carefree existence no? do I feel found out by this morning’s gospel absolutely?  Last year there was an influ...

14 th  December 2025 Advent 3 Readings Isaiah 35.1-10  Matthew 11.2-11   This week our Advent gospel is focused once again on the figure of John the Baptist. John called people back to listen to God’s word, because he was the herald the one chosen by God to point towards the one who is far greater than even, the God’s chosen Messiah.  In fact, Christian art very often depicts John the Baptist pointing towards Jesus.   The ability to point is very significant, children learn to do it about the age of one and it is often lost as a developmental milestone because they often learn to walk at about the same time.  In pointing a child wants to draw you attention towards something beyond their own existence. Interestingly children with a severe level of autism rarely point, probably because they find it hard to perceive anything as separate to themselves.  In pointing people towards Jesus, John the Baptist points towards one who is greater than...

    27 th  July 2025   This passage begins with what is surely one of the most familiar parts of the New Testament and of our own Christian lives.  Today it is in its less familiar form: Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer.  We are more used to using the Matthew version both in our public worship and I suspect because of that in our own prayer lives.   It is good in our worship to take time and think about what we are doing when we pray.  My own view is that on one level it is instinctive and sometimes a little self centred.  Yes, when going into a busy car park in a hurry I am likely to send up an arrow prayer and say something like please God let there be a space!  Such prayers are perhaps a normal response to a stressful situation, but they are not the entirety of our prayer lives.  True prayer can feel illusive a quite difficult.  It is an aspect of our relationship with God and like all r...

  St Mary’s Wheatley 26 th January 2025   Today’s gospel reading from Luke, gives us the story of Jesus returning home to Nazareth. The narrative gives us the story of Jesus’ first act of public ministry. Following his baptism in the River Jordan and his time in the desert wilderness fast and temptation, Jesus returns to his home country, Galilee and the city of Nazareth, there were probably about 12000 people so a small town. Reports about him have been spreading through the population, probably the result of his healing miracles and his synagogue teaching. When Jesus returns to Nazareth it is quite an occasion!  A sort of local boy returns home to adulation, fascination and a little bit of ‘just who does he think he is’.  A little further on from today’s reading we have these verses ‘all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”  23  He said to them, “Doubtless you will quo...

  19 th  January 2025   When I was a child my dad a non-drinker used to sing a song called a pub with no beer, I will spare you my singing, but I looked it up on Google and I think there were the words; ‘but there's nothin' so lonesome, so morbid or drear  as to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer’.  For some reason whenever I hear this story of the wedding party at  Cana  I get an ear worm and think of this song and of my dad.  A wedding without wine reminds me of a pub without beer! weddings and wine belong together.     This is an exhilarating gospel story, I find it very easy to imagine the scene. Jesus is the protagonist but says very little – only three short sentences – yet the whole story is a revelation, a disclosing, an epiphany.    An epiphany is a revealing of that which is hidden, and as we go through the Christian year, we learn how Jesus reveals the nature of God to us through the...

  Epiphany 2025 St Giles Horspath   Today we anticipate the Feast of Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas which is tomorrow.  What we celebrate at Epiphany is a deep mystery – God’s revelation to the world in Jesus Christ, born as a humble, vulnerable child in an out of the way place.  Emmanuel, God with us.    The Epiphany narrative occurs only In Matthew’s gospel; the Magi strangers from far away. Here is a key message at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, a gospel written for a largely Jewish community, this is that Jesus is here not just for the Jewish people but for all.   When they do find him, their first instinct is to stoop low and worship him.   These Magi/wise men who were probably learned and used to high status have the sense to know that they do not have all the answers, to know what you don’t know is an important kind of wisdom.    The Magi have dropped everything, left their country and the comforts of ho...