Available Now: Light of the North Summer 2020

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The summer issue of the Light of the North is now available online.

There is lots for everyone in this issue, not least  Bishop Hugh Gilbert’s letter in which Bishop Hugh considers how, as humans, we are so adaptable to changed circumstances and how versatile a faith we have. Then there’s Deacon John Wire’s Lockdown Diary and, for our Polish readers, Lidia Konar marks the 15th anniversary this year of the death of St John Paul ll. We also have plenty of pictures from the ordination to the diaconate of Malachy Eze and Christopher Doig and, in our series about the churches of the Diocese, we look at the Church of Saint Margaret, Huntly. Continue reading

Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

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God is real: “I am”, he says. God is involved. God is on our side. These are the basic propositions of our faith. Sunday after Sunday they’re brought before us. Brought before us at Mass, in the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. And Sunday after Sunday the poor preacher scratches his head and prays to the Holy Spirit that he may not entirely mask and muffle these life-giving truths. God is real. God is involved. God is for us. Continue reading

Homily for the Diaconal Ordination of Malachy Eze and Christopher Doig

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Today’s homily is supposed to be “brief and to the point”.

So, who are these like stars appearing? “Chosen men”, the Litany of the Saints will call them.

Here, briefly, is Malachy Eze, born in Igboland, who, after working as an interior decorator in Lagos and earning the wonderful nickname of “Parousia” from the youngsters he catechised, came to the UK, did some business studies, became a seminarian for the diocese of Aberdeen and appears before us today. Continue reading

Homily for 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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One of the saints of this diocese is John Ogilvie, born in Keith in 1580 and martyred in Glasgow in 1615. He lived at a time of ferocious controversy between Catholics and Protestants. It came to war in some places; it came to arguments everywhere. They were often very learned arguments, with quotations from Scripture and early Christian writers, arguments about where real Christianity and the real Church were to be found. It was like a boxing match, where nobody quite managed to land the knockout blow. Young John Ogilvie had been brought up a Protestant, but he went to continental, Catholic Europe for his education. And he became engaged in these controversies. He began to feel the force of the Catholic position, but then on the other hand… Continue reading