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Review of Benigno P. Beltran, Faith and Struggle on Smokey Mountain: Hope for a Planet in Peril (Orbis, 2012). If all the books on the Michael Ramsey Prize shortlist are as good as this, then I’m in for a treat!   It is good to have an author on the shortlist who is not from the UK or the US.   Beltran is from the Philippines.   A Roman Catholic priest, and a teacher of theology, Beltran has also been the chaplain to the most notorious rubbish dump in the world – Smokey Mountain in Manilla.   Here around 25 000 people lived as scavengers, and became a symbol of both poverty and the ecological degradation of the world. This is a deceptively short book.   It is both moving and challenging.   It also covers several different genres.   Most obviously, it is autobiographical.   Benigno Beltran was a Pilipino priest who was sent to study in Rome.   He returned to the Philippines to train seminarians.   On h...

A Sermon for Easter 5. Acts 11.1-18 ; John 13.31-35 If you want the Gospel in miniature, then we are offered it this morning.   Jesus says to his disciples ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’   ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’   It really is as simple and as hard as that.   Simple, because that is all that the Gospel is about.   Hard, because loving and being loved is not an easy business.   In the next few minutes, I want to explore the simplicity and difficulty of this, and think a little bit about what we should take with us into our lives. We start with being loved, because that is where Jesus starts.   ‘Just as I have loved you’ he says.   The foundation of Christianity in all of its forms is that we are loved by God.   God loves us.   That is the message of Christianity from beginning to end.   Beware of anyone who tells you that God doesn’t...

--> Review of Ian Cowley, The Contemplative Minister: Learning to Lead from the Still Centre (Bible Reading Fellowship, 2015). This excellent little book is for those ‘who are looking for a better way of serving Christ than the relentless busyness and pressure which has become the norm for so many’ (p. 12).   Ian Cowley, who has experience of ministry in South Africa and is now the Vocations and Spirituality Co-ordinator for the Diocese of Salisbury, calls us to rediscover our still centre in prayer and rooting in God. Ministry that does not have stillness and prayer at its heart is in danger of losing its relationship to God, of warping a vocation, and not having the counter-cultural edge that should be the mark of all Christian ministry.   Cowley calls us back to silence and simplicity as being of the essence and the heart of ministry, not just extras and ideals.   He draws widely on the traditions of the church, from the contemplative to th...

A meditation for Vocations Sunday I heard the call a long time ago.   Not really sure when it began, but I just began to watch, to look out for where I might find him.   Once I realised I was doing it, I started to listen hard.   My name, Simeon, it means the one who listens.   So I would live up to my name.   I listened for God, and I asked him about this calling.   Was it for me? Why on earth me?   What was I to look for? A new prophet or a holy one?   And from somewhere the answer came – ‘I am calling you.   Look for the Messiah!’ I’ve looked for a long time – I wasn’t always this old – carefully checking and testing.   A few have claimed that they were the one.   But they weren’t.   But just sometimes, there was enough doubt in my mind to leave me confused.   This calling has been a challenge.   Not everyone likes me saying, ‘no, not them.’   And it’s puzzled me why I should be s...

--> A sermon for the Eve of the Annunciation Genesis 3.8-15 ; Galatians 4.1-5 “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman”. In the depths of Channel Four’s schedules, there is a programme called Tattoo Fixers .   In this programme people arrive with an array of badly crafted tattoos, and those which are less funny once the owner has sobered up. The programme’s team of tattoo artists then transform the tattoos into more tasteful and more beautiful tattoo by integrating the original design into their new art.   The original tattoo is not erased, but cannot be seen any longer. This evening we celebrate God’s plan for the redemption of the world.   “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” as St Paul puts it.   This plan is announced to Mary by the Angel Gabriel.   It is a plan that is not just for us, but which will have an effect on the whole of creation.   We have sung the M...