Posts by Fr Jay Scott Newman

Dear Friends in Christ, I was only six years old in 1968, so my memories of that momentous year are dim and mostly about life in the first grade. But in that year, it seemed to many that the United States of America was coming apart at the seams. Riots in more than 100 cities…

Dear Friends in Christ, Christmas was forty days ago this Thursday, and that is why 2 February is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. According to Chapter 12 of Leviticus, every Jewish woman who gave birth required a ritual purification from her flow of blood, and a sacrifice was to be offered to…

Dear Friends in Christ, On Wednesday of this week the Church will keep the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, and on Thursday we will celebrate the Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops. These twin liturgical observances bring into bright relief two essential truths of the Gospel: friendship with the Lord…

Dear Friends in Christ, The glories of Christmastide are now behind us, and the rigors of the 40 Days don’t arrive until Ash Wednesday which falls this year on 1 March. That gives us six weeks before Lent to live in the Thirty-Four Weeks of the Year, so-called Ordinary Time, when the Church is clothed…

Dear Friends in Christ, The Solemnity of the Epiphany is one of the richest feasts in the Christian liturgy, and for this reason, it is also among the most misunderstood. The Greek word which we translate epiphany simply means “appearance” or “manifestation”, and in the Western liturgical tradition the Epiphany is linked most strongly to…

Dear Friends in Christ, Eight days ago we celebrated the Birth of Jesus Christ, and we read in the Gospel of St Luke that “When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” (Luke 2.21) Today is, therefore,…