When the Second Vatican Council called for priests to give homilies based on the scripture readings of the day rather than the more general traditional Sunday sermon, there were suddenly far fewer opportunities for priests to specifically address areas of spiritual or pastoral need unless the two things happened to coincide – which doesn’t seem to happen too often. 

These articles are a series of pastoral reflections, distributed with the parish newsletter, which were written in order to do both things at once by providing, on a fairly regular basis, something for people to read in their own time at home, in addition to the homily that they had heard at Mass.

Reactions over the years have been mixed with some, at one end of the spectrum, welcoming them enthusiastically, whilst others simply pass them by as they come into church or actually detached them from the newsletter and leave them behind unread.  I always find this a bit sad – not because they are ignoring something I have written, but because it’s almost as if they hope to get away with the “where ignorance is bliss” defence when God might one day challenge them on something they really should have known about. 

In a sense the change of policy introduced by the Council became an example of the poet Robert Frost’s “two roads diverging in a wood”, and these pastoral reflections have enabled me to take the pastoral road that would otherwise have been less travelled.

Click on a link below to read the reflection of your choice. They are reproduced in PDF format.

You may copy and use any of the following articles so long as you acknowledge the source, please.  The 4-page originals can be 71% photo-reduced on a copier and printed out as a 4-sided A4-folded leaflet.
(Fr Neil McNicholas).