Blog
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King Oswy, Pope Gregory and the Date of Easter
Easter Sunday is late this year – Sunday 17 April. For it to come any later than it was in 2019 (21 April) you’ll have to wait until 2038 (when I shall be 93, God willing). Why does the...
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The Queen’s great great grandmother’s secret
As the churches and people of Ilfracombe prepare to celebrate the Queen’s extraordinary achievement of reigning for seventy years, it will be natural for us to reflect on her life and faith. As one of his last acts as...
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A thing most wonderful
William Walsham How (1823-97) was educated at Shrewsbury School and Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated in Classics before reading Theology at Durham. A small man who needed a platform in the pulpit so that the congregation could see...
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What is happiness
What is happiness and how can we achieve it? Millions of words have been written and spoken on the subject over the centuries. Speaking on Woman’s Hour way back on 5 October 1965, writer and broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)...
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Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing
I am sure that this Christmas, as at every Christmas, we shall enjoy singing ‘O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant’. Modern hymnbooks, including Complete Mission Praise, use a 1986 modernisation so that the first line reads ‘O...
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Celebrating Harvest and Christmas with Robert Hawker
I wrote this as we were preparing for our annual harvest festival at Pip and Jim’s church in Ilfracombe. In medieval England Lammas Day (1st August) was probably recognised as a thanksgiving for the first fruits of the harvest,...
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Blesséd be St Enodoc
A treasured memory of our holiday in Cornwall this summer was to stroll through St Enodoc Golf course, at Trebetherick, and revisit St. Enodoc Church. Situated in sand dunes east of Daymer Bay and Brea Hill on the River...
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Dudley-Smith: How is it between you and Jesus Christ?
On 15th August 2021, the set Common Worship Gospel reading was Luke 1:46-55, the Magnificat. This reminded me of this story: in May 1961, a 34 year-old man living in Blackheath, London, was sent a review copy of the...
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Exeter’s cleverest bishop?
The longest serving Bishop of Exeter in the twentieth century was Robert Mortimer. When I arrived at the preparatory department of Exeter School in 1952, he had already been Bishop for three years and when I left the main school...
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From Bishop Leofric to Bishop Jackie
When Bishop Jackie Searle came to Pip and Jim’s church in Ilfracombe on 13 June, preached, and celebrated communion with us, she was too modest to remind us that there was a Bishop of Crediton nearly 150 years before...
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