Broughton St Mary's Parish Church

04/06/2026

Official Statement 🙏🏽

26/03/2026

Join us for our Holy Week Services. All are welcome! Services will be held at Broughton St. Mary's Parish Church, 12 Bellevue Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 6NE. Of course, the Early Morn Easter Service will be on Calton Hill at 7:00 am.

01/02/2026

Priscilla the Puffin enjoying today's choral anthem ❤️

23/12/2025

19/12/2025

Come and celebrate Christmas at Broughton St Mary’s. Everyone is welcome and we would be delighted for you to join us.

ShareTweetEmail Come and celebrate Christmas at Broughton St Mary’s this year. Everyone is welcome and we hope you will join us for any or all of our Christmas Services. Date & Time Christmas Service Venue Fri 12 Dec 7.00pm Christmas Carol Singalong Church & YouTube Sun 14 Dec 10.30am 3rd Sunday i...

12/12/2025

Thank you to Oli Kelly, our musicians, readers and everyone who joined us for our Christmas Carol singalong tonight ❤️

08/12/2025

ANAM CARA

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the "soul friend."

In everyone's life, there is a great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home.

The anam cara experience opens a friendship that is not wounded or limited by separation or distance. Such friendship can remain alive even when the friends live far away from each other. Because they have broken through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed. When the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured. Even across the distance, two friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each other's lives. With your anam cara you awaken the eternal.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition, with commentary from John's close circle of friends.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/anam-cara

Fanore Beach, County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

07/12/2025

Come and join us this Friday 12 December at 7pm for a fun filled Christmas Carol singalong followed by refreshments. Entry is free and all are welcome.