Ivybridge Parish part of Plymouth East RC Parishes.

Ivybridge Parish part of Plymouth East RC Parishes. St Austin's Priory, Cadleigh PL21 9HW and St. Monica's Church, Modbury PL21 0QN.

03/06/2026

Bishop Nicholas Hudson invites us to join him in prayer for all those affected by the Royal Navy helicopter crash today. The 11.15am Sunday Mass at St Boniface Catholic Church Okehampton will be offered for those affected by this tragedy. People are also welcome to light a candle at Plymouth Cathedral. plymouthcathedral.org.uk.

03/06/2026

Friends, in today’s Gospel (Mark 12:18–27), Jesus confronts the Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection from the dead. They proposed a conundrum that they thought would disprove resurrection: If a woman married seven brothers, all of whom died, whose wife would she be in the resurrection?

Notice how Jesus deals with this little conundrum: He brushes it aside. Jesus says to them, “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.”

What’s he saying here as he brushes aside this little bit of casuistry? What is heaven? Is it escaping from the body? No, that’s not it. That’s not a biblical view. Heaven is a place where our bodiliness will be so rich and so intense that we will be able to relate to all those around us in the most intimate and powerful way possible.

And there we will be fully alive, for as Jesus explained from the Torah, God is not God of the dead but of the living.

02/06/2026

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus enunciates a principle that is an implicit resolution of the vexing problem of religion and politics: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

God is the deepest source and inspiration for everything in life, from sports to law to the arts to science and medicine. Everything comes from God and returns to God. So what about our famous question of religion and politics?

Politics is not in a realm separate from the religious; rather, its deepest ground is spiritual. Thomas Aquinas held that law comes from the eternal law, which is identical to the mind of God. This eternal law is reflected in the human mind and heart, those basic principles that are called the natural law. Positive laws—from traffic regulations to antitrust laws—are then concrete applications of the natural law.

Hence, all law—the very stuff of politics—has to do with God, since positive law nests in the natural law, which nests in the eternal law. This is why we should expect our politicians and judges to be acting in accord with moral and spiritual goods.

The Most Holy Trinity. 31st May 2026 with Fr Victor.
01/06/2026

The Most Holy Trinity. 31st May 2026 with Fr Victor.

01/06/2026

Friends, today’s Gospel (Mark 12:1–12) tells of the landowner who planted a vineyard and leased it to tenants. This vineyard stands for Israel, but it could be broadened to include the whole world. Like the landowner, God has made for his people a beautiful and productive place, a place where they can find rest, enjoyment, and good work.

When vintage time drew near, the landowner sent his servants to the tenants to obtain the produce. But the tenants seized the servants, and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Is this not the whole sorry history of Israel and its prophets, of the world and the people whom God has sent?

Then we hear the event upon which the parable turns: “He had one other to send, a beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants . . . seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.” After the terrible treatment that his representatives have received, the owner sends his son? Is he crazy? Yes, a little. But this is the over-the-top patience and generosity of God, his crazy love. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” knowing full well what his fate would be.

31/05/2026

Friends, today’s Gospel (John 3:16–18) gives us the famous assurance that God gave his Son that we might have eternal life.

There is a terrible interpretation of the cross that holds the view that the bloody sacrifice of the Son on the cross was “satisfying” to the Father, an appeasement of a God infinitely angry at sinful humanity. In this reading, the crucified Jesus is like a child hurled into the fiery mouth of a pagan divinity in order to assuage its wrath.

What eloquently gives the lie to this awful interpretation is today’s passage, which is often proposed as a summary of the Christian message. God the Father is not some pathetic divinity whose bruised honor needs to be restored; rather, God is a parent who burns with compassion for his children who have wandered into danger. It is not out of anger or vengeance that the Father sends the Son but precisely out of love.

Does the Father hate sinners? No, but he hates sin. Does God harbor indignation at the unjust? No, but God despises injustice. Thus God sends his Son not gleefully to see him suffer but to set things right.

30/05/2026

Friends, in today’s Gospel (Mark 11:27–33), the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approach Jesus and ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”

The first witnesses of Jesus were astonished by the authority of his speech and his actions. This wasn’t simply because he spoke and acted with conviction and enthusiasm; it was because he refused to play the game that every other rabbi played, tracing his authority finally back to Moses. He went, as it were, over the head of Moses, as he did at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said . . . but I say . . .”

His listeners knew they were dealing with something qualitatively different than anything else in their religious tradition or experience. They were dealing with the prophet greater than Moses.

And Jesus had to be more than a mere prophet. Why? Because we all have been wounded, indeed our entire world compromised, by a battle that took place at a more fundamental level of existence. The result is the devastation of sin, which we all know too well. Who alone could possibly take it on? A merely human figure? Hardly. What is required is the power and authority of the Creator himself, intent on remaking and saving his world, binding up its wounds, and setting it right.

29/05/2026

Friends, at the heart of today’s Gospel (Mark 11:11–26) is the cleansing of the temple. Jesus entered the great temple in Jerusalem—which for a Jew of that time was everything—and began to “drive out those selling and buying there.” Precisely because the temple was supposed to be so holy, Jesus was flabbergasted at what had happened to it and how the trading of merchants had come to dominate.

From the earliest days, Christian writers and spiritual teachers saw the temple as symbolic of the human person. In fact, didn’t St. Paul himself refer to the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit? Your very self is meant to be a temple where God’s Spirit dwells and where prayer, communion with God, is central.

But what happens to us sinners? The money changers and the merchants enter in. What is supposed to be a place of prayer becomes a den of thieves. And so the Lord must do in us now what he did in the temple then: a little housecleaning. What shape is the temple of your soul in? Suppose that Jesus has made a whip of cords, knotted with the Ten Commandments. What would he clear out of you?

29/05/2026

To accompany his constant calls for peace in the world, Pope Leo XIV will lead the prayer of the Holy Rosary on May 30 at 7:00 PM Rome time from the Vatican Gardens.

He will lead the faithful in Shrines around the world in praying the Joyful Mysteries, with each decade being dedicated specifically for those affected by war and violence and entrusting them to the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace.

The first mystery prays for the victims of war, especially the most vulnerable, while the second is for those who bring words of hope and the comfort of faith to populations affected by war. The third recalls the medical and paramedical personnel and volunteers who bring humanitarian aid every day.

The fourth mystery prays for those who suffer the violence of war, for prisoners and for all who endure humiliations that violate human dignity. The fifth and final Joyful Mystery is dedicated to praying for an end to war and the establishment of lasting peace in the world.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-05/pope-preside-over-rosary-dedicated-to-peace-in-vatican-gardens.html

28/05/2026

Friends, in today’s Gospel (Mark 10:46–52), Jesus heals a blind man. Physical blindness is an evocative symbol of the terrible blindness of the soul that all of us sinners experience. When the “pusilla anima” (small soul) reigns, when the “imago Dei” (image of God) is covered over, we see within the narrow spectrum of our fearful desires.

Blind Bartimaeus, sitting helplessly by the road outside of Jericho, begging for alms and attention, expresses this hopeless and darkened-over state of soul. When he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is in the vicinity, he begins to cry out, “Son of David, have pity on me.” The original Greek here is “eleēson me”, beautifully reflective of the liturgical cry of the Church, “Kyrie eleison”—“Lord have mercy.” Bartimaeus gives voice to the prayerful groaning of the whole people of God for release from the imprisonment of the small soul.

Though he is reprimanded by the crowd, Bartimaeus continues to shout until, finally, Jesus calls out to him. This is the summons that echoes from the very depths of one’s own being, the call of the “magna anima” (great soul), the invitation to rebirth and reconfiguration. Inspired by this voice and convinced that he has discovered the pearl of great price, the “unum necessarium” (one thing necessary), Bartimaeus jumps up and comes to Jesus.

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Cadleigh
Ivybridge
PL219HW

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+441752895888

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