Welcome to St Catherine's, Neasden
St Catherine’s is a gathering of ordinary people who share a love for God and a love for the local community.
We are not perfect, but we believe in trying to express God’s love and his forgiveness in the everyday challenges of life.
Our inspiration comes from Jesus, who spoke a lot about generosity and forgiveness, and very little about religion or morality.
We believe that Jesus’ life and message is worth sharing because it inspires ordinary people to live well.
We believe that God loves us as we are, that he forgives what we have been, and that he helps us to become what we can be.
We believe that there is more to life than our brief existence on Earth, and that God offers a new life to all who learn to love and be loved.
The Vicar, Rob Harrison is available in the Church Office most mornings. If the OPEN sign is by the side entrance, you are welcome to call in.
St Catherine’s is a gathering of ordinary people who share a love for God and a love for the local community.
We are not perfect, but we believe in trying to express God’s love and his forgiveness in the everyday challenges of life.
Our inspiration comes from Jesus, who spoke a lot about generosity and forgiveness, and very little about religion or morality.
We believe that Jesus’ life and message is worth sharing because it inspires ordinary people to live well.
We believe that God loves us as we are, that he forgives what we have been, and that he helps us to become what we can be.
We believe that there is more to life than our brief existence on Earth, and that God offers a new life to all who learn to love and be loved.
The Vicar, Rob Harrison is available in the Church Office most mornings. If the OPEN sign is by the side entrance, you are welcome to call in.
From Last Sunday: Called to be unimportant
Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must take up their cross daily.” This is not a comfortable part of his message. And - forgive me for being flippant - Roman Empire execution equipment is hard to come by in the 21st century. Jesus was not suggesting that we should daily seek to get ourselves killed. Dying isn’t something that can be done on a daily basis. He is referring to the attitude of mind with which we live our daily lives. Jesus understood there to be an inverse relationship between importance in this world and importance in his Father’s world. As he put it, “The one who is least among you all who is the greatest.” Think of the way that fractions work in maths: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8. The bigger the number in the bottom half of the fraction, the smaller the resulting number. This is how Jesus understood human life. This life is like the bottom half of a fraction. The greater we become in the ways of this world, the lesser we become in ways of God. To look at it the other way round: the only way to become significant in God’s kingdom is by daily resolving to be unimportant in this world. The simplest application of this principle is to consider other people’s needs as more important than our own. Jesus said, “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” In Jesus' day, a man or woman seen carrying a cross was on a one-way journey towards being nothing. Their reputation was in tatters, their assets had almost certainly been seized, and they themselves were about to suffer an agonising and humiliating death. This is the path that Jesus had chosen for himself, because he knew it would benefit us. He was about to become nothing in the eyes of this world in order to achieve an unimaginable gain for the work of God. If we wish to learn from Jesus, we must learn to put others before ourselves, especially those others who are not valued or cared for by the society around us. |
