Bishop Nicholas Hudson Addresses and Homilies
St Bernadette loved this place, as we all do. Years after she left Lourdes, she used to say, ‘I wish I could just fly to Lourdes in a balloon and be at the grotto!’
In many ways, our virtual pilgrimage has been just like that. With Bernadette...Read more
On 25
I’ve been to the Upper Room, or at least to the Medieval chamber built on what is held to be the site of the Upper Room. Many of you will have been there too. I had the privilege of spending an hour there alone recently. How I prayed! Y...Read more
Have you still got your crib up at home? I have. It’s a custom I learnt from abroad. I know, in England, we tend to take all the Christmas decorations down after the New Year; or, if not at the actual New Year, around 12
The way it’s descri...Read more
Sixty years on the one site really is an achievement to savour. There will be some people in the congregation who can tell me they’ve received all the sacraments here: Baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Marriage. I was thinking about t...Read more
Mass Introduction
I’ve been wanting to come and be with you to let you know how much the Cardinal and the bishops of this Diocese have been thinking of you and praying for you ever since we heard of the tragic deaths of 39 Vietnamese in the bac...Read more
Extracts from a homily preached by Bishop Nicholas Hudson on Thursday 17
Led by the light to some definite service
St John Henry Newman has much to teach us! One of the great lessons he teaches us is that, whatever happens to you, even thing...Read more
Homily given in the Church of the Venerable English College, Rome, for the Diocese of Westminster Youth Ministry pilgrims on 14
Priests are not all angels!
That was one of St John Henry Newman’s more memorable sayings.
And we should be ...Read more
In the College where I trained to be a priest, there were lovely nuns who looked after us. They prepared meals for us; they did our laundry. Above all, they prayed for us.
The day came for one of them, Sr Renata, who’d been there the longest,...Read more
Given at Westminster Cathedral at the Red Mass on Tuesday 1
‘I can’t understand why you go and visit people in prison. They’ve done such awful things.’
That’s what my barber says to me every January.
The conversation is always the s...Read more
My Daddy was a very good man. And he taught me many things. One of the things he taught me was that when Jesus said, ‘Love your neighbour’, it was actually true. You really can love your neighbour. When I was about six (my name is Nich...Read more
It happens in every generation that there rise up young people who are shining examples of Christianity. They often die young. One such was St Aloysius Gonzaga in the 16th century. He was only 23 when he died. And yet he had shown hims...Read more
‘How lovely is your dwelling place, how lovely is Farm Street!’ That is something I often find myself telling people. ‘It’s a church which has been truly beautified,’ I tell them, ‘Beautified in a way which draws people to contempl...Read more
I’d like to begin with a question: ‘Do you wish to change the world?’
I hope you do! I remember the excitement of being ordained. Just a few weeks before, though, on old priest said to me, ‘I suppose you want to change the world.’ ...Read more
Given at the Catholic Record Society Conference on 23
One of the first things you’re told when you begin your studies at the Venerabile is, ‘We’ve been neighbours of St Bridget’s for six-and-a-half centuries!’
Very soon you discove...Read more
Given at the ordination to the priesthood of Rev Philip Harrison SJ and Rev Kensy Joseph SJ at St Ignatius Church, Stamford Hill on 30
‘I will give you shepherds,’ we hear the Lord promise on the lips of the prophet Jeremiah. And today we see...Read more
Christmas reflection 2017
I was privileged to spend a week in Bethlehem last January. I was able to sit alone in the cave which we believe to be the site of Jesus’s birth, beneath the wonderful Church of the Nativity. I was transported back t...Read more