Month: October 2026

Kyle MacNeill [1]

1 John 3.1–3, Matthew 5.1–12

The Feast of All Saints and All Souls, 1 November 2026, 

Eldroth, Clapham

Like a lot of young people these days, Carlo Acutis spent an ungodly amount of his life staring at screens. Born in London in 1991, he grew up an only child in a newly connected world. He wore sweatshirts and Nike trainers. He played Halo and taught himself to write computer code. But there is one big difference between him and most other young people, because last year, Carlo Acutis was officially named a saint.

As well as the internet, Carlo revered another institution: the Catholic Church. From a young age, he was acutely interested in Eucharistic miracles – extraordinary events which, according to Catholics, see consecrated bread or wine suddenly become the actual body or blood of Christ. After his First Communion he told his mother, “To always be united to Jesus: This is my life plan.”

In 2004, Carlo started to research eucharistic miracles from around the world, and he developed a website to document them. His aim was to connect with other young Catholics. Courtney Mares, his biographer, said “He was personally convinced that the scientific evidence would help people … come back to Mass.”

Carlo unveiled his online archive in October 2006, but just a few days after it launched, he fell ill. He was diagnosed with leukaemia, with little chance of recovery. “Death has become the passage towards life,” he told his mother, before falling into a coma, suffering a brain haemorrhage, and passing away. He was just 15.

His spirit lived on. The website he’d built helped introduce Eucharistic miracles to a mass audience across the globe and was translated into 17 languages. A physical exhibition linked to his work toured internationally, was shown in thousands of parishes worldwide, and is still touring today. 

Carlo is revered not just for his use of technology, but also his dedication to living virtuously. “I think that prayer was truly the great secret of his saintly life,” Mares says. But the website was key to creating a halo effect, heightening his reputation as a blessed figure.

“The process of identifying someone as a saint is long and careful and quite bureaucratic,” says Tim Hutchings, associate professor of religious ethics at the University of Nottingham. “It starts when some Catholics decide that they really think someone should be a saint. They start a campaign to prove to their local bishop that this person lived an incredibly holy life, or died for their faith.” And so it was in 2012, that the Archdiocese of Milan – where Carlo’s family had moved when he was a child – started a cause for canonisation, paving the way for sainthood. It may surprise you to know that saints are still made regularly; Francis recognised well over 900 of them during his time as Pope. After being named a “Servant of God” in 2013, Carlo was venerated by Pope Francis in 2018, and in September 2025 he was canonised by Pope Leo.

It’s rare for a saint to be so young and unheard of, and still reach this lofty status so soon after their death. Carlo is the first ever millennial saint and has become known as “God’s influencer” and the “patron saint of the internet.”

It’s interesting to find that the Church hierarchy doesn’t pick saints – that it is the ordinary people of the Catholic community who know when they see holiness among them and lead the campaign for a devoted person’s official recognition. But Carlo’s’ popularity as a young role model is a gift to the Church. Professor Hutchings says that “It absolutely makes sense for Catholics to look for a saint of the internet who represents the godly and faithful use of technology.”

Of course the Church knows that the internet has potential for unholy behaviour. Pope Francis warned that today’s digital age constantly tempts young people to ‘self- absorption, isolation, and empty pleasure’. Many devout Christians still struggle with such temptations. As Carlo’s biographer Courtney Mares says, “With technology changing at such a rapid pace today, many Christians are still grappling with how best to live out their faith in the world of laptops, cell phones, and social media.”

But Pope Francis also once called the internet a “gift from God”, and he recognised its potential for spreading the word of Christ – it just depends on how it is applied. Carlo Acutis used technology to promote commitment to Christian teaching, virtuous living, and devotion to the rituals of the local church. 

Christians of all traditions will hope that this sainted, but relatable, young man who watched cartoons and surfed the web will resonate with those of his fellow-millennials who are searching for God in these new times and new ways.

On All Saints Day, we give thanks that the saints have always been drawn from among us, and even walk among us still, some of them even dressed in sneakers, sweatshirts, and jeans. 

Note

[1] This is a lightly edited version of Kyle MacNeill, How a 15-Year-Old Gamer Became the Patron Saint of the Internet. Wired, 30 September 2024.

1 Thessalonians 2.1–8, Matthew 22.34-46 

The Last Sunday after Trinity 25th October 2026

Austwick, Clapham

The Pharisees and the Sadducees did not get on. They were always in conflict with each other.

It was a time of social turmoil when religious Jewish groups fought to gain the most supporters. The Pharisees were a popular peoples movement inspired by Moses and the Prophets and the Oral Torah – the teachings passed on by word of mouth which determined how ordinary Jewish people should live; whilst the Sadducees were an aristocratic, wealthy, and traditional elite within the hierarchy who ran the Temple, who collaborated with Rome and did quite well out of it: they recognised only the Written Torah, the Law of Moses in what we call the Old Testament. [2]

In their battle to gain most influence the Sadducees argued from the Law, and the Pharisees from the Prophets, and when they came across Jesus, they each tried to use him as a means to ‘get one over’ the other. That is what’s behind our passage from Matthew’s gospel today.

“When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and they asked him a question to test him.”

What’s happening here is an episode in an ongoing saga. Just before this the Pharisees had tested Jesus with a question about paying taxes, and Jesus had deflected them with his answer about giving to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Having  sent these Pharisees away amazed, some Sadducees then came to Jesus testing him with a question about resurrection, which they did not believe in, and he sent them away humiliated, telling them “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God”.

Notice that while Jesus features at the centre of these arguments, it is the rivalry between the two religious camps which is driving their debate. The Pharisees and the Sadducees hate each other and love it when their rival gets frustrated. Their arguments with Jesus are a means to an end, the end being to strengthen their group at the expense of their rivals. An inadequate comparison, I know, but it’s perhaps a little like the leaders of the Conservatives and Reform trying to bolster support for themselves by each in turn picking arguments with the Greens.

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they must have seen it as their opportunity to bounce off the ropes and try again for a knockout which would establish them as the prize fighters in their contest of religious authority.

So a Pharisee asked Jesus a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?” Jesus’ answer is straightforward and immediate. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind.” This is uncontroversial. It is so faithful to both the written and the oral law that no Pharisee – or Sadducee – could find fault with it.  

The surprise comes when Jesus adds a second commandment that he says is equally important to the first. They hadn’t asked for two! And it is this second one that makes them uncomfortable. “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” The Pharisees had been strengthening themselves as a group around loving themselves more than their neighbour. What kept them strong was assuming superiority over their neighbour and particularly over those near-neighbours the Sadducees.

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” Jesus says. On these two commandments hang the law – so important to the Sadducees – and the prophets – so vital to the Pharisees. The laws which they hold so fast to as their own, are subservient to a higher law, Jesus says. The law of love for God and neighbour is the primary law from which all other laws hang.

Jesus condenses everything into two commandments, and the Pharisees asking the question, and the Sadducees looking on, all feel queasy about the second commandment because it dissolves the glue which holds their group together. The glue is their belief that they are better than their neighbour. The commandment tells them to love their neighbour as themselves. 

The Pharisees – like the Sadducees before them – are awed by Jesus because what he says transcends their rivalrous arguments. Refusing to take sides Jesus introduces to them a whole new way of looking at things, a whole new way of being in life together, not apart. The question he asked them about David makes them realise that Jesus carries a different weight of authority with him. When he says “David by the Spirit called him Lord,” he seems to be describing himself.

“By the Spirit.” This phrase takes us out of the realm of time and space and puts us in the arena of transcendence. There is something going on here that is way bigger than King David, in fact, bigger than us all. It is like Jesus is in touch with something that is eternal and timeless. “By the Spirit” suggests a message coming in from the beyond.  And I think that is how Jesus meant it to be taken.

I think Jesus is subtly pointing to a vast eternal way of life coming from outside the jurisdiction of the Pharisees, the Sadducees or any other human group. This way of life has something to do with the Messiah, David’s son, but also much more than that, it has to do with God’s Son, who has entered human history, who existed before David, and now stands before them with his question. Even David, by the Spirit, pointed to his son, the Messiah, as his Lord.  

The Pharisees now find themselves as silent as the Sadducees had been before. Matthew says, “No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.” This is a pivotal moment for them – and for Jesus. Having heard these things the Pharisees and Sadducees now face the challenge Jesus poses: either to embrace him as the authority able to lead them into a new way which eclipses their laws, their prophets, their rivalries…. or to protect themselves from this, turn their backs on him, have him done away with.

We know the way they chose – but we also know that the crucifixion they organised would not succeed in quashing the Spirit of God which Jesus’ resurrection released into the world.

We can rejoice that one leading Pharisee, Paul, encountered Jesus and turned around to embrace Jesus’ new way. We can see the change which the Spirit made in his life in the way he describes to the Christians in Thessalonica the form and character of his ministry among them. 

“We speak, not to please mortals, but to please God,” he writes. “We never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.”

See how Paul had turned away from the Pharisees’ rivalrous ways. How fully he had realised that when we live in the Spirit of God in the power of Jesus’ resurrection, we can follow his law of love alone. Rejoice that like Paul, the Spirit can help us to care deeply for others, for all our neighbours, and to live gently among them.

Note

[1] Based substantially on a sermon by The Rev. Dr. Thomas Truby and the Rev. Laura C. Truby, Intersected from Outside Time and Space [doc], 23 October 2011, sourced from Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary Notes, Proper 25A.

[2] Wikipedia: Pharisees, Sadducees, Paul the Apostle.

Isaiah 35.3–6, Luke 10.1–9

18 October 2026, Luke the Evangelist, Austwick, Eldroth

So here we are on the feast day of St Luke, the doctor, the evangelist, the patron saint of artists, notaries, bachelors, physicians, goldsmiths, butchers, brewers, and glass workers, among others.

It’s believed that Doctor Luke lived in the city of Antioch in Ancient Syria, born of a Greek family, and that he was clearly well-educated in the ways of both Judaism and of Greek, or Hellenic, culture. He wrote two of the great books of the New Testament: the gospel that bears his name, and the Acts of the Apostles. Both books were directed towards teaching and encouraging a community made up of Jewish and Gentile Christians.

The gospel of Luke testifies to the love of God in Jesus embracing both Jews and Gentiles, and the Acts of the Apostles bears testimony to Luke’s involvement in the missionary activities of the early Christians, who were forever travelling from place to place intent on spreading the faith throughout the Roman Empire.

Luke tells us that he wasn’t an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, but his gospel richly portrays it all. His intention, he wrote, was “to write an orderly account” of the events of Jesus’ life “as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” He wrote it for a friend, who Luke called “most excellent Theophilus”, of whom we know very little. He wrote it so that Theophilus “may know the truth concerning the things about which (he had) been instructed.”

From his gospel it’s clear that Luke was keenly involved with people: appreciating those who had “handed on” the stories of Jesus, not to him alone, but “to us”, as he put it, the fellowship of believers; and it’s clear that Luke loved people: what generosity to take on the massive task of writing a whole book for a friend, to share his understanding with him. Luke knew, and showed, that he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, be a Christian on his own. 

Luke wasn’t an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, but in the Acts of the Apostles, he repeatedly uses the word ‘we’; showing that he was personally there in the missions led by Paul. 

“We,” wrote Luke, met up with the Apostle Paul in Troas to cross to Macedonia and later spend time in Philippi; “We,” wrote Luke, later rejoined Paul to return to Syria and Jerusalem; “We,” wrote Luke, were with Paul on the perilous third missionary journey to Italy, when they were shipwrecked off Malta, and Paul ended up under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial before Caesar. 

Paul’s writings show how closely Luke shared with him in supporting and encouraging the common life of these pioneering Christians. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians he writes, “Luke, the beloved physician, greet(s) you”. From prison, Paul wrote to Philemon, a leader in the Colossian church, a letter which begins, “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.” When Paul was nearing the end of his life, he wrote to Timothy, saying “Only Luke is with me”. 

Where did this all begin for Luke? I’d say it began when the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry shared their stories with this sociable, inquisitive, doctor. Many verses in Luke’s gospel paint a vivid picture of Jesus the man who thousands of people were excited to follow. This simple verse sums it all up: “The crowds followed Jesus; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.” [2] 

He welcomed them – he spoke to them about God’s kingdom – and he healed them if they needed to be cured. Jesus’ behaviour towards the crowds was the model for Luke and every disciple to follow, ever after. 

Luke was inspired by an extraordinary God choosing to live among ordinary people. His gospel is the only one whose nativity story features the shepherds and the angels, a pregnant Mary with her  faithful Joseph, the swaddling cloths and the manger, Elizabeth and Zechariah, Simeon and Anna.

Luke was inspired by Jesus’ desire to bring healing to those who suffer most in this life. His gospel is the only one in which Jesus sets out his stall at the very start of his ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus told the crowd, “Because he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed.” [3]

Luke was inspired by Jesus’ desire to create a new community of people who would turn around and start to to share their lives in the kingdom of God. Luke’s is the only gospel which details those meals which I often mention because they warm my heart – the ones in which Jesus brings together rich and poor, saints and sinners, the influencers and the outsiders, in fellowship around a common table.

Notice how it is Luke’s gospel only which records Jesus appointing seventy disciples to go out ahead of him in pairs to every town he planned to visit, preparing the ground for his ministry by eating with those who welcomed them through their doors, by curing the sick, and telling them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

Was Luke one of these ‘seventy’ sent out by Jesus? Some scholars think so, but whether or not that’s true it is clear that Luke took to heart the way that Jesus taught his followers to live. He devoted himself to sharing with others the task of bringing healing to those who needed a cure,  and the work of telling the crowds the good news of God’s kingdom.

When we think of doctors we might think of them as having a practice rooted in one place – in their surgery, in their hospital. But, in our day, doctors do often move, from visit to visit and from  site to site; and so it seems, in Luke’s day, they did so too. 

My final observation is that Luke was always a man on the move. A sizeable part of Luke’s gospel describes Jesus’ long journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, which Luke relates to the exodus of Israel under Moses, a geographical journey freighted with spiritual significance, involving suffering and struggle, ending in redemption. 

Life, for Luke, became a journey involving a day-to-day walk of discipleship and witnessing. Maybe inspired by Isaiah’s call to “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees” Luke encourages his fellow-Christians to take up our cross daily, asking God each day for our daily bread to give us the strength we need to do so. 

We are pilgrims on a lifelong journey to bring good news and healing to our communities and our world. We can be grateful for the encouragement Luke gives us, to help us on our way together.

Note

[1] Sources for this talk: Wikipedia: Luke the Evangelist; Wikipedia: Epistle to Philemon; John Bowker, The Complete Bible Handbook. ‘The Gospel according to Luke’, pp.310-311.

[2] Luke 9.11

[3] Luke 4.16-30