Reflections

Jesus the Wounded Healer It is the time of year when Christians remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, the most important days in human history.   Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.  You may have a crucifix at home, perhaps a small one on rosary beads.  Maybe you can download the picture.  The one you…

Dying and Rising with Christ “When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself”. Lent is advancing rapidly and we are coming close to the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  When I entered religious life more than sixty years ago, there was great emphasis on meditating…

A Time of Cleansing Today we have John’s version of the cleansing of the temple, anticipating the replacement of temple worship by the worship of God through the risen Lord (John 2:13-25). Herod the Great, a man of mixed racial lineage, desiring to ingratiate himself with the Jews decided to build a magnificent temple with…

Repent and Believe You may have missed out on the ashes this year but the message of Lent is unchanged: repent and believe in the gospel.  To repent literally means to think again, to take an honest look at your life.  To believe in the gospel means to be guided by the following questions: what…

A Touch of Kindness We will be commencing Lent next Wednesday.  Because the churches are closed you may not be able to receive the blessed ashes, although some parishes will have sachets of ashes available for collection.  With or without the ashes you can still observe Lent.  During Lent we are encouraged to give up…

Quiet Attentiveness Last Sunday we had the dream of Jesus as he launched his mission to establish the kingdom or reign of God on earth.  “The time has come and the kingdom of God is close at hand.  Repent and believe the Good News.”   This meant repossessing the world from the ways by which Satan…

Introduction In his Apostolic Letter of 30 September 2019, Aperuit illis Pope Francis established that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be the Sunday of the Word of God. He had already proposed something similar at the end of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. Sunday of the Word of God is a day…

Let us Dream Pope Francis, with the assistance of Austen Ivereigh, recently published a book entitled “Let us Dream.”  In describing his ideals for the world, he was not the first dreamer.  He is following his Master.  Jesus began his public mission by proclaiming his dream: he called it the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15-20). …

Come and See If you have access to a streamed Mass this Sunday you will notice that we have returned to the green vestments of Ordinary Time.  Green is the colour of growth and we can call it the default colour of the year when our journey is inspired by the teaching and events of…