Reflections

The Risen Lord is with us Have you ever wondered what it would be like to enter a Time Machine and go back to Galilee or Jerusalem and spend a day in the company of Jesus?  To see his face, to hear his voice, to touch his garment, maybe to see a miracle to cap…

Encountering the Risen Lord As we noted at the start of Lent, the number forty is usually associated with a period of preparation.  Following the forty days of Lent, there are forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension.  My very young grand-nephew asked me a deep question one day.  “Where was Jesus in the…

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…