I love the Abram stories of the Hebrew bible because they are so raw. This is God’s chosen people long before they have learned what it means to be chosen or who exactly has done the choosing. We get a chance to see all that learning in action as Abram and Sarai get up to …
Yearly Archives: 2003
Pentecost
I became a catholic when I was a young adult, barely out of my teens and I remember my very first year as a part of the Church very well. In particular, I remember really getting into Lent, giving it the works—fasting, praying, going to daily mass—and I remember too the joy of the Easter …
Tuesday Week 7 of Easter (Ugandan Martyrs)
Maybe it’s the heroic witness of those 22 Ugandans or maybe it’s Paul talking about his mission and the people he has served with care, but, when I read the gospel and hear Jesus talking to his Father about glory and trust and sacrifice and gift, I can’t help but hear him sound so proud …
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Monday Week 6 of Easter
…and here’s another one of the Easter fire… Boring isn’t it? I guess you had to be there. … I feel the same about the first reading. If this is Monday then we must be in Philippi … or is it Troas? Without being there these snapshots from Acts lose their significance. Who cares where …
Saturday Week 4 of Easter
Some of the big turning points in our lives happen without us even noticing. We quietly turn a corner and only looking back do we even see the bend in the road. Turning points: the moment where friendship slides over into love; the moment when what has been hard work is unexpectedly a passion; or …
St Mathias
It seems Christian apostolate is a team sport… and twelve-a-side at that! But thank God we don’t pick teams the same way the Eleven did when they were looking for one more to make up the number. I can feel myself standing there defiantly faking non-embarrassment as one after another gets picked and I get …
Saturday Week 3 of Easter
The Acts of Apostles hits a moment of peace and quiet today as Peter gets to show off the power of Christ as he heals Aeneas and raises Tabitha from the dead. But it is only a moment. We’ve been listening for days to the persecution the Jesus movement had to suffer at the hands …
Wednesday Week 3 of Lent
Jesus, in Matthew’s gospel, is often at pains to uphold the Law and even to intensify it. He has not come to abolish the Law but to complete it. Not one jot or tittle of Law will pass away until its purpose has been fulfilled. If you are feeling a little oppressed by this emphasis …
Sunday Week 3 of Lent
In a time of violence where do we look for solutions? What do we need more of? What more could we do to set things right? Maybe you’d go for more of the first reading? More law, more order, more UN resolutions? More strong leaders to enforce that law, more than willing to do the …
Wednesday Week 1 of Lent
I don’t know what you remember about Jonah’s story but what comes first to my mind is not this story of powerful preaching but all that stuff about the whale. Jonah in the belly of a whale. In some way the whole book of Jonah is a kind of joke. The story begins with Jonah …