I have to admit that I’m secretly pleased with that picture of Paul getting all discombobulated at being taken for a god—and Hermes indeed because he was the one doing all the talking. Very telling. All we know of Paul are his words—and we have plenty of them. His own words, the words of people …
Category Archives: Berkeley
Sunday Week 5 of Easter Year B
“Remain in me or wither.” Runner number 19933 in today’s Bay To Breakers says that this morning’s gospel gives incontrovertible evidence that Jesus knew all along that he was God. Why? How? Well Jesus says, “I am de vine…” Groan … Runner 19933 lives in my house and is prone to bad jokes. Luckily for …
Sunday Week 3 of Easter Year B
My life ended that morning. Right about the time he called for something to eat. If you’d asked me I’d have said it ended a few days before when they arrested him. Or, being more honest, when I ran away; ran away and left him and left the others and left my dream of myself …
Easter Sunday Year B
At the end of the film “Terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger—part-man, part-machine—is finally dying after being crushed, boiled and baked. Stripped right down to his metal skeleton he utters his last words—”I’ll be back!” Schwarzenegger was the bad guy, but it’s the same for the good guys. At the end of another film—”Aliens 3″—the anguished hero, Ripley, …
Monday of Holy Week
I think he came back to us …out of embarrassment or a nagging need. Back to Bethany and Martha and Lazarus and me—looking to explain or be forgiven or something—at least at first. After opening the tomb and giving back our brother and then running off like that leaving us no room for thanks, no …
Sunday Week 5 of Lent Year A
I remember when my father died 20-odd years ago that the hardest part of going on living was the problem other people had knowing what to say to us—my mother and brother and me. Friends and family want to comfort you but don’t quite know how to do it. And I don’t think I was …
Wednesday Week 3 of Lent
The Law and the Land … that’s the strange linkage that’s forged all through this part of Deuteronomy. The Law and the Land. The Law is given for the sake of the Land. So that the people might enter the land of promise and live there. The Land is given for the sake of the …
Sunday Week 1 of Lent Year B
I was told when I was learning to drive that if I ever got into an accident I should never say sorry, never admit responsibility, never apologise. Just let the insurance companies work it all out. Fine by me! And do you remember that icon of the seventies, “Love Story”? “Love means never having to …
Friday Week 8 Year II
A guy in my parish was talking to me after Mass on Sunday. Not his usual pleasant and upbeat self. Instead just a little embarrassed. A bundle of awkward silences. So, I thought, do I take the hint and go or do I make myself a nuisance? I wanted to know what was going on… …
Sunday Week 7 Year B
Close to my hometown in the north of England is a church—St Oswald’s if I remember right—that has a particularly ugly relic: the Holy Hand of Edmund Arrowsmith. It is usually kept in a glass bell jar and, mercifully, covered up with a kind of black glove. But once a month or on special occasions …