One of the most memorable Masses I have attended was in a little parish church in the Chianti district of Tuscany. In many ways it was a rather ordinary liturgy but what made it extraordinary for me was the presence on the sanctuary throughout the Mass of a Downs Syndrome man and an intellectually disabled man.  They were there in the form of altar servers although most of the work was done by the intellectually disabled man.  Nonetheless the Downs Syndrome man was with the priest throughout the liturgy:  sitting beside him high on the presidential step and even standing beside him throughout the Eucharistic Prayer.  That was the amusing…

In so many ways the gospel reverses the ordinary way that we think about things.  It certainly reversed the ordinary expectations that first century Palestinians had about God and the signs of God’s favour.  In the society of the time wealth was a sign of God’s favour, a sign of God’s blessing.  The underlying logic ran that the wealthier you were the more God was smiling on you. Therefore, those who were poor were looked upon as those who had missed out on the blessing of God, and at worst, who were cursed. Jesus, however, confronts this logic.  And he confronts this logic by putting forward poverty as a virtue. …

In a beautiful comment on the gospel for this Sunday Pope Francis observed some year ago:   “God did not want to come into the world other than through a family. God did not want to draw near to humanity other than through a home. God did not want any other name for Himself than Emmanuel. He is ‘God with us’. . . He is the God who from the very beginning of creation said: ‘It is not good for man to be alone’. We can add: it is not good for woman to be alone, it is not good for children, the elderly or the young to be alone. It…

We have all heard the expression, “Cleanliness is next to godliness” (to which some might add, “and if you can’t be godly, at least be clean.”)  We have also probably met some people at different times who are preoccupied with cleanliness to an extreme degree, so that it becomes an obsession.  Sometimes this kind of obsession can even be a sign of neurosis as in the case of people who feel the need to wash their hands continuously even though there is no apparent need to do so.  Compulsive hand-washing is a symbolic act:  it represents the person’s unconscious desire to be rid of some deep mental preoccupation.  The process of washing expresses the…