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Holy Thursday – 14 April 2022
Throughout the 20th century worked the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead. She was born in Philadelphia in 1901 and lived through until 1978. It is hard to imagine another anthropologist who has taught us as much about the nature of human community. Mead was once asked what sign we had about when civilisation began. The expectation was that her reply would concern the discovery of some ancient artefact such as a tool, or a weapon, or a segment of art. Instead, she simply replied, “a healed femur.” A healed femur bone is the sign we have of the beginnings of civilisation. Why did this famous anthropologist claim this? She claimed this because for the first time we had…
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Palm Sunday – 10 April 2022
We have just listened to the Passion Story of the Lord. It is a week in which the Passion of the Lord will be at the forefront of our liturgical celebrations. Passion is word with many different meanings. Pierre Wolff remarks about the word, ‘passion’: In the context of the Christian liturgy, the word signifies sufferings, dereliction, and death. It implies everything that Jesus experienced during those days: betrayal and denial, rejection and abandonment, and other ordeals. The word “passion” in this context suggests little that is pleasant for a human being. [However}, we often forget that we use it is an adjective when we speak of a passionate love. …
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5th Sunday of Lent – 3 April 2022
Lent, as we know, is a time of examination, a time of review and evaluation. It’s the time in the year, in preparation for the celebration of Easter, where we re-focus and regain our single-mindedness. Many centuries ago, St. Benedict taught that such self-examination and review should be a characteristic not simply of a single liturgical season but indeed of our whole life. As we examine our life with renewed depth, and walk forward, our gaze is on the Christ ahead of us who invites us, who beckons us, who waits with arms open to receive us. Our gaze must be firmly on him, full of invitation and full of possibility. This is critical…
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4th Sunday of Lent – 27 March 2022
Jesus was a great story-teller. He delighted in telling stories. The stories he told painted wonderful pictures in the minds of his hearers. And as he painted these extraordinary pictures in the minds of his hearers Jesus taught us about both ourselves and God. He told stories because he knew people would remember them, and therefore they would remember what he wanted to teach them about God and our relationship with God. So, he was constantly alert to all the ordinary experiences of people’s lives and he would use these experiences, weave them together in a story. Thus the parable is the primary means by which Jesus teaches. He does…
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3rd Sunday of Lent – 20 March 2022
Some of us may have heard of Harold Krushner’s 1989 book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. (It was followed in 2000 by a book, by another author, entitled, When Bad Things Happen to Other People!) Krushner’s book was an attempt to come to terms, in a philosophical way, with the experience of evil around us. Why do bad things happen to people who otherwise seem to lead good lives? It’s a question that often presents itself to us, and it’s a question that resists answer. There can often seem to be an inherent unfairness to life. Life is unpredictable; it appears random in so many instances, and we…
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2nd Sunday of Lent – 13 March 2022
I recall once being with a workman in my previous parish attending to a very active, and very concerning infestation of termites. I was standing there, looking down at the boards hollowed out by the voracious termites, admittedly feeling rather crestfallen at the implications, when the technician, explaining in great detail the procedures he was implementing, suddenly sparked, “I just love my job!” His exclamation, which was clearly sincerely felt, was like a real ray of light into my anxiety. His enthusiasm for the technology that is behind the system, and his obvious joy at what he was accomplishing in the termination of the termites, was like of bolt of…
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First Sunday of Lent – 6 March 2022
One of the most influential texts in the spiritual life of the Church is actually one of the smallest. It is the Rule of St Benedict written at the dawn of the 6th century, and is the guide of life followed by Benedictine monks and nuns and which I followed, myself, for the twenty years I lived in the monastery. It is still at the centre of my own spiritual perspective on life. The Rule of St. Benedict is divided up into 73 small chapters, many so small in fact to be only paragraphs. However, one of the longest chapters is the 7th. It is here that Benedict sets out the heart of his vision,…
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8th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 27 February 2022
The German writer, Deitrich Bonheoffer gave us the distinction between what he called, on the one hand, ‘cheap grace’ and, on the other, ‘costly grace.’ Writing in Germany in the 1930s he lamented the way in which the Christian Churches had so accommodated themselves to the prevailing currents as to have lost their genuine sense of discipleship of the Risen Lord. Of course, this is always a tendency for us. we struggle to hear the Word of God with clarity because of the chatter in which we are immersed. We begin to become seduced by many other words and narratives. The Canadian philosopher of religion, Charles Taylor, especially, has highlighted…
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7th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 20 February 2022
Let me share with you words of a woman from the former Yugoslavia: I am thirty-five years old. To my second son just born I gave the name, Jihad. So, he would not forget the testament of his mother – revenge. The first time I put my baby at my breast and told him, “May this milk choke you if you forget.” So be it. They have taught me to hate. For the last two months there was nothing in me. No pain, no bitterness. Only hatred. I taught these children to love. I did. I am a teacher of literature. But my students have become my persecutors. They have…
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6th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 13 February 2022
With fondness, I recall being at the First Profession of Sr Sophie Boffa as a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. As signs of her consecration, Sophie was presented with the Constitutions of her Religious Order, her Religious Veil as a sign of her dedication, and also the small cross that she wears as a member of her Religious Congregation. In giving her this cross, her Religious Superior declared to Sophie, “Receive this cross. May it remind you of your weakness and brokenness and that you live by the Father’s strength within you.” The words struck me especially, because what Sophie undertook on…
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