As I may have shared with some of you previously, I have had the fortune of once being able to visit the island of Malta upon which Paul had been shipwrecked on his way to Rome. I realized on Malta that the texts of Paul’s time there were not simply historical in character but were, in fact, highly elaborate commentaries, not simply on Paul, but on the Church itself for which Paul is presented as a metaphor.  The actual account of Paul’s shipwreck detailed in the chapter 27 of the Acts of the Apostles teaches us this in a very particular way. Taking the peculiarities of the chapter into account…

“Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way he brings youth to our world, and everything he touches becomes young, new, full of life.”[1] So does Pope Francis begin his recent letter to the young people of the world. Yes, “Christ is alive! . . . The one who fills us with his grace, the one who liberates us, transforms us, heals and consoles us is someone fully alive. He is the Christ, risen from the dead, filled with supernatural life and energy, and robed in boundless light . . . Because he did not only come in the past, but he comes to you today and every…

It was once suggested to the Nobel laureate Patrick White that he enter psychoanalysis. He flatly refused because he said that if he got rid of his demons then his spark of genius would evaporate. Somewhere we have to learn how to live with our demons rather than simply get rid of them.  And by this, I mean, that we have to learn how to live with what we consider to be flaws in our personality, vulnerabilities in our make-up.  We have to let go of a frenetic attempt at perfection in which we seek to become somehow flaw-less.  It’s not the presence of flaws that is actually the problem for us; it…

“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matt 9: 35-38) If we were to go around and ask, “Who stands out for you with leadership?” the responses might be interesting. Perhaps we would think of a great political leader, a great social reformer, a sporting hero.  Jesus, himself,…

For a long time, it has been the social rule in Australia that the topics of religion and politics are not to be raised in polite conversation.  In Australia, particularly, when religious leaders start talking about political or economic matters many of us start feeling uneasy, if not even embarrassed. We have concerns about naivety, or anxieties about appeals drawn from a sectarian past, or fears about ecclesiastical interference in affairs that are rightly independent of the structure of the Church. Even if the voice is allowed, often enough the statements are relegated to be ‘motherhood’ and quaint, and really without a great deal of consequence. However, I think the Word…

In a remarkable little novel called “The Passion” by the feminist writer, Jeanette Winterson the main character Henri declares, “To love someone else enough to forget about yourself, even for one moment, is to be free.”  There is a part of us that can consider involvement in the life of another as a loss of freedom. Commitment certainly brings a responsibility that means I can no longer live life only in reference to myself.  However, Henri is saying that real freedom comes when we lose our self in love for someone else.  In the novel he goes on to say that “some say love enslaves, and passion is a demon, and many have…