We are as those who think in stories.  To tell a story is a defining mark of our human existence.  And the stories that we remember, the stories that have meaning for us, are the stories detailing the search for love, for power, for redemption.  We never tire of hearing these stories. This is why we watch films, why we watch television, why we become engrossed in literature.  In the stories played out in front of us, we see reflected back to ourselves some fragment of that for which we ourselves are searching.   If as humans we are those for whom the experience of ‘story’ is a vital expression of our existence, so, too,…

A former parishioner of mine, recounted to me how, many years ago, she went to Mass at her local parish.  It was a weekday Mass, and the priest asked for a Eucharistic Minister to assist him.  And so Rachel stood up and came forward.  “The Body of Christ . . . Amen . . . the Body of Christ . . . Amen.”  Person after person came forward and the repetition of her statement and prayer somehow began to sink into her bones. The last person came up and with something of an exuberant glee exclaimed in a loud voice – but more than loud – a joyous voice., “Amen!” Straight after Mass, Rachel…

In this Year of Jubilee, from the beginning of our season of Lent, we have been reflecting on the focal theme of the Jubilee – hope. We began by reflecting on how hope rises from those situations of limit in our life. We come across a limit, as it were, and hope takes us beyond this into something beyond that limit. In this way, hope is linked to our hungers, our needs.  And yet, secondly, we reflected on that we would not hope if we did not have a sense of future, that there was a future. We hope to the extent that we believe there is a future. And who…

Pope Francis once spoke about the new poverties, “poverties produced by the culture of wellbeing.”[1]  And in that light he defined the poor today as those who are those afraid of the future.[2] Those afraid of the future. On this Ash Wednesday, all of us are poor because for all of us the future presents with great uncertainty. The world order is changing; decisions are being made by powerful people that will have dramatic consequences for much of the world, including ourselves. The distinctions between truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, have become intentionally blurred so that the masses might not stand in the way of powerful and sinister political and social agendas.…