Some twenty-five years ago I completed my Master’s thesis in Theology.  When the title of the thesis was read out at the Graduation Ceremony everyone laughed. I don’t think that they were laughing at me in particular, but the title of the thesis was so incomprehensible to everyone that it certainly drew a chuckle from the audience.  The title was “Manifestation of the Other: A Study of David Tracy’s Heterology.”  Perhaps it is no wonder it drew a gasp of incomprehension.  What was the thesis all about?  Well, through the 1980s and 1990s David Tracy was a philosopher of religion writing out of Chicago.  He was a writer who sought to address the question of how…

One of the most important things we can learn about the gospels is about the nature of the language that the writers use.  It is the language of parables – a language, it seems, favoured by Jesus himself.  Jesus was a great teacher as we know.  He was a great storyteller and he constantly uses stories to communicate his message.  But the parables are not simply stories.  A parable is very particular kind of story:  it is a story that is designed to confuse us, to unsettle us, even in some cases, to shock us.  This tendency to confuse, to unsettle, to shock is at the heart of the parables.  The point in the confusion is that a…

As most weeks draw to their end, we can often feel somewhat fragmented.  It’s been a difficult week at work; we haven’t achieved all that we would like to, there have been issues at home, at school.  The world is full of dismay!  In our own way each of us asks, “Where is the Spirit of God in all of this?”  Where is the Spirit which Jesus has promised us?  Where is the Gift of God’s life that we celebrate in this great festival of Pentecost?  How is the Spirit of God given to us in the daily struggle of our lives, and in our effort to make sense of all that threatens to fragment our life?” If only the Spirit…

One of the lines that we often hear in political life is the claim that an action or a particular policy was pursued because, “it was the right thing to do.”  The assertion seems to justify all manner of decisions and it is given out in such a way to counter all opposing arguments such that the alleged rightness being claimed is simply given as fact.  The process by which the determination that something has been right’ is arrived at is, of course, never explained.  “I did it because it simply was the right thing to do, and I require no further justification,” seems to be the implication. Hearing this assertion a number…

Last Sunday morning we came together in our church in glorious April sunshine to celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord. So, too, did our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. Like us, they came to their churches with a feast day promising hope and possibility. We left our church streaming into the beautiful day with every sense of the opportunity that Easter brings us. Our brothers and sisters in Ukraine did not. They came to celebrate life; yet they found death. They came to share peace; instead they met violence. They came to be sprinkled with water; instead they left covered in blood. The juxtaposition between the hopes of our brothers…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…