Like the identity of Jesus, our own identity is an ‘event’ that discloses itself in and through a commitment to something other than itself.  When we are somebody for everybody, so that nobody is just anybody, the question about our identity is given back its answer.  When people see the way in which we live our life, would  they too reveal back to us our own God-given identity, as bearers of the Christ, if we asked them who we are, as Jesus asks his disciples who he is? https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/21st_Sunday_of_Year_A.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Jesus is confronted with a Canaanite woman, a stranger, a foreigner, someone culturally entirely different from himself.  At first he reacts as we all do in such a situation:  defensively, even with hostility.  But her presence persists.  He hears her story.  His perspective changes.  This encounter becomes a turning point in Jesus ministry. https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/20th_Sunday_of_Ordinary_Time.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Christian peace comes not from the absence of conflict in life, but in the recognition that precisely in the conflict and storms of our life, someone is holding us, providing us with the assurance that we have a sense of identity larger than the conflict by which we are encircled.  When we feel overwhelmed, not sure where to place our steps, it is the gospel that invites us to receive a gaze which comes to us from beyond our own confusion – a gaze which steadies us, assures us, invites us.  https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/19th_Sunday_of_Year_A.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

The story of the 5000 takes us to the heart of what we celebrate in Eucharist:  from just a little an abundance is reaped. Our own five loaves and two fishes, our own small stumbling efforts to go beyond ourselves, to share with others from the little we have, have an effect much greater than we can imagine.  Those efforts are truly blessed, and give life to others.  And our own hungry hearts, themselves, become mysteriously satisfied. https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/18th_Sunday_of_Year_A.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

The Kingdom of God is given to us as a pure gift.  Yet, there is a real sense in which it is in our hands.  We can give it life, or we can crush it.  And our response is linked to the way that we look underneath the experiences in our life, trying to perceive what their invitation might be.  When we are able to look at the experiences of our life in this way, then each moment can become what we might call Kingdom-moments in our life. They are not moments, however, that are given to us on a platter.  We have to come to a decision about how we are to respond to…

Our task is to keep the two halves of the story always together. If we keep only the half of God’s love then our religion might become mere sentimentality and lose the energetic, vivifying, healing and transforming power that truly belongs to it. If we focus only on the half of evil and darkness then that half would simply generate itself more and more in random violence around us and we would become simply hapless victims to the darkness around us. https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/16th_Sunday_of_Year_A.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

God wishes to communicate with us.  God’s communication is in many forms all around us.  But that message, like any other, is not in some form that it simply injects into our minds. God’s message like any other, in order to be truly heard, means we must listen.  And listening is not easy:  it is one of the hardest things for us to do.  It means that we will need to stop, it means that we will have to give time, it means that we will have to ask questions to get to its full meaning; it means that we will have to let go for a while of all our own resistances.  Yet, when we…

Hopefully, the situation of the pandemic over the last months has taught us this – the value of stopping and listening. The challenge will be not to let this opportunity become suffocated as once again the demands of our life begin to encroach upon us. Let us take forward what we have learnt so that our lives become enriched by living in a more centred way. https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/14th_Sunday_of_Year_2020.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

It is not an easy time to be Catholic. There is a stripping of power and prestige taking place through events, and through the shifts in social mores and trends which increasingly see us as the ‘outsider’. This makes the need to renew our witness of sacrificial love even more pressing if we are to remain faithful to the call of the Gospel. https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/Homily_for_13_Sunday_2020.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

It is not possible, in fact, to live without fear. It is part of our instinct for survival. Yet, it is possible for us to hear our fear and to choose another way. When Jesus says to us, “Do not be afraid”, he is saying to us “Do not stay trapped in fear. There is something more, something more to which your dignity as a child of God calls you. I am calling you beyond your fear.”  https://media.blubrry.com/davidranson/content.blubrry.com/davidranson/Homily_for_12th_Sunday_.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS