In the film Black Robe, the main character is a young missionary part of the European expansion into Canada.  He is named as Paul Laforgue, and he saw his mission as one to convert the Canadian Indians to Christianity.  He was a sensitive and cultured man and at first seemed unable to appreciate the people to whom he had come to minister, people who lived in a Huron village 1500 miles from Quebec. At some stage on a journey away from the village in which he was based, however, another tribe, the Iroquois, captured him.  Eventually, he escaped.  Full of doubt and despair, broken and overwhelmed with the sense of…

Today throughout the world, marches for peace are held.  Palm Sunday has become a day on which rallies for peace are staged in many of the cities of the world.  It leads us to ask what is it about this day that speaks of peace, of the hope for peace?  Though many who march for peace today may not be Christian, and even though a number of people take part in the walks for a mixture of political motivation, nonetheless it would seem that the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem has something in it that speaks of the possibility of peace.  How is this so? Perhaps we see the answer in the stress…

There is a story about an American philosopher who went to Japan for a conference on religion.  He overheard another American delegate speaking to a Shinto priest.  “We’ve now been to a good many of your ceremonies,” said the delegate, ‘and have seen quite a few of your shrines.  But I don’t get your ideology; I don’t get your theology.”  The Japanese paused as though in deep thought and then slowly shook his head.  “We don’t have an ideology”, he said.  ‘We don’t have a theology.  We dance!” Perhaps we have forgotten that Christianity, itself, began as a dance.  There was no ideology, no comprehensive philosophy.  Rather there was a series of extraordinary gestures in the life of Jesus…

We enter the Season of Lent, that time given us each year to renew our baptismal lives.  In the waters of baptism we died to a purely natural life and we rose to a new life of promise and expectation.  Now in the weeks that are to follow. as we prepare to celebrate Easter. we remember that extraordinary mystery into which we were immersed, and we admit that we are only half-living, and only fitfully loving.  Yes, we recognise that the remarkable conversion detailed in our baptism is far from achieved, and we commit ourselves again to a new moment, We are called always into conversion.  Again we are invited to see life in…

It was Teresa of Avila, writing in the 16th century, who remarked that we should all learn how to read the texts of the gospels in their original language. Well, I doubt that many of us will be able to fulfil her challenge, including me.  However, one of the things we begin to recognise about Scripture is that often enough the translation we are used to sometimes fails to convey the meaning of the original Greek, the language in which the gospels were written.  The use of the phrase, “feeling sorry” in this account of Jesus’ encounter with a leper is a case in point. The original Greek illustrates that Jesus did not…

When I once visited Nazareth, it was quite a delight to discover the Church of Mary’s Well. It is an Eastern Orthodox Church and is some distance, on the other side of the town, from the more familiar Basilica of the Annunciation. The reason why this Church of Mary’s Well was of such interest was because of the legend with which it is associated.  According to an ancient legend it was at the well, over which the church is built, that Mary first encountered the angel which had come to bear her the news of her pregnancy.  However, Mary had taken fright at this initial encounter and ran back to her home, where…

Last Tuesday, we celebrated the feastday of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a title of the Virgin Mary associated with a celebrated image housed in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.  Accounts state that on the morning of 9 December 1531, Juan Diego saw an apparition of a maiden at the Hill of Tepeyac.  Speaking to him in the native language, the maiden asked that a church be built at that site in her honor; from her words.  Diego recounted the events to the Archbishop of Mexico City who instructed him to return to Tepeyac Hill, and ask the “lady” for a miraculous sign to prove her identity.  The first sign was the Virgin healing…

Frog was in his garden.  Toad came walking by, “What a fine garden you have, Frog,” he said.  “Yes,” said Frog.  “it is very nice, but it was hard work.”  “I wish I had a garden,” said Toad.  “Here are some flower seeds. Plant them in the ground,” said Frog, “and soon you will have a garden.” “How soon?” asked Toad, “Quite soon,” said Frog. Toad ran home.  He planted the flower seeds.  “Now seeds,” said Toad, “start growing.” Toad walked up and down a few times. The seeds did not start to grow. Toad put his head close to the ground and said loudly, “Now seeds, start growing!”  Toad looked at the ground again. The seeds did…

The well-known anthropologist of the mid–twentieth century, Joseph Campbell, who became quite popularised in recent times, was once asked what was the one piece of advice he would give to someone setting out in life.  His reply was simple:  “Follow your bliss!”  Regretfully, a good deal of Campbell’s work has been commandeered by exponents in New Age Spirituality, and this little saying “Follow your bliss” has got interpreted at the service of a kind of self-enhancement where the self is the arbiter of all that is right.  But what Campbell was really getting at was that our vocation in life is known through that which gives us a sense of life, of enthusiasm, of…

As we appreciate, our Parish community has been on a remarkable journey in these recent years as we consider what it means to be Church in the city. We have developed our Parish Mission – Bringing the Light of Christ to the City:  We Love, We Serve, We Grow – and now together as a Parish-in-Council we have begun to reflect on how we might put this into practice going forward. When we talk about being Church in the city we are, of course, not simply talking about this magnificent building. We are talking about Church as a living community of faith. And yet, our church building is not incidental.  It is…