Reflections
2025
Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Our two main readings this week, telling the stories of Naaman (2 Kings 5:14-17) and of the Samaritan leper (Luke 17:11-19), are very clearly parallel. They once again show that God has no favorite people, no…
Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
We can probably easily identify with Habakkuk when he says (Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4): How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen!I cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not intervene.Why do you let…
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
We hopefully don’t have much in common with the rich man in Gospel this weekend (Luke 16:19-31), nor with the complacent on their ivory couches humming along to the latest tunes (Amos 6:1a, 4-7). So there not…
Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Usually when reflecting on the readings for a week we start with the Gospel, then see what the first reading from the Hebrew Scripture may add, and finally take a look at the second reading. Very often we end…
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Our readings today make the link between a story from the time the Israelites spent in the desert, when they lost patience with God since their salvation from slavery in Egypt wasn’t working out as they…
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
I don’t hate any members of my family. I don’t hate my life. Unlike Saint Francis, I haven’t renounced all my possessions. So where does that leave me? According to today’s gospel, not in a good place. I can’t…
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Humility (Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29). Yup - got that one. I don't think most of us feel a need to push for that place in the best seats (Luke 14:1, 7-14). If anything we may suffer from the opposite issue -…
Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
It is important, even necessary, for us to feel valued. Feeling worthless is a terrible burden, it can be a crippling disability. One of the antidotes to such feelings is identifying with a group. Our value…
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I wish it were easy. Be good and be kind to people. That’s it, isn’t it? No, it isn’t. In our readings today we are warned it is a battle. Jeremiah suffers as a result of an arbitrary and weak-willed ruler who…
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Faith, Hope, and Charity - the three great virtues, as Paul enumerates them (1 Cor 13), are often considered as three distinct things. Paul’s treatment of Charity (or Love) as somehow superior could lead us to…
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
All of the great world religions have a strong emphasis on the need for detachment, avoiding getting caught up in the possessions and acquisitiveness that seem to be a common feature of humanity. The preacher…
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The story we hear today of Abraham negotiating with God always strikes me as somewhere between comical and extraordinary (Genesis 18:20-32). Is God really prepared to haggle like some market trader? Aren’t we…
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sometimes the people we hear about in scripture can seem very distant and very different from us. Not so Martha. I can identify immediately with her state of mind - really trying her best to make everything…
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Love God and love your neighbor. It’s not complicated. Moses pointed this out thousands of years ago (Deuteronomy 30:10-14). Jesus did the same (Luke 10:25-37). But Jesus went further. He took the effort to…
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Our readings today may leave us feeling conflicted. “Rejoice!” (Isaiah 66:10-14c) Really? There seems little to rejoice about as we look out at a world racked by war and poverty. We know this is “normal”,…
Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
As we move away from our focus on the Easter event and the Easter experience that defines us as Christians we return to our day to day life, acknowledging its mundane ups and downs. Being a Christian isn’t…
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Given the fact that the Eucharist is the central activity of our faith, the action that marks us out as Christians, it’s appropriate that Easter and the Feasts that follow it should come to its conclusion on…
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
If we are inclined to ascribe a human personality to God that would be rather foolish. But equally we are human and we can’t avoid seeing relationships in human terms, whether it be with our dog or even our…
Pentecost Sunday
For Easter we use a very large number of scripture readings. There are 9 possible for the Vigil Mass and a whole different set for each of the daytime masses. For Pentecost there are almost as many, but we…
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
Jesus’s Easter story ends with the Ascension. At least it does in Luke’s telling. As with the beginning of the Easter story, the Resurrection, each of the evangelists takes a different approach on how to…