Reflections
2025
Sixth Sunday of Easter
The beginning of the Easter story is very personal and individual. Each of Jesus’s close companions, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Thomas, has to discover, or rediscover, the risen Lord in their own way. As the…
Fifth Sunday of Easter
As the Easter story moves forward, we hear how the church is now needing structures and organization beyond simply following the original disciples. Paul and Barnabas are appointing “elders” for their new…
Fourth Sunday of Easter
The Easter stories we have heard so far are stories of joy, stories of discovery, of discovery of something that was thought lost, discovery of something even better than what went before. This week we hear…
Third Sunday of Easter
This week we continue with readings illustrating three very different types of Easter experience. For John of Patmos his mystical experience now extends from the personal and individual that he started with,…
Second Sunday of Easter
Last week we reflected on how we are “an Easter people” and what that means. Now as we enter into our 50 day long celebration of Easter we might ask an even more basic question - what is Easter? This might…
Easter
“We are an Easter People”. This idea can be traced to St Augustine, but was brought into modern consciousness when Pope John Paul II used it in an address on a visit to Australia in 1986. There is also a deep…
Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion
As we move into Holy Week we celebrate the slightly schizophrenic Feast of Palm or Passion Sunday. The palms and celebration of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem is short lived (Luke 19:28-40), quickly…
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Another week, another altercation between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees (John 8:1-11). But this one is a little different. In some cases Jesus takes the fight to them, as in: “you brood of vipers” (Mt…
Fourth Sunday of Lent
During Lent we are presented in our Readings with many of the most familiar scripture stories. Maybe it’s a way to focus us back on the clearest summations of what our faith is all about. Today we hear the…
Third Sunday of Lent
We really, really want to believe that bad things happen to bad people and not to good people. We know this isn’t true, the evidence is all around us. Bad things happen to good people, and good things also…
Second Sunday of Lent
The Transfiguration is a strange event. That’s obvious at the superficial level, but it remains strange when we dig a bit further. Jesus takes just a select three of his disciples and they have an experience…
First Sunday of Lent
We know that Jesus was “fully human” - in other words he was just like us. When we hear a story like Luke’s account of Jesus being tempted in the desert (Luke 4:1-13) does it help us to feel more like him, or…
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Although it’s often repeated, no one knows where the phrase “the eyes are the windows of the soul” originated. The sentiment is carried through in the belief that looking (deeply) into someone’s eyes will tell…
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Last week we were asked to recognize that the starting point for our Christian life is our relationship with God. This week Jesus spells out what that relationship implies (Luke 6:27-38). At present there are…
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Faith, hope and charity - the traditional formulation of the three cardinal virtues. Like the four classical elements, earth, air, fire and water, which were thought to make up the physical world, the…
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today we hear the dramatic story of Isaiah's encounter with the divine - it's terrifying (Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8). But it ends with him accepting what God is asking of him - "Here I am, send me". Paul doesn't play…
Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
Following the Baptism of the Lord we’ve had two Sundays where we heard how John and Luke introduced the public ministry of Jesus. Today we suddenly jump back to a story of Jesus’ childhood (Luke 2:22-40). This…
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
On the recent Feast of the Baptism of the Lord we noted how this event is one of the very few that is included in all four gospels. The subsequent variety is clearly illustrated by the difference between last…
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus was human, like us, in all ways except sin. But from this starting point he becomes to us "the perfect man" - and the perfect man is obviously in control, in command of himself and the situation around…
The Baptism of the Lord
The four gospel writers introduce their accounts of God coming to be with us as a human being in four completely different ways. If you knew nothing of this story and picked up each of the gospels…