Our celebration tonight is very joyful. We remember the Last Supper in a particular way and we remember Jesus giving us the Eucharist during the Last Supper, his Body and Blood, and giving us the priesthood during the Last Supper so that we can continue to have Jesus present in...
In today’s world there is suffering everywhere, especially on our TV screens, and we have learned to close our senses to most of it. Our hearts remain unmoved by all but the tiny proportion, which occasionally manages to get under our guard. Isaiah, the prophet, on the other hand, describes...
Who remembers last Sunday’s Gospel? Of course, you do, it was the parable of the prodigal son. This week’s Gospel is remarkably similar, the story of a woman caught in the act of adultery. Each Gospel presents a sinner – a bad sinner. A son who insults his father by...
The Gospel reading this week includes one of Jesus’ greatest parables. It contains many themes and images that represent what this season of Lent is all about. That of “hope, mercy and love.” The Parable of the Prodigal Son opens with “tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to...
In our newspapers we read of disasters and watch catastrophes on television. And we deal with painful tragedies in the lives of our friends and loved ones, and ask: “Where is God?”, “How can God allow these things to go on?” It is implicitly the question put to Jesus in...
What a grace for Peter and James and John to see Jesus transfigured. They got a preview of the glory of Jesus risen from the dead and his glory in heaven. It was also a preview of the glory we all hope to share in heaven. It was not the...
Oscar Wilde was a much-celebrated Anglo-Irish literary figure, very witty… and very worldly. He once wrote: “I can resist everything but temptation.” He lived in total self-indulgence, ridiculed Victorian moral norms, and died in Paris of meningitis in the year 1900. His view of life aptly ushered in the 20th...
Today we are entering a new Season, one of penance and sacrifices. Together, we have gathered here to celebrate “Ash Wednesday,” the first of forty days of the Lenten Season that precedes Easter. On this special occasion, we are called to be reconciled to God. Through the sacramental of ashes...
An Unknown Poet once wrote: “I dreamt death came the other night and heaven’s gate swung wide. With kindly grace an angel came and ushered me inside. And there, to my astonishment, stood folks I’d known on earth. Some I had judged `most unfit’ and others of `little worth.’ Indignant...
We are presented for consideration today one of the very hardest of Jesus’ commands: “Love your enemies”. This injunction comes in the very first sentence of today’s text and the rest of the extract could be regarded as simply a commentary on it. What we are talking about is ethics,...