Christ the King, 22nd November, 2020 . . . we meet (the) God of transcendence, (the) God of mystery, only in the earthiness of things. We have no other way of finding God, and we also have no way of escaping God’s presence. (p.5 Gerard W. Hughes: God where are …
Sunday 33A, 15th November 2020 We are not meant to live poorly. There’s a deliberate ambiguity in that sentence because neither are we meant to make money in order to make more money. This Parable of the Talents is subtler than it seems and leads one commentator to argue that …
Sunday 32A, 8th November 2020 In a delightful collection of poems entitled ‘Why I wake Early’, Mary Oliver touches on many of the themes that come together in today’s celebration: remembrance, division, glory, judgement. We remember the dead of all too many wars and our own more familiar loss; we …
All Saints, 1st November 2020 Most people cast in their lot with the visible world; but true Christians with saints and angels. (John Henry Newman: Parochial & Plain Sermons IV, 234) Be prepared, then, to be misunderstood: Because the world refused to acknowledge him.therefore it does not acknowledge us. It’s …
Sunday 30A Reading Thomas Merton’s journals we see a great struggle as he seeks to find and clarify his own identity or self-understanding vis á vis others; what, in particular, the Church is making of him, focussed especially on his relationship with his Abbot. He knows that love is central …
Sunday 29A, 18th October 2020 . . . a man’s rank means nothing to you. This is dissembling talk on the part of the Herodeans and Pharisees sent to trap Jesus into either support for Caesar or opposition. They use truth deceitfully. Today, for the first time perhaps, since the …
Sunday 28A, 11th October 2020 It’s so good to see you here in the flesh, as it were – and appropriately clothed. The weather may not be the same here as in Jerusalem but we are under desert skies and there’s a sense that the good times are over and …
Sunday 27A, 4th October 2020 We spoke, on the Sunday before last, of how God’s justice differs from our own, to quote from the New Collegeville Biblical Commentary once again: In God’s realm, justice . . . does not mean getting what we deserve, either in terms of retribution for …
Sunday 26A, 27th September 2020 So we can change our minds. At one level this gives us hope, at another, it highlights our vulnerability to sin. We can change our minds for good but we can also change our minds for evil, and the consequences are not of equal value …
Sunday 25A, 20th September 2020 We live in an age, in a society, where merit is everything. If we all worked harder, studied more, and obeyed the rules set by those who are already successful, then we, too, could all benefit from the wealth that is there to be had …
