Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Peace Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console.
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
Fifth Sunday of Lent
What is God up to? According to Jeremiah, religion is getting a complete makeover from something formal, external and calcified to something alive that can touch peoples’ lives. Jeremiah speaks of God’s desire for a new and more intimate covenant that is gut-located, heart-centered, and mind-penetrated. This motherly wants nothing to do with punishment and over and over again ‘gambles on love’. This covenant, written or tattooed on our hearts, is a law of love and care, not hate and punishment. As we see immense suffering, death and destruction through war and violence, great polarisations, nationalism, genocide and xenophobia, we ask how people who say they know God can continue by their actions or silence to allow dehumanisation, dispossession, oppression and exploitation of Palestinians, indigenous peoples, refugees and migrants to continue.
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Third Sunday of Lent
In John’s gospel the cleansing of the temple occurs at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The Temple was central to Judaism. It was the focal point of the nation and its way of life – its worship and music, its politics and society, its national celebration and mourning. This was the place God had promised to live amongst the people.
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Second Sunday of Lent
In today’s transfiguration stories we are taken to high places - places of dreams and visions. In revelations there is testing where our sight is restrained, and horizons limited. In Genesis, Abraham was adhering to the ancient Mesopotamian cultural requirement where firstborn sons and flock were sacrificed, but there was a moment of revelation in discovering that God rejects child/human sacrifice. Abraham listened to the God of life, peace and nonviolence, who not wanting death but life, said ‘stop.’ We see here the declaration that the God of life never requires human sacrifice.
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First Sunday of Lent
Today we find rich symbols of God's presence and care for the earth and all upon it. The ‘bow in the clouds’ signifies God's covenant of peace with all creation. The Noah myth also depicts a God who desires the flourishing of life on Earth. This story is one of re-creation where things are put together again by healing and reconciliation. The hovering ‘dove’ bids us come ashore in peace; to cease from our forgetfulness; to end the violence - whether in our bedrooms, workplaces, community, nation, or between nations.
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