Feast of the Transfiguration 2023

August 6^th is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus. It is also the 78^th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb followed three days later, on August 9^th with the bombing of Nagasaki. Nagasaki was strongly Catholic city and the plane that dropped the bomb was blessed by a Catholic Chaplain. These events brought about a catastrophic ‘transfiguration’. The effects of these continue to the present and the threats of nuclear war are continually before us.

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Seventeenth Sunday of the Year

Christianity is a religion of attention. Whom do we notice? What do we notice? Is it a person on the street or a person with a lot of social status?  This relates to the image, a few weeks ago, where Jesus self-described as meek and how that may be reflected in our worship spaces might; what appears in parish bulletins; books we read; the training we offer for youth and religious leaders; how ‘little ones’ are listened to as privileged interpreters of God’s message. What verses and scenes do we hold in our hearts? What images direct our attention to the God of love? The parables suggest that God’s Reign is not only found in places such as monasteries or in the demands and rewards of human religion but in the ordinary, daily, in your face, reality.