Second of Advent Year A

We are being prepared to bring God into our hearts, lives, and world. Isaiah wants to inspire dreams where we envision universal peace when all creatures will have evolved beyond aggression because we enjoy and shared everything necessary for genuine thriving. Through ecological imagery, Isaiah shows us what peace in God’s reign will look like: the gentle cohabitation of predator and prey – wolves and lambs, the lion shall eat straw like an ox.  This vision of peace is a vision for all Creation—human and non-human. We are a part of this vision.

First Sunday of Advent Year A

‘Our destination is never a place, but always a new way of looking at things’. (Henry Miller)

Advent has moved away from an individualistic ‘waiting’ for the return of Christ and move us towards what we are called to do to create God’s Reign on earth for all creation. It is about active waiting and active struggle to revolutionise our world. It is a time in which all oppressed people reveal to the church what is needed for such change.  

Feast of the Reign of Christ – the Cosmic Christ – Heart of the Universe

Suggested formula for recognition of indigenous people and their land.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the country where we gather today……..

on land which was never ceded-

and recognise that it and all the people, the species, the mountains, rocks, rivers, lakes

continue to be sacred to them.

Thirty Second Sunday of the Year

Luke provides another encounter between Jesus and those who oppose him. Those who say there is no resurrection question Jesus about it.  We sense the deceit which is an attempt at entrapment. Jesus responds not by explaining the resurrection of life after death but about our identity as ‘children of the resurrection.’ It is about how we live here and now; it is about an alternative way of living this life. God is God of the living, and to God, ‘all are alive. Luke us not speculating about the living and the dead in a vague future but is concerned as who is ‘dead’ or ‘alive’ now!

Thirty First Sunday of the Year

The harsh image of God is debunked by the first reading from Wisdom where this God loves all that exists, and ‘holds nothing …..in abhorrence.’ God loves all creation and each person - even the most loathsome. It says, the Sacred is in all things, even in the least among us.  It reinforces the sacramental where the Spirit infuses all that exists. We also have one of the loveliest descriptions of God in the Hebrew Scriptures: "You have mercy on all, because you can do all things."