Second Sunday of Easter

Gregory Boyle in Barking to the Choir comments on ‘secular culture’ which is depicted as always being ‘hostile’ to Christianity. Boyle does not believe it to be true. He says, ‘Our culture is hostile only to the inauthentic living of the gospel.’ It seems more likely that that hostility to religious organisation is really saying that unless they see, they will not believe. So often when interacting with people who no longer identify as Christian, they say it is ‘because of Christians.’ Because of what they see, or don’t see in their lives.

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

Last Sunday some Greek pilgrims came to Jesus’ disciples saying: ‘We want to see Jesus’. One wonders what they were looking for. A healer? A miracle worker? One who take on the system? Whatever it was, Jesus responded by using the image of the grain of wheat that needs to die in order to live and give life. This image is lived out in the Passion story. A unique characteristic of our faith is the constant invitation to become part of the story of Jesus’ life and ministry on earth and of God’s ongoing love for the world. The entry into Jerusalem was not a parade but a protest in response to the militarism and oppressive dominance of the Roman Pontus Pilate who entered Jerusalem from the West. In our story, Jesus rides in on a donkey from the other side of town and the people hoping for an end to Roman oppression, thinking Jesus would be the one to bring it about.

Fifth Sunday in Lent

What is God up to? According to Jeremiah religion is getting a complete makeover from something formal, external and calcified to something alive to God that can touch peoples’ lives. Jeremiah speaks of God’s desire for a new and more intimate covenant; a deeper commitment. It is gut-located, heart-centered, and mind-penetrated. In his Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius invites us to imagine God looking with great love upon our world where some ‘[people are] being born and being laid to rest, some getting married and others getting divorced, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the happy and the sad, so many people aimless, despairing, hateful, and killing, so many undernourished, sick, and dying, so many struggling with life and blind to any meaning.

Fourth Sunday in Lent

In the words ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him might not die but have eternal life’ we have one of the most famous passages in the New Testament. The first part is often seen in isolation and lonely places like magnetic posters on fridges stickers on car windscreens or even billboards. Though often seen as a private verse, it carries an inclusive promise for the world. These are words are for the world, not just the private recesses of our hearts.

Third Sunday in Lent

In John’s gospel the cleansing of the temple occurs at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He is threatening the Temple authority’s power by declaring them unnecessary. Some suggest that that the overturning of the tables in today’s gospel could be seen as his ‘mission statement.’* We see what was in Jesus’ heart. His passion fires his words and actions and expressed as anger. The cleansing of the temple is an action parable. It sets the stage for what is to come. We see how intertwined are Jesus' identity and mission. Jesus is God’s presence on earth who ‘hears the cry of the poor’. God is in solidarity with all who suffer any kind of injustice. ‘I will live among you. I will be a living temple.’