Sixth Sunday of the Year

The gospels portray Jesus encountering people who have their backs against the wall. We hear today of a leper who is alienated and isolated from mainstream life and community. In The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai (2006), John Tayman, writes that ‘Leprosy is quite possibly the most powerful metaphor for 'otherness.' Though leprosy itself has lost much of its stigma, other forms of ‘leprosy’ appear where new groups can be identified as the least, the last and the lost. 

Reflections for Fifth Sunday

Stephen Fry, in an interview, said, if he met God, would ‘call God an evil, capricious, monstrous maniac - a bastard for having invented cancer and insects that burrow into children’s eyes. Because God is the creator of everything and all-powerful, God should/could do something to change the situation’.  It also seems that this God is more aligned with those who are in power, abuse power, make war on the innocent and are judgemental rather than the God who is close to the broken-hearted (responsorial psalm). 

Reflections for Third Sunday

The first reading and today’s gospel call us to widen our horizons and reset our priorities. Jonah is called to widen his horizons about God and people and Mark’s Jesus invites us to set about participating in God’s Reign, resetting our priorities which lead to social transformation. Jonah has written off a whole group of people. We can do that when we hurt, divide, separate, scapegoat or ignore people. 

Reflections for Second Sunday

There is no set formula by which God calls us or speaks to us.  Nor are there any God-forsaken places or persons despite Nathaniel’s comments today. Whatever we do, God is always facing toward us.  There is hope for transformation in the most dire of situations and most despicable people. A boy, Samuel, in his pyjamas is called during a time of corruption and a leadership vacuum. He lived with the priest Eli whose eyesight grew dim suggesting blindness and lying down suggesting passivity.

Baptism of Jesus

When I was in Italy from 1982-1986 studying psychology, I spent two summers helping out in a parish in Palermo, Sicily after three of my MSC confreres there were killed in a car accident. One would often hear of murders even in our parishes of police and public officials by the Mafia. The Archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal Pappalardo, was forced to travel in a police car because he was targeted for his fearless speaking out against the Mafia that kept people in its power by threats and murder. I was told on a number of occasions after speaking out that I was fortunate to be a foreigner.