Twenty Eighth Sunday of the Year

Isaiah shares God’s vison of shalom for all people, of a new gathering of peoples. Matthew also intends to teach us something about this in terms of a just human community and a just future. It involves peace-making; caring for the poor and creation; helping the voiceless find justice; tending to the sick and dying, as well as sitting with messy people. 

Twenty Seventh Sunday of the Year

Jesus was warning his critics that the time was short for them to come around to collaborate with what God was offering through him. Pope Francis has issued similar warnings. He says we need ears that hear ‘both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.’ 

Twenty Sixth Sunday of the Year

Wherever we look, we see and experience inequity and injustice motivated by greed for land, money, and resources. We hear the UN Secretary General refer to our world as ‘boiling.’ We see mass migration and destruction. Today’s psalm raises the cry of a burdened people who throw themselves on God’s compassion and guidance. But are we listening? In Australia, the Philippines, and in the Amazon region, there is impoverishment, displacement. There is death for peasants, Indigenous people and environmental defenders. This is the ‘vineyard’ – our ‘Common Home’ –we are called to cherish, care for and nurture. 

Twenty Fifth Sunday of the Year

There is a saying attributed to Attila the Hun (5^th century): ‘For me to be happy, it’s not just important that I succeed; it’s also important that everyone else fails.’  For many, success is measured by one’s job, one’s earnings, wealth, even the people who may subscribe to Facebook. Today, as ever, we are being called by the gospel to a different mindset that involves generosity, service, and responding to generosity offered. This is true with the October Voice to Parliament referendum as often with trade unions. A word often appearing is ‘unfair’ where a marginalised people for over 230 years might finally get a voice and be listened to is deemed unfair.

Twenty Fourth Sunday of the Year

All of us need to forgive and receive forgiveness. Forgiveness is undoubtedly complex and arduous. We can get caught when we believe forgiving another minimises our suffering or that of another. Whether an injury was big or small, intended or unintended, addressed or ignored by the other person(s), we need to take the forgiveness journey.