Holy Spirit

The Divine Wind

19 May 2024

Easter, Solemnity

Embracing the Transformative Power of the Holy Spirit As a Catholic priest, I’ve had the privilege of delving into the depths of spiritual reflection and sharing these insights with my congregation. Today, I want to share with you a profound experience that resonates with the very core of our faith – the transformative power of…

Pentecost – The space for God’s work

19 May 2024

Easter, Solemnity

Embracing the Transformative Power of the Holy Spirit I am Fr Richard Healey, and today, I want to share with you a profound reflection that has been stirring in my heart. It’s about the indispensable role of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the church, particularly through the lens of the transformative experience of…

Pruned for life

28 April 2024

Easter

Embracing Spiritual Growth: The Art of Pruning in Our Lives Ironically, during my seminarian days, I found myself in the role of a plant specialist, working for an indoor plant hire company known as Jungle Gyms. Despite my lack of expertise, people would often come to me seeking advice for their home plants. I recall,…

Breathing Mercy

7 April 2024

Easter

Breathing New Life: Reflections on Transformation and Faith in Uncertain Times Introduction Greetings, dear friends and members of our spiritual family. I am Fr Richard Healey, and today I want to share with you a reflection that has been on my heart, especially considering the tumultuous events that have unfolded in 2020. As we gather…

Having a disciple’s mind

1 October 2023

Year A

In this message, Fr Richard Healey reflects on a theatre production they attended and draws parallels between the unity and synchronisation of the production and the desired unity within the church. They discuss the importance of actions aligning with beliefs, referencing the two sons in the gospel. The speaker then references a poem or song…

Silence and Space

28 May 2023

Easter, Solemnity

I grew up in the country. I don’t think I really noticed a couple of key things until much later – because often you only notice things when they’re not there anymore. But there were two things. When you would go outside, particularly on a night like this, pretty chilly kind of night. The night…

Silence and Word

28 May 2023

Easter, Solemnity

I grew up in the country. I don’t think I really noticed a couple of key things until much later – because often you only notice things when they’re not there anymore. But there were two things. When you would go outside, particularly on a night like this, pretty chilly kind of night. The night…

Advocate

14 May 2023

Easter

The Sixth Sunday in Easter, Year A Play MP3 | Watch video When I was a kid, I kind of grew up with a lot of science fiction as part of my diet, both in reading and and watching TV. And one of the wonderful things about sci-fi is you can kind of imagine almost…

Breathing Mercy

16 April 2023

Easter, Seasons

Sunday 2 in Easter – Sunday of Divine Mercy This year, during this season of Easter, we will be working our way through this first letter of Saint Peter. We don’t really know when it was written, there were no markers to kind of indicate when that happened. Peter used a secretary called Sylvanas to…

Pentecost – Reception

5 June 2022

Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Solemnity, Year C

More than 30 years ago while in pre-seminary formation, I was told a quote from a Russian Orthodox monk, who died in the nineteenth century, St Seraphim of Sarov (1754/1759-1833). The quote is – “the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.” Seraphim goes on to say that like many…

Easter 2 – Breath and life

23 April 2017

Easter, Seasons

On the second Sunday of Easter (or the eighth day of Easter), the church always offers before us John 20 for our Gospel reflection, commemorating both the first appearance of Jesus to the church on Easter Sunday, and then his second appearance eight days later, on the second Sunday. To appreciate the full beauty of…

Pentecost as promise of a new life

24 May 2015

Easter, Seasons

To fully appreciate the significance of the celebration of Pentecost you need to remember the origins of the Jewish festival of Shavu’ot. Although according to the Book of Leviticus the festival celebrated a week of weeks after Passover (the fifty days) was a Harvest festival where the first fruits of the seven kinds of grain…

Connected to Life

3 May 2015

Easter, Seasons

Today we hear the final of the seven “I am” declarations that punctuate the Gospel of John – “I am the true vine.” This declaration is also unusual because it is the first time one that is explicitly relational: I am the vine; you are the branches. We should be in no doubt after hearing this declaration…

Pentecost – renewing the face of the earth

9 June 2014

Easter, Seasons, Solemnity

When I was a kid it was uncommon for my parents to come and visit the school; in part this was because we lived on a farm and caught the bus to and from school almost every day; the exception was on Tuesdays which was mum’s shopping day and we could go home with her…

Longing for a new breath of life in the Holy Spirit

25 May 2014

Easter, Seasons

It can be the case that when we think about the early experience of the Church, that we compress it into a rather monochromatic history. In fact the disciples were probably more like us than we think. Even though Jesus gives them rather clear instructions that they are to wait in Jerusalem upon the Holy…

Becoming the people of God

26 May 2012

Season of Growth, Year B

About a month ago I accepted the invitation of one of our parishioners – Peter – to go gliding with him. It is certainly an incredible experience as you are towed up a couple thousand metres by an old crop-duster, and then once you reach the designated height the cable connecting you to the plain…

God is love

18 June 2011

Season of Growth, Year A

When you read through the scriptures, one thing that modern readers might expect are passages that point to proofs for the existence of God. And yet there is not a single place that we can turn to to find something even remotely close to a De Deo Uno (Concerning One God) treatise that you find…

Come Holy Spirit

11 June 2011

Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year A

This feast is a demonstration of the unique Christian understanding of grace and salvation. Before this day, although the disciples knew of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus and the fulfillment of the many prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures, they were still huddled together in fear – until the Spirit comes – then they…

Signs of the Spirit

28 May 2011

Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year A

As we move through the Easter season, the liturgy today moves in its focus from looking back to the events of Easter, to looking forward in anticipation of the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Church at Pentecost. All the readings today provide insights and guidance concerning the life in the Spirit…

Pentecost and Mount Sinai

23 May 2010

In the first reading from Acts 2 we hear a whole series of quite bizarre events – most of which we probably have no idea what they mean. To get a better sense of what we celebrate, we need to revisit the Jewish festivals of Pesach and Shavuot in the book of Exodus and remember…

The same power

16 May 2010

Easter, New Creation, Seasons, Teaching

Ascension Sunday (Year C) | Eph 1:15-23; Luke 24:46-53; Acts 1:1-11 I had my washed car yesterday – at one of those automatic car washes. When the weather is a bit warmer, I like taking it through the do-it-yourself section, so that I can play with the power hoses! It is amazing the difference that…

It seems good to the Holy Spirit

9 May 2010

Easter, Seasons

Sixth Sunday in Easter (Year C). In Acts 15 we have a quite extraordinary moment in church history. At issue is how a Jewish community, gathered in worship at a Jewish synagogue around a Jewish Messiah, in the midst of a Jewish nation, keeping Jewish festivals and rituals – how does it welcome non Jews…

Come, spirit of life

31 May 2009

Sometimes we can become so familiar with a word, that we forget what it originally means. When we think of ‘Pentecost’ we might think of the Holy Spirit, or the birth of the church, or those brand of churches that model themselves after the experience of the charismatic gifts, especially speaking in tongues, for example….

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