Joy

Make Space for Joy

17 December 2023

Advent

Finding Joy in Every Circumstance This sermon is a powerful exploration of joy, freedom, and identity. I’d like to share some of the key insights and lessons from this sermon with you. Rejoicing in the Lord Always: A Commandment and a Challenge The sermon began with a discussion of the commandment given by Paul to…

Return from Exile

10 December 2023

Advent

Finding Peace and Unity in Exile: A Reflection on Personal Hardships and Natural Disasters Introduction Today I explore the concept of exile, drawing parallels to personal hardships and natural disasters that disrupt our normal activities. This blog post is a reflection on that episode, where I discussed the historical exile of the people of Jerusalem…

Why oil matters

12 November 2023

Year A

A Night in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre An Unforgettable Sabbatical in Jerusalem In 2017, I embarked on a sabbatical that led me to the heart of Jerusalem, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This journey was not just a physical one, but a spiritual exploration that left an indelible mark on my…

Joy in God

12 December 2021

Advent, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year C

Advent 3, Year C Zephaniah 3:14-18.Philippians 4:4-7Luke 3:10-18Play MP3 Generated Transcript (9.30am Mass)Generated Transcript00:00:00If we read the first reading today without any kind of sense or understanding of the history or the background, we might think that the Prophet Zephaniah is just this naturally happy, bubbly kind of a person.00:00:16I mean, someone who is able…

Advent Joy

11 December 2021

Advent, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year C

Advent 3, Year C Zephaniah 3:14-18.Philippians 4:4-7Luke 3:10-18Play MP3Watch video Key points: Take time to imagine God delighting in you, rejoicing over you! He renews you in his love. It is wonderful to be in a good mood – to be happy, cheerful, joyful. We don’t live in a joy fest – the world is…

Joy and Delight

13 December 2020

Advent, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B

Do you remember what it was like to learn English? The experience will be very different depending on whether it was your first language learnt as an infant, or much later in life. In any language, there are at least 4 main components: learning to hear and understand what is said, learning to speak the…

Jesus Others You = Joy

8 September 2019

Discipleship, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year C

The gospel that we just heard is one of those that makes you really wonder who Jesus is? What kind of person says something as outrageous as ‘If any man comes to me without hating (miseo) his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does…

Casting fire on a gloomy earth

18 August 2019

Season of Growth, Year C

One of the things that never fails to amaze me – and this is a little embarrassing to admit! – is when you have been literally under the weather for a while: the sky is grey and overcast, perhaps it has rained a bit, with fog and mist thrown in and the weather is really…

The law of four – part 3

13 December 2015

Advent, Seasons, Series, Teaching

We saw in the first week of this series that one of the places that we see the law of four is in every great story ever told as well as in the story of our own lives – the pattern of (1) Hearing the summons; (2) Enduring the obstacles; (3) Receiving the prize/favour and finally (4) Returning…

Every nation may come and worship

5 January 2014

Christmas, Epiphany, Seasons

In the Gospel of Luke, it is the lowly and outcast shepherds who are the first to visit the child Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem; in the Gospel of Matthew, it is foreign magi who have journeyed for weeks, if not months, to come and seek the new-born king of the Jews. What is…

Jesus Others You = Joy

9 September 2013

Discipleship, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year C

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew The gospel that we just heard is one of those that makes you really wonder who Jesus is? What kind of person says something as outrageous as ‘If any man comes to me without hating (miseo) his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot…

Casting fire on a gloomy earth

18 August 2013

Season of Growth, Year C

One of the things that never fails to amaze me – and this is a little embarrassing to admit! – is when you have been literally under the weather for a while: the sky is grey and overcast, perhaps it has rained a bit, with fog and mist thrown in and the weather is really…

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