Season of Growth
He does all things well
9 September 2012
The Fathers of the Church remind us that there were many miracles that Jesus performed; when a particular one stood out in the memory of the evangelists, it was perhaps for a particular spiritual lesson that the story can offer to us as we read and listen to it. AS always, we are invited…
Fulfilling the law
1 September 2012
One of the gifts of Fathers’ Day – which we celebrate today in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea – is the impunity that it gives to fathers today to tell Dad jokes. Even though it might invoke a deep groan on other days, today we are more inclined to declare these to…
Choosing to follow the Lord
27 August 2012
Discipleship, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year B
As we come to the final of five readings from John 6, we arrive at the crunch moment in the chapter. Although confusion, grumbling and complaining have been part of the whole chapter – and would have reminded the first readers of the people of God complaining in the wilderness of Sinai in the book…
Take and eat my flesh; drink my blood
19 August 2012
As we arrive at the fourth week of our readings from John 6, we arrive at the section that has been the most controversial over the centuries, as different Christian traditions have offered very different understandings and interpretations of this key text. Until verse 51, although Jesus has been speaking about the Eucharist, it has…
Elijah as model of the evangelising church
12 August 2012
Today in I Kings 19, we meet a very different Prophet Elijah then perhaps we are more familiar with – especially from the dramatic story that unfolds in the previous chapter when he single handedly takes on the 450 prophets of the false Caananite god Baal and defeats them. This does not please Queen Jezebel…
What the Manna from heaven
5 August 2012
Bible, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year B
The church leads us out into the wilderness to be with the people of God – it seems many months or perhaps even years into their wilderness adventures – such is the bitterness and the discontent that they evoke with their complaints against the Lord. It is only when you realise that no, this all…
Blessed and broken the Lord feeds us
31 July 2012
Bible, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year B
Last week, when I celebrated Mass in the 803 year old private chapel of Lilienfelderhof at Pfaffstatten with the Galbraith family (as one does on holidays) we found ourselves in Mark’s gospel with the disciples needing time away from the hustle and rush of ministry, so they head across the lake to be by themselves…
The true shepherd
22 July 2012
Bible, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year B
From the archives… I am away on holidays, visiting friends in Europe. So this is a homily from the archives. In order to understand our first reading from the prophet Jeremiah today, we need to understand what has been happening in the history and practice of Israel. We need to go back a few hundred…
Grace and weakness
7 July 2012
The disciples in the gospel of Mark are at times amazed and astonished by the work and ministry of Jesus. Here, when Jesus makes his way back home to Nazareth, there is more amazement and astonishment – but not in the good way. The people think they know Jesus – they grew up with him…
Crowds and sandwiches
1 July 2012
In the Gospel of Mark we are treated to a rather brilliant example of the Markan sandwich – two inter-related stories that provide flavour, texture and context to each other to highlight the power of the kingdom of God that breaks into our existence through the ministry of Jesus. The woman suffering with the hemorrhage…
A sacrifice of blood
10 June 2012
Although the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is the only feast day during the year where the traditional Latin name is still well-known, to call the feast Corpus Christi seems to do some injustice to the richness of what today’s liturgy offers us. The readings today do not focus on the Body…
Becoming the people of God
26 May 2012
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…
Love beyond walls
13 May 2012
Discipleship, Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Teaching, Year B
In the first century, the standard expression of the Jewish faiths was strongly influenced by the Pharisees, the most populous of the many forms of Jewish sects that were active at the time. Unlike other groups which were often on the fringes of Jewish society or groups such as the Sadducees which were deeply embedded…
Children of the Shepherd God
29 April 2012
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B
I am sure that if many parishioners ever bother to listen to the first line of the second reading today, they either choose to ignore it or doubt that it can actually be true. It is a rather extraordinary claim: ‘think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be…
A questioning journey from doubt to faith
14 April 2012
Easter, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B
Although in the debate on Monday night on the ABC1 TV program QandA between Richard Dawkins and Cardinal Pell, it seemed that doubt and questioning of faith was a very recent and modern phenomena, if you study the scriptures and Christian tradition carefully such doubts and questions are immediately apparent.The passage from John’s Gospel…
Let them go up to worship in love
18 March 2012
Lent, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B
A Jew would recognise our first reading today as the very last passage in the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. English bibles have tended to reorganise the order of the books in the Old Testament, so that we no longer follow the three-part division of the Tanakh into Torah (the Law), Nevi’im (the Prophets) and Ketuvim…
Ten words of freedom
10 March 2012
To soften the hard edge of these sacred commandments that are presented in Exodus 20, the Rabbis’ would often tell a joke – such as ‘when Moses came down the mountain, he began by telling the people: well, there is good news and bad news; the good news is that I managed to talk the…
Sacrifice, obedience and the lamb
3 March 2012
Lent, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B
Our first reading from Genesis 22 contains what is often regarded as one of the finest examples of a short story in all or Western literature. In 19 short verses, the reader is taken on a terrible and shocking journey along with Abraham and Isaac – your only son, the son that you love -…
Levitical cleaning
12 February 2012
Bible, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year B
Reading the bible is a wonderful gift. But for many people, who with great zeal and commitment begin to read the bible in the book of Genesis, everything goes well for a while. The book of Genesis is interesting, and it is full of familiar stories beginning with creation and then the ‘myths’ of pre-history,…
Immediately driven
5 February 2012
Every book in the biblical library has unique characteristics that set it apart from all other books in the bible. The passage that is our first reading today from the book of Job – dealing with suffering and pain – is fairly typical of this book. So also each of the gospels have particular ways…
Teaching with authority
28 January 2012
Any male who had completed his bar mitzvah was eligible to read from the Torah in a Synagogue service and to offer commentary upon the reading. What the commentary contained would always be a reflection upon what the student had learned from his rabbi – who in turn would offer the insights that he had…
Blessed by the face of God
1 January 2012
Christmas, Season of Growth, Seasons, Year B
In the perception of the so-called general public, when people think about God – if indeed they ever think about God, the idea that will probably be conjured would be more like the idea of the force from Star Wars, then the biblical reality of God. Likewise, the idea of heaven as somewhere up there…
David, Mary and the Ark
18 December 2011
Advent, New Creation, Season of Growth, Seasons, Teaching, Year B
After journeying through this season of Advent with the prophet Isaiah, and then for the last two weeks with the witness of John the Baptiser, it is only on this fourth Sunday of Advent that we finally are presented with the figure of Mary to accompany our Advent reflection. When we encounter her in the…
Beginnings
4 December 2011
Advent, New Creation, Season of Growth, Seasons, Teaching, Year B
Literature in the classical world was often concerned to set the scene and provide an overview of the whole text from the very first line of the text. When we come to a text like the Gospel of Mark, we may be tempted to pass over the opening line of the Gospel – which we…
You did it to me
20 November 2011
Season of Growth, Solemnity, Year A
The feast of Christ the King provides us with Christ the prophet presenting this ominous and dark scene of the judgement – not only of the people of Israel or the New Covenant – but of all the nations gathered before the Lord, being separated according to the way that we have recognised the presence…
Jacaranda trees and exams
13 November 2011
One of the lovely things about living in the Sydney area is the veritable plethora of jacaranda trees that are in full blossom at this time of the year. When I see one of these trees, I am often reminded of the beautiful tree in one corner of the main quadrangle at Sydney University, and…
The hope of the Lord’s coming
6 November 2011
New Creation, Season of Growth, Teaching, Year A
During the month of November, there is a tradition of remembering the dead and praying for them – particularly during the Eucharist. Our liturgy this Sunday provides an opportunity to reflect upon this practice in the light of the Lord’s coming and the judgement. When Paul writes his earliest letter, to the Thessalonians, he still…
Don’t call me father
30 October 2011
One of the things that you really have to admire about Catholics, is that we have taken the warning that Jesus offers us in today’s Gospel (Matthew 23:1-12) so seriously, that there is almost no risk in finding room in the seats of honour at the front of the church – with people crowding around…
Learning to love
22 October 2011
There is nothing unusual in the question that Jesus is asked in our Gospel today (Matthew 22:34-40) – students would regularly ask visiting Rabbis this question – which is the greatest commandment. When there are 613 mitzva (commandments) to choose from in the books of Moses (the Torah or Pentateuch) it is no wonder that…
Images and coin inscriptions
17 October 2011
The heat continues to rise between Jesus and his persecutors. Now the Herodians, who normally would not associate with the Pharisees, join forces to ask an impossible ‘yes or no’ question of Jesus – either answer would get him into trouble with his supporters or even arrested and killed by the Romans. The answer that…