September 5th, 2010
There is a TV program titled “Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ I watched it once and that was enough. I think today’s harsh gospel could be titled ‘curb your enthusiasm.’
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| Posted in Homily |
August 29th, 2010
Meals are a very important part of all our lives. We enjoy Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving dinners and birthday parties and wedding anniversaries. We break the monotony of daily living by ‘going out for a meal.’ I guess this has always been so. In the time of Jesus meals were an occasion to affirm and give legitimacy to a person’s role and status in a given community. The same is true today. Imagine how some people would give anything to be invited to a meal at the White House or Buckingham Palace. I was going to say 24 Sussex but I don’t think so.
August 22nd, 2010
Just a few words on the second reading of today’s Mass – this letter to the Hebrews. Scholars say this letter was not written to a major Christian community otherwise it would bear the name of the community as other letters did; Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the Philippians and Galatians. Scholars claim it was written around the year 80, a time of pause between two great persecutions of the church. The first persecution was during the time of Nero in the year 64 and the next one was during the time of Domitian in the year 85. This community had memories of its leaders being put to death and the experience of suffering harsh treatment under the authorities of the time but they had not just resisted to the point of shedding blood. But they knew that their freedom of religion and their lives depended on the whim of people in power. The Christians faced restrictions and limitations on their freedom, never knowing when some bureaucrat would make their lives difficult.
August 8th, 2010
Recently I read an article by a priest who told of his long and troubled journey to the priesthood. As part of his journey he spent a month working with Mother Teresa in her ‘house of the dying’ in Calcutta. He writes: “On the first morning I met Mother Teresa after Mass. She asked, ‘And what can I do for you?’ I asked her to pray for me. ‘What do you want me to pray for?’ I voiced the request I had borne for thousands of miles: ‘Pray that I have clarity.’”
August 1st, 2010
Maybe I’m dating myself but do you remember the movie Alfie and its theme song, ‘what’s it all about Alfie’? It’s a bit like the theme of our first reading, ‘what’s it all about, what do get for all our toil, for all our efforts, for all our blood sweat and tears, for all our sleepless nights? We leave it all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. It doesn’t make sense. It’s just not fair but its life.’
Founded by St. Paul of the Cross, every Passionist takes a special vow to spend his or her energies in promoting remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus, the memory of the Cross, and reflection of the meaning of the Cross for the world.
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Companion for the Walk of the Stations of the Cosmic Earth
St. Gabriel’s Garden – Guided Sensory Reflective Walk
