There is a comforting illusion that faithfulness to God should make our life easier. Many people imagine that if one sincerely follows the Lord, prays regularly, and seeks to live according to the Gospel, then difficulties should diminish and peace should naturally follow. Yet the Bible repeatedly challenge this assumption. The readings for this Sunday…
Fr Dominik Domagala
Fr Dominik Domagala, OMI, serves in Inchicore, Dublin. Studied Theology in Poznan (Poland) and currently is working on a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture. Author of the sermon-video-blog The Social Oblate. Send your questions to thesocialoblate@icloud.com
Bread for the journey: Corpus Christi in a forgetful age
There are truths in Christianity so familiar that we risk no longer being astonished by them. The feast of Corpus Christi confronts us with one of them. We hear again words that Catholics have repeated for centuries: “This is my Body… This is my Blood.” Yet if we truly allowed those words to enter our…
The breath that brings the Church to life
There are feasts in the Church year that we celebrate almost instinctively. Christmas appeals to the imagination. Easter speaks to the deepest human longing for life stronger than death. Pentecost, however, is often more difficult. The Holy Spirit can seem elusive, abstract, almost impossible to grasp. We understand the Father as Creator. We understand the…
The amazing power of radical Christians
The readings of this Sunday seem to stand apart from one another. In one, we witness the extraordinary power that accompanied the first disciples—healings, liberation, visible signs of divine action. In another, we hear a call to endure suffering patiently, even injustice, without retaliation. And in the Gospel, Christ speaks of love, obedience, and a…
He is the gate through which we enter life
Every now and again, headlines speak of hope. A new breakthrough in cancer treatment. Promising advances in repairing spinal cord injuries. Each discovery greeted with relief, even a quiet joy. Humanity, it seems, continues to push back the boundaries of suffering. Any yet– even if every disease were cured, death would still remain. No medical…
Are you somehow different?
Readings: * Acts 2:42-47 * 1 Peter 1:3-9 * John 20:19-31 The Sunday Gospel There are moments in the Gospel when everything quietly shifts—when the familiar world of the disciples is overturned by an event so decisive that it can no longer be ignored. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is such a moment.…
Walking the road with Jesus
Readings: Isaiah 50:4-7 Philippians 2:6-11 Matthew 26:14-27:66 The Sunday Gospel There is a small, almost unnoticed detail in the Gospels that may well be the key to understanding the whole of Holy Week. Before Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph, before the palms are waved and the crowds cry Hosanna, there is Jericho. And in…
Restored sight and the danger of seeing perfectly
There are moments in life when we look, and yet we do not really see. Our eyes function perfectly, but something inside us is still blind. Only when something shifts within the heart do we begin to notice what was there all along. The readings of this Sunday speak precisely about such a miracle: the…
The call to listen – and to go
Genesis 12:1-4 2 Timothy 1:8-10 Matthew 17:1-9 There is always a certain tension between ideals and reality of life. Let us be honest about that. Only those who have flattened their ideals beyond recognition do not experience it. The rest of us live in that space between what we profess and what we manage…
Christianity is not about loopholes — it’s about transformed hearts
Ecclesiasticus 15:16-21 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 Matthew 5:17-37 An enlightened Christian — one touched by the light of God’s wisdom — knows how to live. There is no need for constant excuses, no room for clever manoeuvring around God’s commandments. Such behaviour does not befit a disciple of Christ. The follower of Jesus is called to…