This Sunday’s Gospel (Matt 5:38-48) is the fourth excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount, the charter of the Kingdom of God, the description of a Christian life. Last Sunday Jesus gave us a new understanding of three commandments, moving from what “You have learnt from what is said” to “But I say to you”.…

Creating the human race may be the single biggest mistake that evolution made. Douglas Abrams writes this in The Book of Hope, a book he co-authored with Jane Goodall. While that is a rather despairing view, in the end, this book is a book of hope, though not without it issuing a dire warning: There…

Jesus proclaimed that his mission was to bring people back from evil ways to the reign of God in their lives. His words were backed up by healing people and casting out evil spirits. The charter of his kingdom was set out in the Sermon on the Mount. Today’s Gospel (Matthew 5:17-37) is about getting back to…

To fall in love! We use the expression to cover many things. You can fall in love with a baby, a sports team, a city, a job, or another person. However, we reserve the prime analogate for this expression for one thing, emotional infatuation, that intoxicating feeling we first get when we meet someone who…

Matthew’s Gospel is our source of light for most of this year. Where has he led us so far? When the voice of John the Baptist was silenced, it was time for Jesus to leave his workshop and home, and to proclaim his mission. He announced it in one short sentence. “Repent, for the kingdom…

The Wisdom of Pope Francis The different religions, based on their respect for each human person as a creature called to be a child of God, contribute significantly to building fraternity and defending justice in society. Dialogue between the followers of different religions does not take place simply for the sake of diplomacy, consideration or…

In his Confessions, St Augustine describes how his conversion to Christianity involved two separate moments of grace, the first that convinced him intellectually that Christianity was correct, and the second that empowered him to live out what he believed. There were nearly nine years between these two conversions and it was during those nine years…

Ghandi’s favourite reading was the Sermon on the Mount, especially the Beatitudes. He was deeply impressed by the life of Jesus Christ but not by the lives of Christians. Last week our Gospel was about the mission of Jesus to restore the world to the reign of God. Today we start the Sermon on the…

In a homily, Karl Rahner once commented that in the Beatitudes in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus makes a rather stunning statement. He says, “blessed are you who are now weeping, for you shall laugh”. Rahner suggests that Jesus is teaching that our final state of happiness in heaven will not just lift us out of our…