“The cock will crow at the breaking of your own ego – there are lots of ways to wake up!” John Shea gave me those words and I understood them a little better recently as I stood in line at an airport: I had checked in for a flight, approached security, saw a huge line-up,…
The Sunday Gospel Luke, more than the other evangelists, portrays Jesus as being on the side of the poor. In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus referred to money as tainted with temptation. Today’s Gospel (Luke 16:19-23) is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Although he is commonly called Dives, the rich man is not actually named in…
What’s in an image? An image can imprint itself indelibly into our consciousness so that we cannot not picture a thing except in a certain way. Take, for instance, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper. Today if you close your eyes and try to picture the Last Supper, that image will spontaneously…
The Sunday Gospel In the past I often heard people complaining that too many Sunday sermons were about money. I don’t hear it nowadays, probably because the parish newsletter and parish council publicise the financial needs. This Sunday however the Gospel (Luke 16:1-13) suggests that the preacher should talk about money, dealing with its wrong use…
Nothing is as important as forgiveness. It is the key to happiness and the most important spiritual imperative in our lives. We need to forgive, to make peace with the hurts and injustices we have suffered so as not to die angry and bitter. Before we die, we need to forgive – others, ourselves, and…
The Sunday Gospel While the first reading and responsorial psalm are chosen to connect with the Gospel of the day, it occasionally happens that the second reading touches on the same theme. The mercy of God to sinners features in each text this Sunday. In the first reading (Exodus 32:7-11.13-14), when the Israelites worshipped a calf…
A wise old Augustinian priest once shared this in class. There are days in my life when everything from the pressures of my work, to tiredness, to depression, to distraction, to flat-out laziness make it difficult for me to pray. But, no matter what, I always try to pray at least one sincere, focused Our…
Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned and spoke to them. “If anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:1-2). The size of the crowd did not impress Jesus. He could read their minds and intentions. Some…
Henri Nouwen once suggested that if you want to understand the tragedy of the Second World War, you can read a hundred history books about it and watch a thousand hours of video documentaries on it, or you can read the Diary of Anne Frank. In that single memoir of a young girl imprisoned and…
The Sunday Gospel On a sabbath day Jesus was invited for a meal to the house of a leading Pharisee (Luke 14:1). No table was considered blessed unless a scholar sat at it. The body will savour the delights of victual and vine all the more if the meal is salted with lively table-talk. In Luke’s…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser