A friend of mine, somewhat cynical about the Church, recently remarked: “What the institutional Church today is trying to do is to put its best face on the fact that it’s dying. Basically, it’s trying to manage a death.” What he’s suggesting is that the Church today, like a person struggling to accept a terminal…
The Sunday Gospel The Fourth Sunday of Easter is called Vocations Sunday, and each year the Gospel is about Christ the Good Shepherd and the flock of his followers. Today’s reading is short enough to quote it in full. “Jesus said: ‘The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow…
At the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, St Luke bridges the gap between the mission of Jesus and the mission of the Church founded on the apostles. “He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations: for 40 days he had continued to appear to them and tell them…
It’s hard for a child to have to go to bed in the middle of an evening when the rest of the family is still celebrating. Nobody wants to go to bed while everyone else is still up. No one wants to miss out on life. Remember how as a child, tired and unable to…
As we noted at the start of Lent, the number 40 is usually associated with a period of preparation. Following the 40 days of Lent, there are 40 days of preparation between the Resurrection and Ascension. My very young grand-nephew once asked me a very profound question: “Where was Jesus in the time between his…
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said something to the effect that we reach moral maturity on the day we realise that, ultimately, we have to choose: genuflect before something higher than ourselves or begin to self-destruct! Simone Weil had a similar idea. She consistently affirmed that our deepest longing was to find someone or something…
Easter Sunday is the most important day of the year. Pope St Paul VI said that the resurrection is the unique and sensational event on which the whole of human history turns. It is so central to our Christian belief that St Paul wrote: “If Christ has not been raised then our preaching is useless and your…
“They shall look upon the one whom they have pierced!” A phrase that names the voice that’s left behind on Good Friday. In 1981, an anonymous, young girl was brutally raped and murdered by the military at an obscure location in El Salvador, fittingly called La Cruz (the Cross). Her story was reported by a…
On Passion Sunday each year we have what people refer to as the long Gospel, properly called The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This year we have St Luke’s version. The four evangelists basically write about the same event but each one has his own particular interests as well as his immediate readership in view. There…
According to the Bible, there’s a secret that’s hidden from the amoral, known only by the virtuous. The Book of Wisdom tells us that when we are not virtuous “we do not know the hidden counsels of God, nor do we grasp the recompense of holiness, nor discern the innocent soul’s reward.” How true! How…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser