“…why the Holy One took flesh and walked as a Man among them. And so we celebrate Christmas as everything else at the foot of the Cross. Christmas had to be, so that Good Friday could be.”
Tag Archives: humility
Fear of the Lord (Sunday II of Advent)
“If God can raise children of Abraham – our father in the faith – out of the stones in the desert, it doesn’t matter at all that we may be Jews, or indeed that we are of any race, that our families have been Christian and Catholic for x number of centuries, or decades or years…”
Blessed are they (Solemnity of All Saints)
“And I saw a second angel coming up from the east, with the seal of the living God. And he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels who were empowered to lay waste land and sea; ‘Do not lay waste land or sea or wood, until we have put a seal onContinue reading “Blessed are they (Solemnity of All Saints)”
Hypocrisy is easy (Sunday XXX of Ordered time)
“We can never be religiously smug, like the bad pharisee of the gospel story, ticking away the sins we have not committed, in order to tell the Holy One that we are best of men and women…”
Fiery serpents (Feast day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross)
“…what we preach is Christ crucified; to the Jews, a discouragement, to the Gentiles, mere folly; but to us who have been called, Jew and Gentile alike, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God…”
Martyrdom! (Sunday XXIII of Ordered time)
“Following after Christ then obviously involves a mortification that results in our denying not only sinfulness, but other human goods that people take for granted, even family. And this is what Christ calls a cross.”
He has raised up the lowly (Sunday XXII of Ordered time)
“As per the parable, in trying to take up seats nearer the host of the wedding feast, they were over-reaching. For glory is not taken for oneself; it is given from above.”
Love even your enemies (Sunday VII of Ordered time)
“What makes the Sacrifice of our Lord upon the Cross so perfect? In a single word, His humility, which… creates the locus for self-sacrificing love…”
John the Priest (Sunday III of Advent)
Let’s talk about John the Baptist. We don’t tend to see him as much more than the herald of Christ, and some of us may remember that he baptised our Lord in the Jordan river. We know that he had a particular ministry to the people, and his own baptismal rite for a spiritual washingContinue reading “John the Priest (Sunday III of Advent)”
To reign from a Cross (Sunday XXIX of Ordered time)
“But the souls of the just are in God’s hands, and no torment, in death itself, has power to reach them. Dead? Fools think so; think their end loss, their leaving us, annihilation; but all is well with them. The world sees nothing but the pains they endure; they themselves have eyes only for whatContinue reading “To reign from a Cross (Sunday XXIX of Ordered time)”
Christian leadership (Sunday XXV of Ordered time)
As with last weekend, we meditate upon the suffering of our Lord in the course of His great Sacrifice, so let’s again try to unite all three of our Mass readings together to establish a common message. Remember that September is traditionally the month of our Lady of Sorrows, when we stand with our blessedContinue reading “Christian leadership (Sunday XXV of Ordered time)”
Reading through the first letter of S. Peter
The first letter of the Apostle Saint Peter that is preserved in our New Testament was addressed to Christians of Asia Minor, what is now called ‘Turkey.’ As we can see from the map just below, in Greek times, Pontus and Bithynia were on the north, sitting on the Black Sea, Galatia was the greatContinue reading “Reading through the first letter of S. Peter”
‘Whether or not they listen…’ (Sunday XIV of Ordered time)
I have switched the word ‘ordinary’ permanently to ‘ordered’ on the website, when referring to the green Sundays of this part of the year. That’s the real intimation of the word, as I see it: the Sundays counting down to the end of the year and the season of Advent. This weekend, we have veryContinue reading “‘Whether or not they listen…’ (Sunday XIV of Ordered time)”
Reading through Ecclesiasticus (aka. ben Sirach)
Today’s summary is on the book of Ecclesiasticus, an important bridge between the Old and the New Testaments that was excluded from by the rabbis from the Hebrew Bible in the centuries after the Resurrection, perhaps because it was considered too Christian. Sadly, protestant rebels did the same in the sixteenth century, probably trying toContinue reading “Reading through Ecclesiasticus (aka. ben Sirach)”
Engraved upon our hearts (Pentecost Sunday)
We suitably terminate our seven weeks of Easter with today’s festival of Pentecost. This is not necessarily a Christian system; it is a Jewish one. Long before our Lord walked this earth as a man, the Hebrew nation celebrated their liberation from slavery in Egypt with the festivals of Passover and of unleavened bread. ImmediatelyContinue reading “Engraved upon our hearts (Pentecost Sunday)”
The Church in effect (Sunday II of Easter)
This Sunday is the octave day of Easter Sunday, and just as a musical octave at its end pitches the same note higher, the Resurrection of our Lord raises in pitch on the eighth day in a way, to the flourishing of the Church. For the grand theme of all our readings this weekend isContinue reading “The Church in effect (Sunday II of Easter)”
Humility rewarded (Palm Sunday)
The point of our palm-waving festival this weekend is to honour the King, Who entered His own capital of Jerusalem as the Successor of David, to claim not political power but His eternal priesthood. Indeed He went not to the palace of the tetrarch Herod on that day, nor even the residence of the RomanContinue reading “Humility rewarded (Palm Sunday)”
The evil inclination
This is an interesting inheritance that Christians have from Jewish theology: the יֵצֶר הַרַע. The evil inclination. It is given by S. Paul in our reading at Mass this morning, from his letter to the Romans: “My own actions bewilder me; what I do is not what I wish to do, but something which IContinue reading “The evil inclination”
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 