“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…”
Tag Archives: successor of david
Christmas Day! At last…
“The shepherds had more to rejoice about than simply proving the words of the angels on the hills. As religious Jews, they may have remembered the lines of Isaiah, given us by the first reading at the dawn Mass, which were coming to fruition before their eyes.”
Awaiting the King (Sunday I of Advent)
“…we are to watch ourselves, take up self-control to avoid possible drunkenness and debauchery, we are to stay awake, praying for the strength to survive every threat to our perseverance and faithfulness to God, and to stand confidently in all purity before the Son of Man.”
The light of Faith (Sunday XXX of Ordered time)
Let’s attempt to establish a timeframe for our readings this weekend. Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed calamitously twice, once in 587 BC by the Chaldeans and the second time in AD 70 by the Romans. So, the first time was a little less than 600 years before our Lord, and the second timeContinue reading “The light of Faith (Sunday XXX of Ordered time)”
‘Woe to the shepherds!’ (Sunday XVI of Ordered time)
We’ve come past the Sunday readings about prophecy in the last few weeks to a condemnation of false prophets and bad shepherds. There will always be false prophets and bad shepherds. There is a hint in the readings of the last few Sundays of professional prophet yes-men, who were basically secularised and happy to supportContinue reading “‘Woe to the shepherds!’ (Sunday XVI of Ordered time)”
The Shepherd-king as Father (Sunday IV of Easter)
We must always marvel at the benevolent love of the Holy One for the men and women that He calls His own. And we know that He calls the Church His own, because He actually calls it the sheepfold of which He is the Good Shepherd. And this is the theme of the readings today,Continue reading “The Shepherd-king as Father (Sunday IV of Easter)”
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)”
Quick read through the prophet Zecharyah
Above is Michelangelo’s version of the prophet from the heights of the Sistine chapel at S. Peter’s on the Vatican hill. Zecharyah, or Zacharias as he is in the old Catholic bibles, was a later prophet, who lived only a few hundred years before Christ, in the Jewish period of Sacred Scripture. The Israelite kingdomsContinue reading “Quick read through the prophet Zecharyah”
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 