March 2012
38 posts
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HOMILY for Sat in Week 5 of Lent
Ezekiel 37:21-28; Jer 31:10-13; John 11:45-56 - preached at a Day of Renewal at the Gillis Centre, Edinburgh.
The chief priests and Pharisees are afraid. They’re afraid of drawing the unfavourable attention of the Roman forces. They’re afraid of losing everything they hold dear: the Temple and their nation. So, St Augustine said, “there is no cause for fear save...
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HOMILY for Thu in Week 5 of Lent
Genesis 17:3-9; Psalm 104; John 8:51-59 – preached at a Mass with Baptism in St Albert’s Chaplaincy
NB: Names have been changed for the sake of the privacy of the family
Three things happen to Abraham in today’s First Reading. Firstly, God chooses him, and makes a covenant with him. The tendency is to think of a covenant as a contract, but contracts...
“The person who has been evangelized goes on to evangelize others. It is...”
– Pope Paul VI (via thefullnessofthefaith)
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HOMILY for Wed in Week 5 of Lent
Dan 3:14-20. 24f. 28; Dan 3:52-56; John 8:31-42
The First Reading on these first days of Passiontide have tended to by typological, that is, they are Old Testament incidents that point to the life of Christ, and specifically, the events of the Easter Triduum. So on Monday (although we didn’t have it this year because it was the Annunciation), we had the trial of...
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HOMILY for Tue in Week 5 of Lent
Numbers 21:4-9; Ps 101; John 8:21-30
When Moses first encountered the living God in the burning bush, he asked God: ‘If the people of Israel should ask what is the name of the God of their fathers, what shall I say?’ And God said to Moses: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you” (cf Ex 3:13f). So, God makes himself known to his people as “I...
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HOMILY for The Annunciation of the Lord
Isa 7:10-14. 8:10; Ps 29; Heb 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38
Today is the feast of the Incarnation, a celebration of the eternal Word of God taking flesh in the Virgin Mary’s womb. For from the moment that she gave her humble assent, her ‘Yes’ to God, the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, and, in that instant, a body was fashioned from the Virgin’s flesh and blood, a...
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MY FRIEND INDEED!
HOMILY for the 5th Sunday of Lent (B)
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ps 50; Heb 5:7-9; John 12:20-33
Today’s Gospel begins with friendship, with something quite familiar, as some Greeks approach their friend Philip, and with his friend Andrew, they ask to be introduced to Jesus. And so, like those Greeks, perhaps we can approach Jesus in this Gospel through the lens of friendship, which...
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HOMILY for Sat in Week 4 of Lent
Jer 11:18-20; Ps 7; John 7:40-53 – Preached at the Mercy Convent, Edinburgh
Although the period beginning tomorrow is no longer called Passiontide, even so Lent has shifted into a higher gear, focusing on the Passion of Christ and culminating in the Crucifixion on Good Friday. in our readings, the noose is tightening, so to speak, and the opposition and...
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HOMILY for Fri in Week 4 of Lent
Wisdom 2:1,12-22; Ps 33; John 7:1-2,10,25-30
Why did the Jewish authorities hate Jesus? A few days ago, St John tells us that it is because Christ “not only broke the sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (Jn 5:18b). So, religious reasons are given and, sadly, it is not uncommon for people to hide behind religion to justify their...
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HOMILY for Thu in Week 4 of Lent
Exodus 32:7-14; Ps 105; John 5:31-47 – preached at the Missionaries of Charity Convent, Edinburgh
Yesterday’s Gospel spoke of judgment, of making a decision, a choice for Jesus. By placing our trust in Christ and believing his Word we already have eternal life. With lives founded on faith in who he is, sustained by hope in his promises, and motivated by love...
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HOMILY for Wed in Week 4 of Lent
Isaiah 49:8-15; Ps 144; John 5:17-30
The word ‘judgment’ comes from the Greek word, krisis, which means a choice, a decision. And that decision has an impact on our lives now, affecting our moral choices.
In St John’s Gospel, it is mankind who has to make a decide whether or not to trust Christ; we make a judgment about who Christ is, and we choose accordingly...
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HOMILY for Tue in Week 4 of Lent
Ezekiel 47:1-9,12; Ps 45; Jn 5:1-3,5-16
Ezekiel’s vision of a restored Temple is a promise that God will restore the fortunes of Israel, that God will be with his people. And God has fulfilled his promise in Christ. Because Jesus is Emmanuel, God-with-us, and as we hear in the Gospels, Jesus is the Temple because it is through him that God encounters his people,...
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HOMILY for the Solemnity of Saint Joseph
2 Samuel 7:4-5, 12-14, 16; Psalm 88; Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22; Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24 or Luke 2:41-51.
Originally posted on Godzdogz in 2009.
I attended a secondary school which had St Joseph as its patron, and every morning we would sing the school song, declaring our desire to be “sons of St Joseph, valiant and true”. There is arguably no...
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CRISIS POINT
HOMILY for the 4th Sunday of Lent (B)
2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21
The Greek root word that recurs in today’s Gospel is krinw, which basically means, to decide, to separate, to distinguish. In this sense, there is a judgment, a choice, to be made. Hence, in today’s Gospel the words derived from krinw are translated as judgment (krisis), and condemn...
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HOMILY for Fri in Week 3 of Lent
Hosea 14:2-10; Ps 80; Mark 12:28-34
How can we be commanded to love? How can we give what we don’t have? Only if we’re first given that something, and if we’re open to receiving it. And we have been given love. As St John says: “We love, because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). The problem is that we don’t always recognize just how much we are loved by God, mainly...
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HOMILY for Thu in Week 3 of Lent
Jeremiah 7:23-28; Ps 94; Luke 11:14-23
“If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Lk 11:20). What is the finger of God? Following St Paul, who said that “the Spirit of the living God [has written] not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (cf 2 Cor 3:3), the Fathers of the Church identify the...
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HOMILY for Wed in Week 3 of Lent
Deuteronomy 4:1,5-9; Ps 147; Matthew 5:17-19
Compared to the great empires of Egypt, Assyria, Rome and Babylon that surrounded it, and at times, overwhelmed it, Israel could never have been considered a “great nation”. And yet, when Moses gives the Law revealed by God on Sinai to Israel, he says: “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people”....
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HOMILY for Mon in Week 3 of Lent
2 Kings 5:1-15; Ps 41; Lk 4:24-30
Our God who creates the entire universe – all that is – out of nothing is the God who does great things with the little that we offer him. We’re so accustomed to the way of the world by which often a lot of effort has to be expended for very little result – just think of how difficult it is to lose weight! But God’s way is...
“The Devil is like a mad dog tied by a chain. Beyond the length of the chain he...”
– St. Padre Pio (via becket)
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HOMILY for Tues in Week 2 of Lent
Isa 1:10. 16-20; Ps 49; Matt 23:1-12
Christ is the divine Logos made Man. And that Greek word ‘logos’ can mean ‘Word’, as it is often translated, but it is also rich in other meanings related to words, such as speech, discourse, and reason. So, when Isaiah 1:18 is translated as “Come now, let us reason together”, we find this same Greek root ‘logos’ being used...
Watchfatherelroy:
Introitus
My heart said to You, I have sought Your countenance; I will seek Your countenance again, Lord. Do not turn Your face away from me. Ps. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom will I fear? (Ps. 26, 8-9)
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This following homily was preached today in St Albert’s Chaplaincy, and was written after I had posted the one below (originally used on Godzdogz in 2011).
As such, this homily is more current and topical.
HOMILY for Mon in Week 2 of Lent
Daniel 9:4-10; Ps 78; Luke 6:36-38
Occasionally I’ve had to hang things on the wall using a nail and hammer. And I’m not particularly good at this…...
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HOMILY for Monday, 2nd Week of Lent
Dan 9:4b-10; Ps 79; Lk 6:36-38
Originally posted on Godzdogz in 2011.
“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”. And just how is the Father merciful and compassionate towards us? Through the Cross. In the sign of Christ Crucified, we see, and we experience God’s mercy. For Christ is the good measure of God’s generous, superabundant, self-giving love,...
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THREE PEAKS CHALLENGE
Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (B) - originally posted at Torch.op.org
Gen 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Ps 115; Rom 8:31b-34; Mark 9:2-10
Mountaineering is a transcendent experience. On a human level, we transcend the limitation of our fears, and discover the tenacity of the human spirit. As Edmund Hillary put it, “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” But...
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HOMILY for Fri in Week 1 of Lent
Ezekiel 18:21-28; Psalm 130; Matthew 5:20-26
Originally posted on Godzdogz in 2011.
“The Lord’s way is not fair!” (Ezeziel 18:25). It would seem so, if one thinks that the moral life is some kind of tally of individual deeds, that it is about the legalistic keeping of laws and commandments, or even, of Lenten penances. Then, it would seem unfair...
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HOMILY for Thu in Week 1 of Lent
Esther 4:17; Ps 137; Matthew 7:7-12
Today’s readings are a catechesis on prayer. It is true, as the Catechism points out, that prayer involves thanksgiving, adoration, praise, and contemplation of God. But Christian prayer is fundamentally the prayer of petition: asking God for what we need. And it is born out of an acknowledgement of our human neediness, our...
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