Reflections

Today we are presented with a wonderful passage about faith and what our Old Testament predecessors were prepared to undergo in order to preserve the integrity of their faith and trust in God (Hebrews 11:32-40). Many of the sufferings described are similar to those experienced by Christian martyrs in later centuries. Paul begins by mentioning […]

Today’s Gospel (Luke 2:22-40) says: “… they brought [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord.” The actual ritual is not described, but we are introduced to two elderly people who were

Faith is the key theme for today’s readings.  Paul (Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19) reminds the Hebrews (and us) of the great faith that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob possessed.  Their faith sustained them during the times when they did not “receive what had been promised” to them, what they hoped for – the Messiah – because

Today, Paul repeats his exhortation to the Hebrew Christians not to give up on the faith to which they gave such strong witness in the past (Hebrews 10:32-29).  He asks them to remember the days when they first heard and “had been enlightened”.  At the time of their conversion, the Hebrew Christians had to go

We pick up today (Hebrews 10:19-25) where we left off yesterday, with a call to persevere in our following of Christ and our living out of the Gospel message.  We are reminded that, through Jesus, we have special access to God.  The symbols used are taken from the Temple rituals but are applied to Christ:

Today’s parable (Mark 4:1-20) is a familiar one – sowing the seed of the word and seeing the seed fall in different places with different results.  I have always visualized this parable in my own gardening – results are sometimes spotty, no matter what efforts I take. But as I re-read this parable my thoughts

 In a final reflection, today’s first reading (Hebrews 10:1-10) concludes Paul’s argument that the Law is inadequate to take away people’s sins. The old dispensation was only a shadow of, and a prefiguration for, what was to come.  It could not, through sacrifices repeated year after year on the Day of Atonement, bring about the

 The readings of today present to us several paired terms that are completely opposites: sin and goodness, repeated sacrifices and a single sacrifice, the Jewish high priests and Christ our high priest, the power of Satan and the power of God, and the confusion of the scribes and Christ’s lucidity and rationality. While the references

 1. “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).  This was one of the final acts of the risen Lord before his Ascension.  Jesus appeared to the assembled disciples, broke bread with them and opened their minds to the understanding of the sacred Scriptures. To them, amid their fear and bewilderment, he unveiled

No one is more aware of a turning point in time than a convert. There is a clear before and a clear after, whose threshold is a life-changing encounter with Christ.  Saint Augustine said it well when he exclaimed: “Too late have I loved Thee!” In more recent times the famous British journalist and Catholic convert, Malcolm Muggeridge, poignantly