Here I have put together a selection of homilies. The Word of God is ‘alive and active’ says the Letter to the Hebrews. That is not to say that it lives a hidden organic life we can trace through a microscope, as if it were a virus; but that it is inspired, a bearer of God’s eternal Spirit. Therefore it resounds to this day with quite as much force as when it was first spoken. It ever has something new to say. The preacher’s first task is to listen intently to this Word at once ancient and new, then to make his own, necessarily limited words its vehicles. I have not been able to provide translations of texts in other languages; but if you rummage around a little you will find a fair amount of material in English.
Origen says somewhere that at judgement we shall all pass through fire; and that in us which is fireproof will remain. My father carried much that is fireproof.
Continue reading In 1981 Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that ‘the barbarians are not’, now, ‘waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time’. How one would love to be able to say that he has since been proven wrong.
Continue reading If only we had a bit more of that trustful, serene, God-oriented, oblative madness in the Church today. Who knows what might happen.
Continue reading Living in a world of balances upset ecologically, anthropologically, culturally, we are exposed to much randomness, haunted by the inconstant spectre of Artificial (or Inhuman) Intelligence. Who knows what it will lead to?
Continue reading Fisher and More had this in common: their speech was ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; and no threat of terror could make them substitute one for the other.
Continue reading In a fallen, pragmatically motivated world, it will rarely work to combine the royal and priestly charism effectively in a single person. The pitfalls of politics and frailties of character are too great.
Continue reading Today’s Church faces competing absolute claims, even though the dictatorship whose tentacles reach out for us is one of relativism. A radical stance is called for, and radical measures.
Continue reading If we only consider Jesus from the outside, proudly and imprisoned in preconceptions, we shall lack discernment in theological questions, at risk of committing categorical errors and yet be convinced that we are right. We see countless examples of this in Scripture and in Church history, even in our time.
Continue reading The way of contemplation is a way of slow, essential transformation that unites us with the contemplated object so that we can stay in it. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a universe in which we are invited to live.
Continue reading When the Christian code of law prescribed the building of churches throughout the land it wasn't primarily to facilitate democratic conference; it was so that the entire people might gather before the Lord's altar to receive his Body and Blood, the foundation of the new and eternal covenant which then, in turn, would reshape the country through an awareness of communion based on brotherhood.
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