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.
There's something geriatric about modernity's wisdom. The wisdom of Scripture, by contrast, is playful and young.
Continue reading What dignity in a life wholly given up! What sadness in an offering withdrawn or compromised!
Continue reading Never have I more clearly realised the dignity of one who offers his life as an unconditional gift - such a gift structures existence, enabling stability and growth. It just isn't the same to give a little bit here, a little bit there.
Continue reading The world remains in birth pangs even unto the end of the age. To be stuck within them cannot but be traumatic.
Continue reading We have the potential to reveal God to one another, and we can likewise conceal him from each other. It is a terrifying prospect - by my actions I may effectively block another from seeing God, from reaching true freedom, happiness, and beatitude.
Continue reading One of the Second Vatican Council's choicest fruits is the catechism published in 1992. It received much attention when it came out, but do we read it now?
Continue reading The cross, for being ‘ours’, must not shut us in; it must break us open, making of our lives a source of consolation for others. This consolation must be evident in deeds.
Continue reading A dizzying thought - there might be material objects around that were physically touched by God Almighty! It is small wonder that Constantine set out to search for the greatest relic of all, the Cross on which Christ died.
Continue reading At all times men and women have loved to talk about love; our time is no exception. It has this peculiarity, though, that discourse about ‘love’ these days tends to have an edge of anger.
Continue reading It is immensely satisfying to be in the vicinity of a categorical imperative. Indeed, it can happen that we are deeply moved by our own capacity for greatness before we think, 'Still, there's no rush', and potter home to flick on the telly.
Continue reading If we look closely at the liturgy for the Assumption, we find traces of the Ark everywhere. Pictorially it is a less alluring symbol than the cosmic lady: an ark, after all, is just a box.
Continue reading In Gilead, the Rev’d John Ames remarks, ‘I have always liked the phrase “nursing a grudge”, because many people are tender of their resentments, as of the thing nearest to their hearts.’ It is true and pathetic - no human attitude is more utterly unproductive of good.
Continue reading Olav reminds us that is is possible to fight against our vices, to form our nature, to overcome conditioning in order to let Christ be formed in us, to make us bearers of his blessing.
Continue reading There's a risk that we believers create for ourselves a schizophrenic universe. One pole is represented by the religious dimension of life with sublime notions of God, providence, creation and redemption; the other pole represents concrete daily life marked by political worry, rising prices, relational conflicts, and dreams of looking swell in a swimsuit.
Continue reading 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.
Continue reading We recognise the Spirit's work in us when Jesus's oft-repeated words, 'Fear not', turn out to be a commandment we can heed, when we freely step outside the prison of anxiety and ask ourselves, 'What on earth was I doing in there all that time?'
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