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.
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?'
Continue reading It is the priest's privilege to facilitate the encounter between the one who thirsts and the Source, in order then to withdraw discreetly in thanksgiving and intercession. For a priest is one who 'prays much for the people'.
Continue reading It is obvious that the pig picture has an impact on the small, but are we sufficiently aware that the opposite is also the case? When one finds oneself in the middle of life, looking at once forward and back, it is good to be reminded of this.
Continue reading Joy is stirred in us as an expression of gratitude, when the good that surrounds us calls forth the good in ourselves and we are conscious of subsisting in a strange, jubilant harmony with the world — and with God, who holds the world in his hand. To be sad, in contrast, is to feel cut off, uncomprehended.
Continue reading We live in an age of banality and horizontality that has cut itself off from heavenly reality, a time that has largely lost the ability to think metaphysically, to perceive spiritually, and that therefore lives with a profound frustration expressed in tired purposelessness, as if we were sunk in some kind of collective depression.
Continue reading Christianity isn't magic - becoming a Christian doesn't provide the automatic solution to any problem. But Christian faith, the grace of belonging to Christ through the Church, is the fount of a strength that may resolve even intransigently locked crises from within.
Continue reading The problem is that we, when we turn faith into a project of welfare, easily forget what the whole thing is about. We think of ourselves as decisive agents - our outlook becomes horizontal and we end up, to speak in Biblical terms, 'forgetting God'.
Continue reading When you find that nothing you possess, nothing that surrounds you, is enough, remember that what you are meeting is not just your own limits; you are perceiving the beginning of God's unlimitedness. That kind of experience is an implicit prayer.
Continue reading To pretend to pursue beauty or goodness by subverting truth is deceitful.
Continue reading The persecution that arose in Jerusalem after the lapidation of Stephen caused the apostolic nucleus to explode. The Twelve, who since the Ascension had huddled, first in fear, then in creative confidence, with Mary the Mother of Jesus, scattered.
Continue reading Western philosophy since Descartes has tended to assume that the perception of reality results from inference; that I can, in isolation, think my way to the truth. The Gospel’s philosophy is different - it submits that truth is discovered by way of encounter.
Continue reading A life pierced by repentance may become an even more effective vehicle of grace than one that has never known what it is to fall and to be raised up again.
Continue reading Error, the loss of direction, may confer momentary thrills, but its long-term effect is frustration and sadness. It is worth being attentive to intimations of frustration and sadness - should they occur, it is time to check the compass.
Continue reading A Christian should be a loyal citizen and contribute to the good of society, on this subject the New Testament is clear. Our loyalty, however, should not become gormless gullibility.
Continue reading God wishes to dwell in us, he wants to be known - we are called to be burning coal to let his divinity burn with cleansing, blessing power in the world. Are we wholly surrendered to this hope?
Continue reading Jesus, rising from Sheol, serenely put off death as if were an old pyjamas for which he had no further use. He folded it neatly, showing even this last enemy divine respect, a kind of tenderness due, not to death as such, that's for sure, but to the wounds death has imprinted on human experience.
Continue reading We think that a given circumstance, a given person, a given wound prevents us from being free. We spend our time moaning about that circumstance, that person, that wound.
Continue reading Christ is risen! May he be fully alive in us, in the unity among us, that the world may believe and rediscover the gladness it has lost.
Continue reading If we seek an image of what the Church is, we find it here, in the fact that we, of ourselves a heap of forlorn individuals, are by God's efficacious power turned into a unified, jubilant sea of living fire. The Church's decisive synodos happens through incorporation into Christ's Pasch.
Continue reading Christ's cross, geometrically a sign of contradiction, a function of two lines that will never run parallel, has become a symbol of wholeness.
Continue reading