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.
The Heart of Jesus is not a geiger counter that catches, measures, and evaluates sin with precision just for the sake of statistics; it is touched by our options, wounded when we do evil and prefer darkness to light. Each of us can bring the Heart of Jesus grief or consolation.
Continue reading The Tower of Babel was preeminently a synodal undertaking, though self-destructive, which is why the Lord undermined it. To be on the road together is a fine thing, but what really matters is where one is bound and whose lead one follows.
Continue reading A human being that lives beautifully becomes beautiful, such a human being also becomes whole. The call to holiness is not a call to become someone else - it is a call to become who you are.
Continue reading For us who live in the wake of the 1969 lunar mission, it is almost impossible to read those words without seeing before our mind’s eye the image of the Apollo rocket fired off from Camp Kennedy.
Continue reading Is a just societal order possible in the long run without a higher, divine standard, unmeasurable in terms of silver and gold, before which we stand accountable?
Continue reading We want to be left tranquil, to have a good salary and at the same time plenty of leisure to do what we want, and access to 5G internet browsing. But then a massive crisis can, in a trice, turn reality upside down.
Continue reading The greatness of our works, the integrity of our discipleship, is not about making spectacular impact — not about having others gathering around us saying, ‘Ah!’ The greatness is a function of perseverance within our limitations, letting grace accomplish there something beautiful and healing.
Continue reading The Christian condition is not a life wrapped in cotton wool. We show ourselves Christians when we stand in the eye of the storm and yet are at peace.
Continue reading We’re always conscious of all we haven’t got, and tell ourselves, Ah - If only I had this one thing, I’d be satisfied. Though of course we wouldn’t.
Continue reading Our time lets us assume that we can, armed with the appropriate App, master not merely our own existence, but reality as such. Therefore the image of a saving God seems superfluous to us.
Continue reading Avoid a disproportionately contemporary and self-centred vision of things which may make the faith more graspable, perhaps, but also reduces it to something banal. No political or sentimental aim will rejuvenate our soul and inflame our heart, but only the unchangeable promise of God revealed in Jesus Christ, the same today, yesterday, and forever.
Continue reading The sacrament you are about to receive is no private matter, no pious formality. The sacrament equips you to embrace an urgent task - to participate in healing a world that is sick.
Continue reading Faith in the resurrection lets us see who Jesus is; it illumines the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It enriches our insight that the Three are one.
Continue reading The washing of the feet conveys more than just a precept to be good to the underprivileged; in it, we encounter the mystery of the cross.
Continue reading To be tempted, Christ shows us, is something quite banal, part and parcel of the life of faith in a world that has turned its back on God. What we must guard against is tempting God in our turn.
Continue reading What we celebrate in Holy Week is more than grand historical drama. It is the distillation of the human condition - during these days we are handed the key to unlock the riddle of existence, including our own existence.
Continue reading Why does God not choose more secure, warrantable procedures? Based on his case history, the Lord would not stand a chance confronted with the terms of a modern insurance agency.
Continue reading Truly, we are dealing with something that is greater than all we have so far experienced, greater than all we can cleverly work out, greater even than the most drastic signs of the times. Amen.
Continue reading The diabolical is not a unified principle, it generates strife without intentional order. Evil has no personality - fragmented, it fragments, simply feeding on what is good.
Continue reading The highest form of freedom is not to have choices to make. What's that supposed to mean?
Continue reading In much current discourse about the Church, isn't the presupposed image of Christ almost exclusively this-worldly?
Continue reading On the ocean of humanity's tears sails Christ our God. His ark is the wood of the Cross, the Spirit of truth is the wind in his sails - he bids us sail along, not circularly, round and round, but straight to the harbour.
Continue reading The counsel to ‘clothe the naked’ makes me think of HC Andersen’s tale about the Emperor’s new clothes, a parable that speaks to our image-conscious, vanity-prone times. Even in the Church there is a risk that hypes replace substance.
Continue reading Anyone who regularly prays the rosary will be struck, I think, by a strange, beautiful symmetry running across the four series of mysteries.
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