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.
Saying thanks is hard for many. A person’s capacity for gratitude is a pretty infallible index of his or her inner freedom and maturity.
Continue reading All of us may feel from time to time that we haven't strength for all that should be done, that needs far exceed our abilities and means. That is nothing to get too excited about - it is how it is to be a Christian.
Continue reading ‘The righteous will live by faith', we read in the prophet Habakkuk, who lived in the 7th century BC. For us, though, the statement resonates with jousting matches about theology fought in Europe 2100 years later.
Continue reading What is at stake is an effort to help ourselves and others to grow 'to full maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ' — no less. May our lives, like Matthew's, serve this grandiose, joy-bearing, freeing cause.
Continue reading The metanoid woman or man takes stock of life to reorient it, letting life’s project be re-magnetised by a single, definitive desire strong enough to order lesser desires according to itself, where before these had been pulling in opposite directions. Is my heart unified - is yours?
Continue reading In this symbolic, sacramental interaction of masculinity and femininity, fundamental to Catholic life, we shall find, of this I am convinced, the true response to painful perplexities present in our time. This response is already formulated, thank God; it needn't be invented anew.
Continue reading The pursuit of humility is not just a matter of devotion; it is about upholding the dignity of all human life, recognising ourselves among the weak and outcast, standing up for table fellowship. To be humble on these terms is not to be meek and mild; it requires courage, strength, and perseverance in the face of hostile opposition.
Continue reading It isn't, then, a waste of time and energy to ask ourselves - am I a man, a woman, without deceit? Do I think of the Church as a mousetrap or as a ladder?
Continue reading The core of the dogma is essential, expressed with austere theological precision - the woman who, by anticipation, tasted the fruit of Christ's redeeming work, who was preserved from sin and freely received the Word which became flesh in her, was not subjected to the logic of corruption. Death had no claim on her, no power over her.
Continue reading This great scholar of the Marquis de Sade fearlessly and carefully approached an intellectual heritage often diametrically opposed to the convictions upon which he constructed his existence. He exemplarily showed how we as Catholics can position ourselves in a post-Christian world striving for freedom and meaning.
Continue reading Many people aren't aware of having a kernel; they think of themselves, like Peer Gynt, as an onion. To posit a human soul these days outside an ecclesiastical enclosure — say, in psychology — is to expose oneself to scorn.
Continue reading Every activity, every utterance, every movement of the heart and body can become a means by which to glorify God, a liturgical worship permitting God's glory to insinuate itself into everyday life. Even your falls will have their part to play if you, like Peter, get up at once, humbly and (this is important) without bitterness.
Continue reading Recently, at a do-it-yourself till in the supermarket, while I was having trouble beeping bananas, a lady said to me: ‘It won’t be long now, and we’ll have to perform our own surgery’.
Continue reading It is a lot more convenient to surf on a euphoric wave of future projection, be it ethical or political, than to ask oneself, 'Is there an absolute truth that requires something of me?'
Continue reading As Paul writes, love without deceit presupposes the word of truth — a truth, he stressed, that must be spoken in love; if it is uttered angrily, it almost invariably becomes counterproductive.
Continue reading A disappointed man or woman is easily imprisoned in an egocentric bubble. He or she forgets that other people exist and likewise have dreams, hopes, and needs — there's a risk that bitterness turns into a chronic condition.
Continue reading Full as we are of post-modern confidence that our times represent the acme of human accomplishment, we expect that God’s way of seeing things should adapt itself to ours, not ours to his. It is no surprise, therefore, that so many of our efforts are sterile.
Continue reading Sometimes it is the wing mirror that lets us perceive the burning presence of an angel that just crossed our path, a bearer of benediction. We must be attentive, then, when we’re about our business, be it ordinary or extraordinary.
Continue reading The best remedy against clericalism (a tendency to which all of us, ordained and unordained, are prone) is surely the witness of deacons who are truly deacons, priests who are truly priests.
Continue reading The solemnity we celebrate today is not about a magic talisman in an ornamental cupboard.
Continue reading A man is no automaton. He is unprogrammable, possessed of that liberty to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ that is at once our crown of glory and our potential path to self-destruction.
Continue reading Underlying the many, often bewildering crises of the contemporary Church is a basic conflict of principles. It is a conflict between autonomy and heteronomy.
Continue reading Liturgically speaking, this day marks the end of the first forty days of Paschaltide, corresponding to the forty days of Lent. The two periods are like giant waves flowing up to, then away from, Easter — ebb and flow.
Continue reading We must not surrender a key notion like 'freedom' to purely subjective, pragmatic interpretation. If we do, it may happen — indeed, it almost certainly will happen — that injustice is committed in the name of freedom.
Continue reading This may seem like just another well-intentioned but predictable bishop's sermon, stuffed full of pious phrases but with zero relevance for life as it really is. Let me then conclude on a note of explicit clarity.
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