From THE TABLET, 12 June 2021 Jesus was invariably welcoming, forgiving and generous to those whose messy, complicated lives put them at odds with religious laws. He saved his condemnation for religious leaders when they acted as if those laws were more important than people. He described all this as hypocrisy: a kind of falsehood…
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Homily, 12th Sunday of the Year (B) 2021
In last Sunday’s Mass we heard Jesus comparing the birth of his new community – ‘kingdom’ – to a tiny mustard seed growing into a huge tree. Today’s text – Mark 4:35-41 - describes an event which, 40 or so years after it occurred, was recorded by St Mark to encourage people belonging to that…
Is there a way out of the marriage maze?
The marriage of twice-divorced Boris Johnson in Westminster Cathedral made the Church look to many ridiculous at best, cruel at worst. A priest who has spent a lifetime wrestling with the Church’s marriage laws suggests that an opening to the East may help unpick some of the anomalies from THE TABLET, 12 June 2021 In…
Homily, 11th Sunday of the Year (B) 2021
At this time of year our gardens, allotments and the countryside are awash with colour. Of particular delight for me at the moment are the blooming rhododendrons are grouped together by the presbytery kitchen window in an otherwise dark and poorly growing area. However, for all its beauty at this time of year, the plant…
Homily, Fourth Sunday of Easter (B) 2021
Now that we have the opportunity to gather outdoors once more and go walking in the countryside with friends, one of the delightful sights to greet us at this time of year is lambs gambolling in the fields while their mother ewes keep close by. However, I suspect that many of you, like me, cannot…
Pastoral practice on gay couples ‘has overtaken church teaching’
by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt in THE TABLET, 20 April 2021 The head of the German bishops’ conference has said that the Church must “face” gay couples’ wishes for a church blessing. “The partners in homosexual partnerships want the Church’s blessing and they don’t want to receive it clandestinely. They want the Church to consider their lives worthy…
Homily, Third Sunday of Easter (B) 2021
During this season of Easter, our first reading each Sunday is from the New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles. It describes the beginning and development of the Church, starting, after the Resurrection, in Jerusalem in the East and coming to Rome here in the West. The reading from Acts we hear this Sunday is…
Homily, Second Sunday of Easter (B) 2021
One of the worst effects of catching the coronavirus is its leaving people struggling for breath and needing to be put on a ventilator. Breathing is something we seldom think about - it comes to us naturally from the moment we are born - until our ability to draw breath is affected. It seems that…
Charles Curran remembers Hans Küng
From The National Catholic Reporter (USA), 9 April 2021 I am grateful for Hans Küng for his stellar contributions to theology and to the life of the Catholic Church. But I am even more grateful for the pastoral ministry he showed me in a time of need. I was never a close friend of his, but we…
Homily, Easter Day 2021
Each of the four Gospels tells us that Jesus' empty tomb was first discovered by a woman. This is notable because in first-century Jewish society women could not serve as legal witnesses. In the case of John's Gospel, our text for today, the only person attending the tomb of the crucified Jesus is Mary of…
