‘Come away with me’
HOMILY: We can think of forgiving as fore-giving – giving first. We love because we are already loved – because our God fore-gives, gives first.
‘Authenticity’
HOMILY: The Sermon on the Mount is both inspiring and disturbing. With a gesture toward Moses at Mount Sinai, Jesus interprets Torah for a Galilean people fragmented and hurting. In the Spirit, Jesus addresses us.
‘On salt and light’
HOMILY: “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus tells his disciples, seated with him on the mountain, surrounded by crowds of people. “You are the light of the world.”
‘What does God want?’
HOMILY: It is human nature to want guidance, to want a path to follow and to know the future. What does God want? And how do we know?
‘A prayerful return’
HOMILY: Andrei Rublev’s 15th-century icon of the Nativity depicts five halos, five haloed/hallowed figures …
‘The interplay of divinity and humanity’
HOMILY: Christ comes … to shine a light on hostilities (toward the poor, the stranger, the most vulnerable) and to light the way of wisdom – hospitality, peace with justice … Christ comes to the anawim, the “have-nots” … as subversive and creative event. A peasant family is made holy. A young woman at risk of abandonment or worse is blessed … she bears the Promised One and will become the queen of heaven.
‘A Josephite commitment to anyone at risk of shame or harm’
HOMILY: Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) was a Spanish reformer and founder of the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits).
The spirituality he developed places great emphasis on the affective life: the use of imagination in prayer, cultivation of godly desires and generous service.
‘To re-orient our lives’
HOMILY: The word peace, eirene in Greek, means to bind or bring together, to unite or set at one. Peace is the opposite of division or dissension. Peace implies health and wellbeing. We might also add: right relationship, harmony, community. It is one of the apostle Paul’s favourite words, used as a greeting or farewell and corresponding to the Hebrew, shalom.
‘An invitation to participate’
HOMILY: It seems a little easy to feel a little hopeless at the moment as we face yet another Covid wave; as floods affect homes, lives and water systems; as people continue to be persecuted in Iran for protesting the inhumane treatment of girls and women; as we hear of the ongoing issues in Ukraine …
‘Poetics of the kindom’
HOMILY: There are some things we can know regarding Jesus. At least three things …
