HOMILY: I cherish this gospel, which offers good news for awkward and confused disciples, good news for impetuous and penitent disciples, good news for the hard-working and hungry, for any who dare go deep into mystery, for all in need of protection, nurture and community.
HOMILY: “To touch and be touched simultaneously is to be connected with others in a way that prises us open” (Richard Kearney) …
HOMILY: Our gospel traces a movement of faith from loving kindness to emptiness, encounter with strangers/angels, then memory, testimony, disbelief, action, wonder/amazement …
HOMILY: Dying is living more. How might we interpret this theme? How might we perform it? Play or pray it?
HOMILY: Foot or hand washing, like breaking bread, means loving as friends love.
HOMILY: Jesus’ triumphal entry into the crowded streets of Jerusalem was a kind of performance art, an enacted parable that dramatised his subversive mission.
HOMILY: Today I’m going to be talking about teaching, learning and wisdom – how Jesus taught, how the people closest to him responded to his teaching, and how we teach and learn now. I have lived my professional life as an English teacher, working mostly in girls’ secondary schools. Some years ago, when I worked at a Catholic school, we began all our faculty meetings by praying together.
HOMILY: “I once was lost, but now am found …” sings a former slave trader (John Newton, 1725-1807). Another hymn writer concludes a poetic account of salvation/new creation with the beautiful line: “Lost in wonder, love and praise” (Charles Wesley, 1707-1788). It’s at least as complex as this.
HOMILY: The call to change our thinking with regard to tragedies and blessings is at heart a call to eschew simplistic worldviews (prosperity gospels as well as theodicies) which serve primarily to bolster a sense of control over others, a sense of order wherein the interests of the powerful (the prosperous-blessed) remain central.
HOMILY: I love the gospel image of Jesus as a devoted hen gathering her chicks; protection by way of courage and commitment.
