The Catechumenate, and the annual Lenten journey, are about writing the Word of God into our hearts so that it can protect us from evil and bear fruits of righteousness.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Luke (Page 10)
The glory that has been seen in Jesus can shine forth in us, but there will be obstructions to be purged and commitments to be made first.
There is a fundamental culture clash between those who put their trust in God and those who pursue wealth, comfort and celebrity.
With Jesus as our pattern, we find a new identity in our uncompromising allegiance to God’s ways.
The risen Christ confronts us with both the gruesome consequences of our violence and the terrifying shock of grace.
After the big event of Christmas, it is faithfulness in our everyday living that produces growth and godliness.
The decision to repent and accept Christ’s gift of forgiveness and life involves a life change which includes a new willingness to honour and serve Christ in the stranger.
When hopes have been extinguished and all is despair, God comes back.
The relationship between God’s work and our work in salvation is not a puzzle to be solved, but a mystery to be lived in prayer and faithful discipleship.
When we do not live lives of gratitude, which would actually expand our sense of the world in which we live, God still does not rescind his gifts.
The Cross is the tree at which we come to know the fullness of good and evil, and as we choose to bear the consequences of good and evil, it becomes for us the tree of life.
Jesus acted out the parables that he was telling in his encounters with people, expressing the nature of God who seeks after us and rejoices in our being found and restored. God invites us to be people like that.
When we detach from things, God comes to fill or possess us by God’s Spirit, and suddenly the world is full of life once more.
God has given us a new identity and a new allegiance in his kingdom, and our loyalty is now to truth and compassion regardless of their consequences for the interests of any other communities or kingdoms.
Christian ascetic discipline is not about earning God’s acceptance, but about banishing the demons so that we can live life more fully in the here and now.
Repenting of our past ways and following Jesus does not guarantee us safety from disaster, but it certainly opens the way to an abundance of life that is beyond what any disaster can destroy.
In the face of powerful evil, our choice like Jesus’s choice is between the natural human instincts of flight or fight, and the third way of obedience to God.
Extravagant grace can be terrifying because it asks nothing of us but a complete change of life!
God consistently favours love and acceptance over purity, so when we are not sure, it is better to take a risk on love and acceptance.
In baptism Jesus submits himself to his God-given destiny and vocation, and it is by a similar submission to God, allowing Christ to live out his baptismal life in us and for us, that we have life and hope.