Gospel Reflection Sunday 2nd March 2025 | 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time | Luke 6:39-45 Anyone wanting to draw close to the person of Jesus (to ‘encounter him’ as Pope Francis tells us) need look no further than the Gospels we have read over the past three weeks to find a clever, observant, witty and...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 23rd February 2025 | 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time | Mark 8:27-33 Today’s Gospel is a direct follow-on to last week’s – Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. As with Matthew, Luke seems to be using a written text of the ‘Sayings of Jesus’ as a background to what he...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 16th February 2025 | 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time | Luke 6:17,20-26 When I was growing up, I was taught that referring to someone as “you” was rude and patronising. It created, I was taught, an air of exclusivity, a sense that “I” somehow knew more or was greater than “you”. When...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 9th February 2025 | 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time | Luke 5:1-11 I sometimes wondered why the people who wrote the Gospels didn’t first sit down together, share their stories, anecdotes and memories, prioritise eyewitness accounts, check their written sources and then, when satisfied that they had everything available to them, put...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 26th January 2025 | 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time | Luke 1:1-4,4:14-21 I always find that as soon as Christmas is over and the three wise men have arrived at the crib, the peace of that lovely scene is gone and our Sunday Mass Gospel readings rush past us at break-neck speed....

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 19th January 2025 | 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time | John 2:1-11 If Agatha Christie were to write a novel based on this week’s Gospel, she might well call it, “the strange affair of the wedding at Cana.” Why? Because whenever we see a reading from John’s Gospel, we should immediately presume...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 12th January 2025 / Baptism of the Lord | Luke 3:15-16,21-22 The Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the River Jordan can be found in all four Gospels. In Mark and Matthew we get the full and detailed account of the heavens opening and the dove descending on Jesus and the...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 5th January 2025 / Epiphany of the Lord | Luke 2:41-52 As a child I associated the Feast of the Epiphany with the end of Christmas holidays and the reopening of school. The coming of the “wise men from the East” was, in my mind, always accompanied by the priest at Sunday Mass...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 29th December 2024, Feast of the Holy Family | Luke 2:41-52 Family is a many layered and complex social institution. Whether we call a family functional or dysfunctional it lives and survives with its joys, sorrows, tensions, fears, conflicts and secrets. Most families come with at least one ‘black sheep’ who tests the...

 Gospel Reflection Sunday 15th December 2024, Third Sunday of Advent |Luke 3:10-18 It is a sign of the greatness of John the Baptist that the Church dedicates two Sundays of Advent to him. I always think it is a pity that we know so little about him. He is suddenly there baptising in the Jordan;...