Gospel Reflection for Sunday July 23rd 2023 Good people want to do good. It’s the most natural thing in the world. We educate our children not to be selfish or mean, not to be aggressive or rude, not to be proud or arrogant. As our children grow we gently but repeatedly reinforce the values and...

Gospel Reflection for Sunday July 16th 2023 “Hey, did you hear the one about…..” or “that reminds me of the two men going into a pub….”! All of us know people who have the knack of telling jokes so that when the punchline comes everyone laughs. Maybe you are one of those people? I’m not,...

Occasionally I read a Gospel that makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes the reason is obvious to me – a question Jesus asks, the response someone gives, how someone acts, a particular challenge Jesus sets before us. Other times the reason for my discomfort is not as clear – a kind of vague unease as if there...

We have all heard stories of the fisherman who says that the fish that got away was “…this big!…” (holding his arms wide apart to indicate the size), and I’m sure we have said at some time in our lives, “I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse…and still have room for the saddle!”, or...

Gospel Reflection for Sunday June 18th 2023 For anyone who longs to walk, with Jesus, the tracks and trails of Israel and come to meet him face-to-face, today’s Gospel is wonderfully rich, and maybe a little surprising. So many of us carry in our heads what I sometimes call the ‘plaster cast’ image of Jesus,...

Gospel Reflection for the Trinity Sunday June 4th 2023 It was the Beatles who told us that “Love is all you need”, while the great Tina Turner (God rest her dear soul) asked “What’s Love got to do with it?”.  In the haunting “I am a Rock” by Simon and Garfunkel we meet a person...

Gospel Reflection for the Pentecost Sunday May 28th 2023 On this great day of Pentecost I have in my head an image which some might say is slightly blasphemous, but which I cannot shake. Picture if you can the cool of the evening in the Garden of Eden. The three Persons of the Blessed Trinity...

If anybody tells you that this is an easy Gospel to understand, then they have spent many, many years studying scripture or they are telling fibs! Like everything in John’s Gospel, there is almost one hundred years of reflection, prayer, and conversation behind everything that is written. That is not to say that John’s Gospel...

It is the height of arrogance, I know, but you will understand what I mean when I say that I have always felt just a little bit sorry for the Holy Spirit. Of the three persons of the Trinity it is the Holy Spirit who is least known and least talked about. Sure, at Pentecost,...

There must have been many times in Jesus’ life when he wondered why he had chosen these particular twelve people to be his Apostles. Apart from the fact that one of them betrayed him to the Roman authorities, leading to his death, and the man he had chosen as leader, and called his ‘rock’, denied...