This week, we enter the season of Lent. Beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on the Wednesday of Holy Week. It is not about the sacrifices I can make for six weeks. It is not about giving up Netflix or chocolate or about going meatless altogether or going for daily mass or help out at a soup kitchen. If we [...]
The name Job is synonymous with suffering – 1) The Lord permits a series of afflictions by the accuser to happen to Job; 2) three friends come to console him; 3) Job makes a complaint which results in a number of soliloquies; 4) the friends try to convince Job that it was because of his sin and wrongdoing that the [...]
Almost exactly one year ago, I sat facing my computer in a Zoom call with my boss and a member of the HR team, as they broke the news to me that I was going to lose my job. Although the writing had been on the wall for quite some time, nothing actually prepares one for the moment when news like this would hit like a ton [...]
This week, I was struck by how the Lord’s commands border on the unreasonable! Offering no resistance to the wicked man? Letting someone who struck you on the face strike you again? Giving to anyone who asks, whatever the request may be? Surely, these are foolish, if not utterly crazy, directions! Surely no reasonable person could follow and still live [...]
The readings for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time focus on the law and commandments and why true wisdom lies in both obeying them and going beyond them. The first reading tells us to choose life by obeying God’s commandments. As a parent, it was easy for us to remind our children to remember The Ten Commandments and to tell [...]
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his [...]
The term, “Fides et Ratio” is Latin for Faith and Reason. In his encyclical, Fides et Ratio, Pope St. John Paul II (1998), wrote about how God has created Man and Woman with a natural desire to seek the Truth. By encountering, loving, and knowing God our Father more and more, humanity begins to understand in incremental levels the complete [...]
Our identities are important to us. Who we are often influences what we do. We even take steps to showcase our identities sometimes - wearing special clothes/accessories (Liverpool jersey at a football match, anyone?), memorising mottos, or behaving in a certain way. Growing up, being a "gamer” was an important part of my identity. This "gamer" identity manifested itself through [...]
We hear in the Old Testament how the prophet Zephaniah tells the Jews to seek integrity, humility and to take refuge in God. In our comings and goings, we are consumed by all things external and do not notice that our Father is in our midst and gently prompting and waiting for our response. If we believe what is proclaimed [...]
An argument that is often brought up against Catholics praying the rosary, or any chaplet devotion is, why are you repeating yourself? Doesn’t Scripture, and Jesus say, “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.” (Matthew 6:7) In some translations “many words” are worded, “because of their vain [...]
