In the first reading, Ezra, the priest, proclaimed the Law of God before the assembly, on the first day of the seventh month. This day, also known as Rosh Hashanah, is one of the most holy days in the Jewish calendar and is also the first day of the Jewish new year. Nehemiah, leader of the people, said “Go eat [...]
The first reading of this Sunday assures us of God’s determination to continually love us and reminds us that He will not abandon us. The words of the passage tell us how God’s love transforms us, changes us from ‘Forsaken’ to ‘My Delight’ and our land from ‘Abandoned’ to ‘The Wedded’. Marriage is used here as a metaphor to describe [...]
This week as we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, let us reflect on our own baptism when God stood with us and lifted us from the muddy waters of sin. God then incorporated us into the body of Christ empowering us to lead the life of Christ. We have read in the scriptures about the Baptism of our Lord [...]
The lyrics of a popular Christmas Carol expound upon a series of rhetorical questions, questioning Mary about whether she knew that Jesus would save us, whether she knew that her child once walked with angels… and the short answer to this sequence of “did you know” questions, is Yes! Mary did know. This is succinctly stated in Scripture when the [...]
There is much that we can should contemplate about this feast. The Jews, the Chosen People of God did not realise the fulfilment of God our Father’s promise because they had it in their minds that great works of their heroes of the past. They remembered the great works of these heroes but had forgotten that these great feats of [...]
A missing child is a parent’s worst nightmare, often resulting in panic leading to a frantic search. It would have been the same for Mary and Joseph, as they frantically searched for Jesus, which would then be followed by the relief of discovering him in the Temple. His mother knew that there was something special about this boy, just as [...]
The lyrics of a popular Eighties song go, “Oh-oh-oh, what’s love got to do, got to do with it? What’s love but a second-hand emotion?” Love as the world sees it, is confused, conditional, and conflated with other things such as lust. In the worldly eyes of love, “love” is a means to use someone else, is a way to [...]
The Fourth Sunday of Advent tells us that we are approaching the celebration of Christmas. We have prepared ourselves during Advent for Christ’s coming to the world. The readings today are in anticipation of His coming and speak of God’s promise of salvation - reiterating the theme of obedience to his Word. The prophet Micah prophesied the coming of [...]
According to statistics provided by the World Health Organisation (2021), more than 700,000 people take their lives annually around the world, with many more remaining undocumented. Many of these cases are made up of the Elderly demographic while a large proportion of these numbers, come from the Youth and Young Adults population. Accordingly, among 15 to 19 year-olds, suicide is [...]
Advent means “the coming”. Advent for Christians is a season of anticipated joy. The antiphon of the third Sunday of Advent begins with the word, “Gaudete” which means rejoice! We rejoice as we have been seriously preparing for the Lord’s coming; not as a baby once again in Bethlehem but as the Christ, the Messiah who had risen from the [...]