After the silence of Holy Saturday, the silence of the tomb, comes … the silence of … the Resurrection. No evangelist attempts to give an account of the Resurrection. There are no angelic choirs, no trumpet blasts, no voice from the clouds. There is quietness, and a new morning. Another day, a day tinged with sadness for […]
On Good Friday our first reading from Isaiah (Is 52:13—53:12) starts: “See, my servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.” He is about to be tortured and killed, and he shall prosper! Our gospel reading is the full, excruciating, account from John of the process of Jesus being tortured and killed
Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion Read More »
I’m always intrigued by the fact that John did not include any account of the Eucharist during the Last Supper. How could he miss it out? The Eucharist was clearly central in the life of the church from the earliest days. We hear about it very specifically in Paul’s first letter to his church in
We arrive at Palm Sunday, and I confess I’ve never been entirely sure whether this is part of Lent, the end of Lent, or whatever. The beginning at Ash Wednesday is very clear and simple, the end not so much. Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere! The full title of this feast is “Palm
We started our Lent with reflections on the humanity and divinity of Jesus. As we come towards the end we find ourselves returning to these themes, drawn together now as the climax of Easter approaches. From the Letter to the Hebrews, our second reading (Heb 5:7-9) points out how Jesus wasn’t some perfect angelic being
Fifth Sunday of Lent Read More »
Last week we had commandments, this week condemnation (Jn 3:16). “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned”. Couple that with the angry God of the Book of Chronicles burning down Jerusalem (2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23) and we have a pretty gloomy picture. No wonder we’d rather
Fourth Sunday of Lent Read More »
We seem to be a society obsessed with laws. To judge by news coverage of court proceedings and so many attempts to create laws to control how other people behave, one might imagine the majority of the population is employed full time in such processes! In reality most of us have very little interaction with
Third Sunday of Lent Read More »