Reflections for Easter

Pentecost Sunday

June 8, 2025

For Easter we use a very large number of scripture readings. There are 9 possible for the Vigil Mass and a whole different set for each of the daytime masses. For Pentecost there are almost as many, but we usually hear just 3 as on a “regular” Sunday. You might feel that Easter gives us […]

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Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 25, 2025

The beginning of the Easter story is very personal and individual. Each of Jesus’s close companions, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Thomas, has to discover, or rediscover, the risen Lord in their own way. As the ripples spread, this process becomes less of an individual quest – people are coming to Jesus in larger groups. It’s necessary

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Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 18, 2025

As the Easter story moves forward, we hear how the church is now needing structures and organization beyond simply following the original disciples. Paul and Barnabas are appointing “elders” for their new groups of believers, using a framework familiar in Jewish life anywhere away from Jerusalem and its temple rituals.  But there is more to

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Fourth Sunday of Easter

May 11, 2025

The Easter stories we have heard so far are stories of joy, stories of discovery, of discovery of something that was thought lost, discovery of something even better than what went before. This week we hear how there is also a dark side to these stories. Or, if not exactly dark, that there are challenges

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Third Sunday of Easter

May 4, 2025

This week we continue with readings illustrating three very different types of Easter experience.  For John of Patmos his mystical experience now extends from the personal and individual that he started with, to encompass “everything in the universe” (Revelation 5:11-14). This is a common feature of mysticism in all religious traditions, combining the intensely personal

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Second Sunday of Easter

April 27, 2025

Last week we reflected on how we are “an Easter people” and what that means. Now as we enter into our 50 day long celebration of Easter we might ask an even more basic question – what is Easter? This might seem a strange question – isn’t the answer obvious? It’s the celebration of Christ’s

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Easter

April 17, 2025

“We are an Easter People”. This idea can be traced to St Augustine, but was brought into modern consciousness when Pope John Paul II used it in an address on a visit to Australia in 1986. There is also a deep theology around the idea that the defining characteristic of the early church was an

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Pentecost Sunday

May 19, 2024

Through the weeks of Eastertide we have followed the growing understanding of what it meant for Jesus to remain with us after his resurrection. Starting from the confusion immediately following the empty tomb; to the recognition by the women who were closest to Jesus,  and the rest of the disciples, that he was still present;

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Ascension of the Lord

May 12, 2024

It’s natural to think that the Feast of Ascension is about what happened to Jesus at the end of his time on earth. But that isn’t really where the focus lies. The Feast of the Ascension isn’t so much about what happened to Jesus, rather it’s about what happened to the disciples. Mark, as usual,

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