Community News

• Saturday, July 24th, 2021

  24.07.2021

  Matthew 13:24-30

  Jesus in today’s parable was warning us against a premature separation of wheat from weed, of the good from the bad. He was saying that this kind of separation is really God’s work, not our work and that it will happen at the end of time rather than in the course of time. Just as the servants in the parable would have been unable to distinguish the wheat from the weeds if they had been let loose, we do not always have the necessary insight to distinguish who is good and who is evil. We can get it terribly wrong; we only have to think of those innocent people who have been wrongly imprisoned. How often in our own personal lives have we judged someone harshly only to discover in time that we were very wide of the mark. Too great a zeal to purify the wheat field risks doing more harm than good. A weed-free garden may be highly desirable, but the gospel today suggests that we may have to learn to live with weeds. We need to be patient with imperfection, in ourselves and in others. As we know only too well, life is not tidy. It is not like a well-manicured garden, in which order and harmony prevail. Each of us is a mixture of wheat and weed; we are each tainted by sin and yet touched by grace. Our calling is to grow in grace before God and others, as Jesus did. We look to him to help us to keep on turning from sin and growing in grace.

• Wednesday, July 21st, 2021

  22.07.2021
  Feast of Mary Magdalene
  John 20:1-2, 11-18

  According to the gospels, Mary Magdalene was one of the women disciples who followed Jesus in Galilee. She stood with the other women looking on as Jesus was crucified. She witnessed the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea. She went to the tomb with other women early on the first day of the week. It is the gospel of John that highlights the role of Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday. The tears we shed at a graveside flow from our love for the person who has died. On that first Easter Sunday, Mary seems to have been alone weeping outside the tomb. Yet, she was not really alone. The one for whom she wept was present to her, even though she did not recognize him, ‘she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not recognize him’. She thought she was seeing the gardener. The risen Lord is always present to us in our moments of sadness and grief, in our times of struggle and distress. Like Mary Magdalene, we don’t always recognize the Lord’s presence. We can be so absorbed by our grief or by our plight that we struggle to see beyond it. At such times, we often need to find a quiet moment to become aware of the risen Lord’s presence and to hear him speak our name, as he spoke Mary’s name to her. It was when the stranger spoke her name that she recognized him as the risen Lord. As Jesus, the risen Lord, said to Mary Magdalene, he has ascended to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God, but he is also present among us and present to each one of us personally, especially in times of loss and struggle. The feast day of Mary Magdalene invites us to allow ourselves to become more aware of the risen Lord’s presence and to become attuned to his calling us by name.
  ✍️CB

• Tuesday, July 20th, 2021

  Exodus 14,21-31.15,1; Mt 12,46-50.

  The background to the story in today’s first reading is the freedom of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. This story reminds us about the continuing presence of God with his people. God worked signs and wonders through Moses and Aron which caused the Pharao to free the people. The Lord went with them as a pillar of cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night. the Lord fought for them. That means the people were under the protecting hands of God every moment of their lives. The only condition was that the people put their complete trust in the Lord and believed in him.
  The Lord promised through the prophet Isaiah that he will be Immanuel- God with us. we read in John’s gospel that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We experience this continuing presence and care of God through the incarnation of Jesus and especially through the Holy Eucharist. It is in him that we live, move and have our being, as St. Paul would tell us. The only demand that he places before us is that we trust him with all our heart and strength and that we believe that he will fight for us in our troubles and he will show us how to go about.
  It is the same invitation that we have in the gospel, to be a member of the family of Jesus.

• Saturday, July 10th, 2021

  10.07.2021

  Matthew 10:24-33

  Three times in the course of today’s gospel reading, Jesus says to his disciples, ‘Do not be afraid’. He was sending them out on a mission. He did not hide anything from them. He spoke clearly of the hostility they were likely to encounter. If they accused Jesus, the master, of associating with Beelzebul, what will they not say of the members of his household, Jesus’ followers! When it comes to witnessing publicly to our faith in the Lord, they (we) can all be held back by fear. Yet, they are not to be afraid of those who will oppose their message, even to the point of killing their body. They are to be free of fear because Jesus has brought them, and disciples of every generation, into an intimate relationship with God. We share in Jesus’ own relationship with God. As believers in Jesus, we enjoy a familial relationship with God, which is a sharing in Jesus’ own relationship with God as Son. We are valued and watched over by God. Only when we are convinced of this relationship we will be able to overcome fear and have the courage to proclaim the Good News of Jesus. Genuine faith is always a courageous faith. In the gospel reading today, Jesus gives us a reason why we can be courageous in witnessing to our faith in him. God who cares for the humble sparrow cares for us even more, we who are worth ‘more than hundreds of sparrows’. God holds us in the palm of his hand, especially when we witness publicly to our faith in his Son, when, in the words of Jesus at the end of the gospel reading, we declare ourselves publicly for him before others. It is above all at such times that God is our refuge and our strength, in the language of one of the Psalms.

  ✍️CB

• Thursday, July 8th, 2021

  09.07.2021

  Matthew 10:16-23

  The words of Jesus to his disciples in today’s gospel reading reflects the experience of the early church. Those first generations of believers were indeed handed over to the Jewish Sanhedrin and scourged in synagogues; they were dragged before pagan kings and governors and asked to give an account of their beliefs. Within the same family, they were those who professed faith in Jesus and those who did not, and, so, brother did betray brother to death, parents their children and children their parents. The kind of experience Jesus describes may seem somewhat remote from us and, yet, it is not far removed from the experience of many Christians today who live in a culture dominated by religious fundamentalism and intolerance. Even the secular culture, for all its espousal of liberalism and tolerance, can be very hostile to the public expression of religious belief, including the religious values of the gospel. We know that the values of the gospel are not always well regarded by the culture in which we live; many see those gospel values as a threat, especially a threat to a certain understanding of human freedom. Yet, Jesus reassures them that they will not have to face this hostile world on their own. The Holy Spirit will be given to them as a resource and will inspire their witness. The church is as dependant on the Holy Spirit today as it ever was. We all need to keep on asking for and opening our hearts to the gift of this Spirit, if we are to stand firm to the end, in our own time and place. We are just as much in need of the Holy Spirit today, as the first disciples were if we are to bear witness to the Lord and all he stands for. Now, more than ever is the time to witness courageously to this treasure in the power of the Spirit.

  ✍️CB

• Wednesday, July 7th, 2021

  08.07.2021

  Matthew 10:7-15

  Is Jesus sending out his disciples in a state of unpreparedness? The usual resources that people would take with them for a long and demanding journey are being denied to them. From a human point of view, Jesus sending out his disciples almost devoid of the usual resources seems absurd. We can rightly assume that the emphasis on this state of vulnerability is a lesson for the disciples not to be over-reliant on their own human resources, but to rely on the Lord to provide for them. We must plan for every eventuality. Yet, when it comes to the work of the Lord in our time, we need to have a light hold on all our many resources and to allow room for the Lord himself to work. We can be so absorbed in the work of the Lord that we can side-line the Lord of the work. If we excessively provide for ourselves, including our work in the Lord’s service, we can forget that the Lord is the ultimate provider. Poverty of resources can sometimes allow the Lord to work more powerfully than he could if we had every eventuality covered in advance. The Lord is always inviting us to step out of the boat, trusting that he will not let us sink. As Saint Paul reminds us, the Lord’s power is often made perfect in weakness.

  ✍️CB

• Tuesday, July 6th, 2021

  07.07.2021

  Gen 41:55-57, 42:5-17,17-24; Matthew 10:1-7

  Jesus has been gathering a growing number of disciples since the beginning of his public ministry. According to today’s gospel reading, from this larger group, Jesus called twelve to whom he gave authority and power to share in his healing ministry. The number twelve was significant; it is a reminder of the twelve tribes of Israel. This group of twelve were to symbolize the renewed Israel that Jesus was working to form. Jesus chose these twelve very deliberately. They were to receive intensive training and instruction so as to share in his ministry in a special way. Yet, by the end of the gospel, every one of this group had deserted him, the first-mentioned of the group, Peter had denied him publicly, and the last mentioned, Judas Iscariot had betrayed him to his enemies. In spite of the fact that these twelve had been given special authority and power and had spent more time in his company than others, listening to him and seeing what he did, they failed him when the cross came into view. They were not faithful to their calling. In the words of today’s first reading, their hearts were divided. Although Jesus calls people, calls each one of us, he cannot force us to respond to his call. Although he has a purpose for our lives, he is somewhat helpless before our refusal to co-operate with his purpose for us. Yet, in the gospel story, the failure of the twelve was not the end of their relationship with Jesus. After he rose from the dead, he appeared to them in Galilee and renewed his relationship with them, sending them out to preach the gospel to all nations. The Lord may be helpless before our failure but he remains faithful to us in spite of our unfaithfulness to him and he is always at work to bring some good out of our failures. All he asks is that, in the words of today’s first reading, we continue to ‘go seeking the Lord’. ✍️CB