Reflections

I Feel Guilty You know those magazines at the supermarket checkout? One of them had the curious headline in lurid, stand-out, knockout colours: “I feel guilty”. Presumably, the attractive, smiling person on the cover belonged to this headline, but they didn’t look as though they felt guilty. They looked positively radiant, which, of course, is...Continue reading→

Lent 1 22/2/26 Instruments of Resurrection - Bread and Wine. During this Lent, we will be offering some homilies under the theme of ‘Instruments of resurrection’. We will discover that the most unlikely, commonplace, mundane things are instruments of resurrection. How clever that the master would use everyday, simple things to communicate and help us...Continue reading→

Going Cheap. I’m reflecting back over the Black Friday sale, the Christmass sale and the Boxing Day sale. Discounts and bargains galore. At the same time, nation continues to rise against nation often for the sake of greed and wanting what someone else has. This ‘acquisition’ comes at a cost that no one can calculate...Continue reading→

Homily 15/2/26 The Red Hire Ute. Today’s story is not pretty. It comes with a health warning about commandment number 8. The adventure begins when I have to hire a ute to shift some things from point A to point B. All goes well. I make the booking, I fill out the forms, and collect...Continue reading→

The Value of Archives I was nostalgically going through some old files the other day. They were old pew sheets run off with quite a different technology, and the articles were a delight to read. The ideas and content wouldn’t quite ‘fit’ into the world of 2026, but that was not the point. There are...Continue reading→

Of Light Last week, I printed a homily by Lisa Kelly on the beatitudes. She made the point that usually when we read the beatitudes, we identify as one of the crowd on the mountain listening to Jesus rattle off all the “Blessed be’s”. Blessed are the peacemakers, (not Blessed are the cheesemakers as some...Continue reading→

Screens are great… but I well remember one of my first days at St. Michael's Grammar School, where I had a go at being a school chaplain. My supervisor/friend/mentor handed me my bright shiny, complimentary laptop and explained. ‘This is how we talk to each other.’ At first, I didn’t quite get it. Surely you...Continue reading→

Homily About the author Lisa Kelly Lisa Kelly is an Ignatian Associate living in Omaha, Nebraska.  She has a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard and a Master’s in Christian Spirituality, together with a certificate in the Ignatian Tradition. Lisa is co-director of the nonprofit La Storta and an accompanier for the Discerning Leadership Program....Continue reading→

25/1/26 How To Make a Disciple. Some of my favourite ‘I don’t have to think about television shows are actually cooking shows. Nigella Lawson, Rick Stein, Adam Liaw, and Canadian bakeoff to name but a few. The scenery is exotic, the food looks scrumptious, and we are always reassured that it smells enticing and tastes...Continue reading→

The Horton Criteria Some of you will remember fondly the wit and charm of Dr Seuss fondly. He wrote such immortal classics as ‘The Cat in the Hat’, ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ and ‘Horton Hears a Who’. His phrases have echoed with me down over the years, like ‘I do not like them, Sam I...Continue reading→

18/1/26 Today's homily is an excerpt from a homily by Alyce McKenzie. Alyce M. McKenzie is Professor of Homiletics at the Southern Methodist University Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. She is the author of a number of books including "Preaching Proverbs: Wisdom for the Pulpit" and "Parables for Today," Of Introductions I have...Continue reading→

God of our Messiness We are sometimes seduced by the thinking that God is especially present and vigorously active when our life is all cruisy and sweet. Surely we see Him at work in next week's Tattslotto numbers, when a gorgeous person falls in love with us. When the stars align, it must mean that...Continue reading→

11/1/26 Take the Plunge. Most of you will be aware that it took centuries, literally, for the Church to decide which books of the Bible make it into the formal Bible we have today and which didn’t. Our Book of Revelation, right at the end of our bible only just made it. There are books...Continue reading→

So Here’s the Thing I Don’t Understand. I was counting up the many different ways we have of communicating. There are emails, letters, phone calls, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Google meet and FaceTime. There are probably others that the next couple of generations beneath me use frequently and to great effect. Our sense of connectedness...Continue reading→

Holy Family 28/12/25 We just don’t seem to be able to write good history. Today’s gospel is not a pretty story. Grumpy old King Herod hears that his political rival has been born in Bethlehem and, rather than face a leadership spill in the party room, decides to slaughter all the Jewish males under 2...Continue reading→

300 words The Symphony of Life!  I first wrote a version of this reflection for a different occasion, and some found it helpful. I hope that you might too. What is it about music that stirs us so? How does it move us, excite us and make us slightly gooey around the edges? For one...Continue reading→

Christmass Who’s in the pub? = We are! This  Advent, we’ve been thinking about some of the hypothetical characters who were at the pub when pregnant Mary and St. Joseph arrived and were unable to find a room. The overarching theme for this Advent has been a question. ‘Who’s in the pub?’ It’s been a bit...Continue reading→

Advent 4  Who’s in the Pub?  Elah the Drunk (cf 1 Kings 16:8-10) I sit quietly in my usual spot at the darkened corner of the inn. I’m comfortable here, and the locals know me simply as Elah, although they also call me the village idiot and the town drunk. I would be the first...Continue reading→

The Beauty of Bread. Bread comes in all shapes, sizes and styles. Sometimes there are healthy bits in it, sometimes it is just cotton wool to wrap up a sausage and some onion. But apart from the outward texture and flavour, there is something deeper, more profound and more lovely about bread. There is a...Continue reading→

Where to Buy 2 Kilos of Anger. It was one of many conversations that I enjoyed in this interconnected community. The person ahead of me in the aisle spotted my collar and proceeded to tell me with great vigour about an article they had read in a newspaper. Based on the two sentences they quoted...Continue reading→