When Science and Religion Agree – St Patrick’s Day – 2024

When Science and Religion Agree – St Patrick’s Day – 2024

It can be pleasing when you find a meeting of minds, as it were, between science and religion, after all, there is no need for them to be at odds, and at best they can act as a corrective and a refiner, one to the other.
Religion can humanize science, can bring to it ethical and spiritual insights that otherwise it might lack.

Mothering Sunday 2024

Mothering Sunday 2024

Mothering Sunday is a day honouring mother churches, the church where one is baptised and becomes “a child of the church”, celebrated since the Middle Ages in the United Kingdom, Ireland and some Commonwealth countries on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Mothering Sunday coincides with Laetare Sunday, also called Mid-Lent Sunday or Refreshment Sunday, a day of respite from fasting halfway through the penitential season of Lent.

Women’s World Day of Prayer 2024 – Palestine Christian Women

Women’s World Day of Prayer 2024 – Palestine Christian Women

​World Day of Prayer is a global ecumenical movement led by Christian women who invite you to join in prayer and action for peace and justice.
An ecumenical group of Palestinian Christian women have prayed and reflected together over the past several years to respond to the invitation to write the 2024 program.

The Turning Heart – 2nd Sunday of Lent 2024

The Turning Heart – 2nd Sunday of Lent 2024

Lent is a pilgrimage, a journey into, perhaps, previously uncharted territory and not always the most comfortable of places. But in all the talk of repentance during Lent, we should also remember that the word in its Greek and Hebrew roots means much more than simply feeling sorry.

The Life we are meant to lead – 1st Sunday of Lent 2024

The Life we are meant to lead – 1st Sunday of Lent 2024

It was G.K Chesterton who wrote: The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.
The prophets tell us that it is the duty of the people of God to care about and be advocates for those who are poor and powerless – and Jesus’ first concern was for those who were the most vulnerable and had no voice.

To become a new person – The Transfiguration 2024

To become a new person – The Transfiguration 2024

We like to form a pattern of the world, a mental map of how things work, why they happen, an explanation of the way the world works, and why. We tend to seek explanations for new things according to the old ways.
Generally, it can serve us well.
It makes our world feel more constant, more predictable, less random and unstable – it also cuts down on mental processing time – we can assume certain constants, and concentrate on what is changing before our eyes.

The Meaning of Life – 2nd Sunday before Lent – 2024

The Meaning of Life – 2nd Sunday before Lent – 2024

Is there such a thing as the meaning of life? Is there just one big meaning for everyone – or many meanings – for each one of us?
In Logotherapy we speak of three levels of meaning, that can make up what the ancient Greeks called εὐδαιμονία (Eudaimonia) – literally ‘good spirit’ – essentially a good, fulfilled and righteous human life.

To be prophets for our time – Candlemas 2024

To be prophets for our time – Candlemas 2024

Certain cultures have long recognised the spiritual significance and contribution of older age.
Whilst the temptations of old age are to settle in our ways, repeat old patterns, withdraw into the past, resist change and withdraw under the cosy but smothering duvet of the familiar, this is not only to risk relegating oneself to the margins, but also to abandon the younger generations to lives without the guidance of those who now sit above the fray, but were once immersed within it.

What call do you hear?   Epiphany 3   2024

What call do you hear? Epiphany 3 2024

We often need to remind ourselves that attendance at church is to equip us to live a Christian life the rest of the week. To be distinctively Christian, identifiably a person of faith. Someone that others can point to and see that our faith has made a real and radical difference – that our faith has changed us and continues to do so.

How can we ever be happy?   Epiphany 2   2024

How can we ever be happy? Epiphany 2 2024

J. John, the famous preacher speaks of how he was once asked at a funeral “Did your uncle leave much?” he replied “O yes – he left everything”.
He also said that the problem of the rat race is, even if you win, you are still a rat.
If you can’t take it with you, and you will never have enough – then the rat race itself better be fun – and I wonder if it is and for how many?
Sadly, we have bought the great lie.

John O’Donohue – ‘For a new beginning’

John O’Donohue – ‘For a new beginning’

‘For a new beginning’ is a blessing and poem by John O’Donohue published in ‘Benedictus – A Book of Blessings’- Bantam Press 2007 – ISBN 9780593058626.

Part of the Church of Ireland, St Nicholas Church, Adare and its fellow churches teaches and ministers within the progressive Christianity tradition, with influences from the scholars who built on the work of the Jesus Seminar.

Luke speaks to the world   1st Sunday after Christmas 2023

Luke speaks to the world 1st Sunday after Christmas 2023

Of St Luke, we know comparatively little. It appears that he was a native of the Greek city of Antioch in Syria. Conventionally, but not undisputably, he is held to have written both the Gospel and also the follow-on work, the Acts of the Apostles, in which he speaks of the growth of the Christian faith throughout the Roman empire.

A newborn child – Christmas 2023

A newborn child – Christmas 2023

A child lies cradled in his mother’s arms. It is hard to imagine a more powerful image of love and devotion and peace. The pain and drama of childbirth are over.
And whilst our faith today is that of a modern Christian; whilst we are continuing to learn the difference between historical fact and the more complex truths of poetry, allegory and myth; whilst we bring the discoveries of science, psychology and sociology to our present reading of scripture, that doesn’t mean that we cannot extra…

Embracing the Jewish Jesus – Advent 3 – 2023

Embracing the Jewish Jesus – Advent 3 – 2023

Throughout the Gospel of John “the Jews” are presented as hostile to Jesus and to all who assert that he is the Christ. They are said to plot against him, to convince Pilate to execute him; even after his crucifixion they are said to oppose Pilate placing the sign ‘King of the Jews’; supposedly the disciples hid for fear of “the Jews”.

Are we Blessing or Blocking Jesus?  Advent 2 – 2023

Are we Blessing or Blocking Jesus? Advent 2 – 2023

We hear of John the Baptist, crying out not only from the wilderness, the place of suffering, but also from the wilderness of exile and oppression, the condition of suffering – and through Mark – telling the Christians of Rome in the wilderness of their affliction, the message they were desperate to hear.

Just what does it mean to be prepared? – Advent Sunday 2023

Just what does it mean to be prepared? – Advent Sunday 2023

Whether they be church-goers or not, most people if you asked them would agree; Advent is most definitely a time of preparation.
But, of course, the key question is preparation for what?
Indeed, the very notion of preparation would imply that we have some understanding of that for which we prepare.

Should we call Christ a King?

Should we call Christ a King?

Christ the King could be considered a somewhat awkward Sunday to celebrate. It can strike a rather discordant note, and ring the wrong kind of bells.
It carries the danger of conjuring up images of a Byzantine royal court of power, of wealth, riches and status.

2nd Sunday before Advent 2023

2nd Sunday before Advent 2023

Today’s Parable of the Talents is not really about money – despite the fact that Matthew’s listeners would have been shocked into awed silence by the sums mentioned.
Whenever we read scripture we do need to remember who was the immediate intended audience.

Transcending Self – All Saints & All Souls 2023

Transcending Self – All Saints & All Souls 2023

On All Saints Sunday we remember that, for the most part, the saints were, simply put people – like you and me. Real people, who lived and hoped and dreamed. People who laughed and cried, loved and lost. People who had families and friends and sometimes enemies; some people who led lives of extraordinary holiness, and also those who were flawed and all too human.

How can we ‘believe’ the Bible?  –  Bible Sunday 2023

How can we ‘believe’ the Bible? – Bible Sunday 2023

In today’s passage from Matthew, also reported in Mark and Luke, Jesus is warning of the times to come, of the apocalypse that we should expect.
The fact that the apocalypse didn’t happen as they felt Jesus had foretold, should not blind us to the truth that for them, at the time, it truly felt like the end.

Are we properly dressed?  Trinity 19 -2023

Are we properly dressed? Trinity 19 -2023

As parables go the story of the wedding feast is a rather odd one, and we might also question whether it can actually be attributed to Jesus, in whole or even in part, or whether we might feel the weight of Matthew’s pen pressing upon the page.
But if we consider that this may be Matthew speaking to the church of his time, a gathering of Jewish Christians but also with gentile, non-Jewish, converts, and written after the Roman sacking of Jerusalem it starts to make more sense.

A new kind of Harvest – 2023

A new kind of Harvest – 2023

The keeping of Harvest still makes sense in the countryside, but in an era when at the supermarkets we can get pretty much what we like, whenever we like, and from wherever we like, no matter how disconnected the producers may be from consumers, the links become broken, the ties severed.

Making right choices – Trinity 17 2023

Making right choices – Trinity 17 2023

In today’s Gospel we have a series of comparisons, power vs authority, faith vs deceit, words vs deeds, trust as opposed to cynicism. And there is also a warning, that actions speak far, far louder than all the words in the world.
It is all part of Matthew’s continuing theme where the first shall be last, at least those counted first by worldly standards, and the last, first.

Finding contentment – Trinity 16 – 2023

Finding contentment – Trinity 16 – 2023

The parable in today’s gospel is usually called ‘The Labourers in the Vineyard’. On the face of it, we are told a fairly simple but slightly odd story about an employer who seems to have some difficulty with identifying how many workers he actually needs to bring in the harvest on his land.

Larry Doherty – poet- same mistake twice

Larry Doherty – poet- same mistake twice

The poem comes from ‘the state of us’ a first collection of poetry by Larry Doherty – ISBN: 978-1-5272-7173-9. Larry Doherty’s debut collection of poetry is eclectic, nuanced and powerful. It reflects his thoughts and feelings on life in these challenging, turbulent, watershed times.

Anthony Cronin – ‘Regrets’

Anthony Cronin – ‘Regrets’

The video was recorded at Illaumanagh Cemetery, Shannon.
Anthony Gerard Richard Cronin (28 December 1923 – 27 December 2016) was an Irish poet, arts activist, biographer, commentator, critic, editor and barrister.

Cronin was known as an arts activist as well as a writer.

To redeem suffering – Trinity 13, 2023

To redeem suffering – Trinity 13, 2023

The concept of redemptive suffering has been an attempt to square the circle of pain and anguish in our world, but in the face of real suffering, when real life truly hits us in the face, it is revealed as a fragile illusion.
Too many people, for too long have been told to ‘offer it up’ or that they are sharing in the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, as a way of covering up – simply not knowing what otherwise to say.

Did Jesus intend the Church?   Trinity 12 – 2023

Did Jesus intend the Church? Trinity 12 – 2023

So often in life, things do not turn out as we expect. Despite our fondest wishes and our greatest efforts, the reactions of others and changing circumstances mean that our plans can turn into gossamer on the wind.
In the very early days of Christianity, Christians were mostly Jews, who might worship, study and eat together in each other’s homes, but they would also worship at the Synagogue.

Teaching the teacher?   11th Sunday of Trinity 2023

Teaching the teacher? 11th Sunday of Trinity 2023

In his encounter with the Canaanite woman, a Gentile, and someone that a respectable Rabbi would avoid completely; Jesus is challenged with his own teaching.
Initially, Jesus seems to make his purpose clear “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Rescuing us, rescuing them – Trinity 10,  2023

Rescuing us, rescuing them – Trinity 10, 2023

A story can grow in the telling – as it passes from one person to the next, especially over the years, new insights and meanings are discovered, embellishments are added to either emphasize the original intention, or even to change the thrust and direction of the...

Finding our real life – 8th Sunday of Trinity 2023

Finding our real life – 8th Sunday of Trinity 2023

The Kingdom of God speaks of how all our lives would be if we were to build and behave according to the principles that Jesus taught us and that we profess to wish to follow. But to what extent do we actually do so? There is that famous quote from the writer G.K. Chesterton, well known as the author of the Father Brown detective novels: “The Christian ideal” he said “has not been tried and found wanting. …

Hearing the call – 3rd Sunday after Trinity 2023

Hearing the call – 3rd Sunday after Trinity 2023

It has to be about ‘call’ or we are all wasting our time.

By that I mean, that whilst I certainly do not see us as puppets or slaves of a godly figure pulling invisible strings and dictating our thoughts and movements, nevertheless I have to believe that the divine, the transcendent, is active in our lives, shaping and guiding them for the better, otherwise all this is just an illusion.

Of course, we have to be particularly careful when we use the word ‘God’ because it is all too easy to falsely assume that everyone accepts that the word has the same meaning, whether we are believers or not, but experience shows us that there are a multitude of definitions.

For me, I envisage not a person, not a superbeing, not a being at all, but being itself, absolute reality; truth, love, beauty, wisdom, mercy, justice, all expressed to the ultimate degree.

Being a better man – 2nd Sunday after Trinity 2023

Being a better man – 2nd Sunday after Trinity 2023

While Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day have been embraced with enthusiasm – Father’s Day as a comparative newcomer was often considered a bit of an embarrassment, frankly, in many ways it still is. But this may well be to do with dysfunctional notions of what is held to be masculine.

In many ways, the Church doesn’t help. We only have to consider what a sad diminished figure St Joseph represents; often depicted as aged and rather shambling, he disappears from the scene almost as soon as we hear of him.

But it would be a grave error indeed to forget the role of Joseph. Sadly, consigned by history to a bit part, in reality, he must have been a remarkable man, not only brave and resourceful, but in his gentleness and compassion, he taught Jesus to be a man. May we too as a society learn to nurture the gentler side of the masculine.

Simply be kind – 1st Sunday after Trinity

Simply be kind – 1st Sunday after Trinity

In Matthew’s gospel we find a warning not only to his own community but also to the churches of today. Jesus says ‘Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice’.

Let us not be in any doubt. The current refugee crisis is probably the greatest challenge to the principles, the humanity, the compassion of the West than at any time since the second World War. In the war in Ukraine we are living through the greatest humanitarian disaster in Europe of the last fifty years and seeing callousness and cruelty on a scale that we thought we would never experience again.

In Uganda, the Anglican Church has released a statement welcoming the passing of that country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act which includes the death penalty, although they arge that they would prefer to see life imprisonment for LGBTQ people.

We might remember the legal principle ‘qui tacet consentire videtur’ – those who are silent are deemed to consent.

We cannot consent, we cannot remain silent, we must act, for Jesus demands mercy, not claims of piety.

Deconstructing the Trinity – Trinity Sunday 2023

Deconstructing the Trinity – Trinity Sunday 2023

Trinity Sunday is often a time when preachers feel they need to reach out for props, to demonstrate in some way the nature of the Trinity. But ultimately all these attempts, however well-intentioned, are doomed to failure because all they can do is scratch the surface – to show a model that is essentially structural and functional. Any representation, whether they use 2d pictures or 3d items, will have edges, boundaries and limits whilst attempting to explain something that is boundless, limitless and ultimately inexplicable.

So perhaps a little like Marc Antony who said to the crowd

‘….lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.’….

I am here not to acclaim the Trinity so much as to…well not bury….but certainly to deconstruct…..

Truth need not be factual – Pentecost Sunday 2023

Truth need not be factual – Pentecost Sunday 2023

The American New Testament scholar and Theologian Marcus Borg once encountered an American Indian holy man who shared his people’s creation story by starting with the following words:

‘I don’t know if it happened exactly this way, but I know that this story is true’.

For it is vital to understand that the Bible contains much that is truthful, wise and insightful – and some of it may also happen to be factual. With the stress on ‘some’ and ‘may’. For the measure of the value of scripture is not whether things happened exactly the way they are told, but whether the story conveys truth.

A strange kind of glory – 7th Sunday of Easter 2023

A strange kind of glory – 7th Sunday of Easter 2023

There is a word that recurs six times in today’s short gospel reading in one form or another – glory, glorify, glorified. At first sight, this can sound almost vainglorious, imperious and patrician language. The sort of language that might belong in an imperial court, with flattery, pomp and fanfare, elaborate ceremonial with golden and bejewelled gorgeous raiment.

And indeed we can be tempted to act in such ways in the church itself, for there is always a part of us, against which Jesus warned, that wishes to get back to the awe and wonder, and power, so loved by the Saduccess and their spectacular, if bloodthirsty, Temple ritual. Or we can revert to insisting on strict observance of scriptural rules and taboos of the Pharisees, that actually only serve to constrain and imprison us, denying and thwarting Jesus’ promise of life in all its fullness.

But the Gospels and the witness of Jesus are not always as they seem.

Jesus lived and died a Jew – 6th Sunday of Easter 2023

Jesus lived and died a Jew – 6th Sunday of Easter 2023

Throughout history the reading of John’s Passion as a dramatic performance on Good Friday in Church and public passion plays has caused immense harm to Jewish communities, synagogues have been attacked and Jewish people abused and killed. It has been used by unscrupulous rabble-rousers and leaders to create a febrile and toxic atmosphere of ‘us and them’, friend and enemy, insider and outsider. And since then innumerable daily prejudices, countless pogroms, and the bitter black shadow of the Holocaust.

He worshipped regularly in the synagogue, preached from the Hebrew scriptures and with Jewish symbols and metaphors, he celebrated Jewish festivals, went on pilgrimage to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and was ministered to by Jewish priests.

He was born, lived, taught and died – a Jew. So what is the legacy of John?

Room for everyone – 5th Sunday of Easter 2023

Room for everyone – 5th Sunday of Easter 2023

There are those for whom religion must be exclusive and excluding for them to see it as real; it must define both who is in, and who is out, in order to be valid. They will have a strong sense of rules that must be obeyed and punishments that must be meted out for infractions. For such a way of thinking, love may be conditional, forgiveness contingent, and acceptance circumscribed and reserved to those deemed worthy. Religion is thereby seen as offering structure, order and freedom from the uncertainties of life. But what if divine love is boundless, and forgiveness is freely and unreservedly given? What if the divine nature is paradoxical, boundless, indefinable, unimaginable, incomparable, surpassing and transcending any limitations that our psyches might like to impose?
What if scripture means far more than our preconceptions might like to imagine?

What is a good shepherd? – 4th Sunday of Easter 2023

What is a good shepherd? – 4th Sunday of Easter 2023

Part of the human tragedy is that those who seek to lead us are so often ill-fitted to the task. Using a pastoral model of his time, Jesus highlights the difference between those leaders who are selfless, self-giving, courageous and principled, and those who only see opportunities for self-aggrandisement and personal gain. It is bad enough when those in business or politics turn out to have feet of clay, sad but unsurprising. How much more tragic when religious leaders use prayer to mask systemic injustice and prejudice.

Seeing with new eyes – 3rd Sunday of Easter 2023

Seeing with new eyes – 3rd Sunday of Easter 2023

Luke is a highly accomplished storyteller. Within today’s tale of the road to Emmaus he weaves strands of the past, the experiences of the disciples at the time, and the new understandings that later occurred to the Christian community, of which he was a part, almost a generation later. And so, in our own turn we seek, not only to recover some of the wisdom he sought to pass on, but also to discover new insights and intuitions for our own time and circumstances. For meaning and purpose in scripture are always unfolding, changing, adapting – that is why it is a living witness rather than text enshrined and confined.

Finding meaning in suffering – 2nd Sunday of Easter

Finding meaning in suffering – 2nd Sunday of Easter

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote: ‘Into each life some rain must fall’

It speaks of a human truth, a great truth that all of the great religions recognize – after all it was Buddha who taught – ‘Life is suffering’. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus says: ‘In this world you will have troubles’.

There is no dishonour in suffering, nothing to reprove ourselves for, all of us will live through times of hardship and of pain many times in our lives – there is no way we can avoid it.

In today’s reading from Acts – a reading that according to the Church Lectionary must be given on this Sunday following Easter, Peter reassures his listeners. That we shall endure, we shall persevere and we will overcome, that we might even come to discover meaning in the suffering.

A different view of the Cross – Easter Sunday 2023

A different view of the Cross – Easter Sunday 2023

For a long time, I would argue for far too long a time, the Cross has often been associated less with Jesus’ act of love and more with notions of punishment, merciless judgement and condemnation. Lent is filled with words such as guilt, punishment, payment of a debt, crime, judgement, anger, blood sacrifice.

Do you beat your children, or do you at least threaten to beat them? Moreover if they look like they might misbehave do you threaten them with the kind of pain and suffering that is endless, relentless and unendurable? Of course not. And yet there is the distinct danger that we can still teach that this is the kind of God that the Church asks us to believe in and that we should love Jesus, we should praise Jesus, we should thank Jesus because he has spared us from all that, like a brave and loyal friend or brother and sister, he has taken the beating that was rightly ours. But there is another way to consider Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, another way to regard the love of God, and another way to examine our flawed humanity.

Becoming a new person – Palm Sunday 2023

Becoming a new person – Palm Sunday 2023

If any word sums up Palm Sunday and its consequences it would be ‘fickle’. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, and is hailed by the people with cries of ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! But, we are told, it took just a week for crowds in the same city to call for his execution. And so Palm Sunday confronts us with on the fickleness of human nature and our need for repentance. But ‘repentence’ truly defined is not just expressing a sense of regret or cloaking oneself in the mantle of shame – as if that were the end, the objective. For the Greek word used in the scripture is ‘metanoia’, which conveys far more than merely regret – and instead conveys the commitment to spiritual conversion – to change one’s heart and one’s life – to become a new person.

Ultimate healing and love – Passion Sunday 2023

Ultimate healing and love – Passion Sunday 2023

In the account of the raising of Lazarus of Bethany, we see the most dramatic of Jesus’ miracles – the ultimate healing and restoration of life and hope when all hope is lost.

But as John is dismissive of the naïve literalism of Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, and at times the disciples, so surely we cannot, should not, belittle this profound, poetic, carefully crafted text, redolent with images and myths from the ancient Hebrew past, by distorting, trivialising and constraining it within the narrow confines of literal fact. The truth is simply greater than that.

The love of a mother – Mothering Sunday 2023

The love of a mother – Mothering Sunday 2023

Despite all the hype and commercial sentimentalism we should remember where the inspiration for Mothering Sunday has come from – what this day stands for – what it means. For let us remember what motherhood truly is. It is one of the hardest and most responsible jobs of all. Perhaps we fail to recognise its true value because so much of the time is taken up with seemingly menial tasks. For in those small acts, and a million more besides, a child learns at first hand the Christ-like nature of self-giving love.

That is why Mothering Sunday should not just be a time when we give a card with a naff poem and a few flowers. Instead we should truly reflect on the love and devotion, the hope and the worry, the hard work and the simple joys, the soaring delight and desperate heartache, the fear and the heroism of motherhood.

Where are our limits? – 3rd Sunday of Lent

Where are our limits? – 3rd Sunday of Lent

Today’s gospel has two people encounter each other in the heat of the day, who would never normally speak. They were divided by culture, religion, taboos of purity, gender and morality. The misunderstandings and confusions are many, as they initially speak at complete cross-purposes; and yet, over time understanding, even some sense of communion is reached, boundaries are crossed, distance narrowed, barriers are breached.

Normally a Jewish Rabbi and a Samaritan woman would never speak, and particularly so when her own community considered her disreputable, to be shunned, a virtual outcast. To John’s listeners at the time a surprising, even shocking tale, as their own misunderstandings play into the unfolding encounter.

Are there parallels and lessons to be drawn in our own time – do we set limits to our own understanding and compassion?

Where does the wind blow? | 2nd Sunday of Lent 2023

Where does the wind blow? | 2nd Sunday of Lent 2023

One of the greatest contributions of Judaism to the world, among many others; the realisation that the divine is not fragmented, as the ancients supposed, either into spirits that inhabit the world, or into giant superhuman champions such as the Gods of Olympus. Instead, the divine, that which lies beneath, yet also beyond all reality, that which is greater than, more than, both above all and yet within all, is essentially one eternal unity, one unifying reality.

In the same way that the Old Testament story of Abraham serves as the example of unconditional acceptance and commitment, in today’s gospel Nicodemus provides an example of those who, however well-meaning, hold something back, who partially understand and only partially commit.

Nevertheless, John reports that Jesus attempts to build on Nicodemus’ partial understanding by asking him to look with fresh eyes, with a mind open and receptive, he is asking him to allow himself to be surprised. By the same token, can we trust, commit and take the leap of faith, can we allow ourselves and our lives to be changed, to be blown where the wind will take us?

Are we Adam and Eve? | First Sunday of Lent 2023

Are we Adam and Eve? | First Sunday of Lent 2023

The story of Adam and Eve runs right through all the readings for today. It is partially a story about temptation, knowing what we are supposed to do, how we often know what the right thing to do would be and how all too often we can fail to carry it through.

It is supremely difficult to reach back into the minds of generations long past; impossible to know how those who first wrote down the story understood it, all those thousands of years ago, and little easier to grasp how successive generations have interpreted the story until quite recently.

But like many stories that we heard as a child, when we become adults it is well to see if the stories, wise and insightful in many ways, need to be re-interpreted, and understood in a different light.

How can we avoid regrets? – Transfiguration Sunday

How can we avoid regrets? – Transfiguration Sunday

Those who care for patients who are dying often notice a great similarity in the regrets that people express. Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative caregiver, was so moved by the clarity of vision that people can gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom, that she started a blog that was read by millions, which became a book called ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying’.

As she said, “common themes surfaced again and again.” So what lessons can we learn for our own lives, before it is too late – and might this this relate to the life and witness of Jesus?

2nd Sunday before Lent

2nd Sunday before Lent

For a brief moment we had some insight. During the height of the Covid lockdowns people widely spoke of reorienting their lives, sorting out their true priorities.And where are we now? Some people clearly have decided that enough is enough and have changed jobs, restructured their lives.
But all too often we are simply to get back to what we previously saw as normal as fast as we can.
Modern living, far from heeding Jesus’s words, is increasingly concerned with such questions as ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ But will this search for possessions and wealth ever make us truly happy?

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