Ordinary Time After Easter (24)

I was recently chatting with a friend who asked me if I believed in aliens. I told him that if, by aliens, he meant the intelligent, self-conscious life forms like the Wookies, Gungans and Tuskan raiders of Star Wars fame, then my answer would be no. Not a categorical “no,” …

As human beings – we tend to value objects and items that are “polyvalent,” items that can mean and serve many different functions. This is why, perhaps, we have come to so value the little gadgets that we carry around with us everywhere in our pockets and purses, which can …

Perhaps more than any other narrative in the Old Testament, the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden has exerted an enormous influence in shaping Christian ideas about sin, sexuality, shame and guilt. Down through the ages, this narrative has had a reception of being …

In 1876 the US Department of Agriculture imported a Japanese vine named kudzu to United States to help stabilize eroding hillsides. The vines grow exceptionally fast and produce dense vegetation that protects loose soil from water and wind but also blocks sunlight from …

A newly-wed couple were crossing a lake in a boat, when suddenly a great storm arose. The man was a warrior, and remained unflinching in the face of danger, but his wife on the other hand became a ball of nerves and was petrified with fear. She turned to her husband and …

The woman we meet in today’s gospel has been suffering from hemorrhaging for 12 odd years. This sickness would have rendered her permanently ritually impure. Anyone who came into contact with any blood whatsoever were considered ritually impure for a period of 7 days. This …

In the third season of the Chosen, there is a wonderful scene developed by the screen-writers of the show, which so accurately portrays Jesus’ theology and outlook on life that it truly deserves a place in the canonical gospels, even if it is the work of imagination. The …

In today’s gospel we see Jesus sending out his disciples with the instruction to them to take nothing for the journey. Through this instruction Jesus was highlighting the importance of enabling those who receive the Word to feel that they have something to give as well. For …

A young and very successful executive was travelling down a suburban street in his brand new black Jaguar. Suddenly a brick was thrown from the sidewalk, thumping into the side of the car. Brakes slammed! Gears ground into reverse, and tires madly spun the Jaguar back to the …

In the wake of the Enlightenment, certain Protestant exegetes, eager to present Christian belief as entirely consistent with the rationalism that had come to rule the day in Western Europe, attempted to “demythologize” the gospels. They feared that presenting Jesus as …

In our first reading today, we see the people of Israel moaning about the hardships of life in the desert and looking wistfully back at their life of slavery in Egypt. We might be surprised at this attitude – surely freedom is far better than slavery no matter the cost. If …

In my early years as a Jesuit, I had occasion to live in a rural mission in Zimbabwe. Being a rural mission, we were not a very wealthy community and had to live quite a simple lifestyle, there were not many luxuries in our diet and our fare was quite basic. There would …

In today’s first reading we see the prophet Elijah suffering from classic burnout syndrome. He is sitting forlornly under a broom tree and prays for death in these words: “This is enough, O Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” Many of us know all too well …

For the past 3 weeks, our gospel has come from the 6th chapter of John, the bread of life discourse, widely considered by many to have Eucharistic overtones. Today’s gospel is considered by scholars to be the most explicitly Eucharistic of all the sections in chapter six. …

In 2018, Pete Davis a Graduate student at Harvard Law gave the commencement address at his graduation. He spoke of an experience that will perhaps be familiar to many of us of being up late at night looking for a movie to watch on Netflix. Even after watching numerous …

In order to understand what is going on in this story, we need to realize that it is to be read in the context of what has come just before it, namely the feeding of the 5000. It is no accident that purity laws in Jewish customs and traditions revolved around food and …

Jessie Chan is a young Chinese woman who is trying to recover from a very painful breakup of her six-year relationship with her boyfriend. A shot of light pierces this darkness in the form of a witty, charming, sensitive fellow by the name of Will who waltzs into Jessie’s …

In today’s gospel, Jesus addresses some of his most demanding counsels to his disciples: “if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off!” While there have been Christians who have taken Jesus at his word, most notably the great Church father, Origen, who was rumoured to have …

It is noteworthy that the foundational and archetypal human relationship, as presented in our first reading today, is one of man-wife and not parent-child, or sibling-sibling. For the vast majority of us, the foundational relationship of our lives is mother-child. It is …

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who has written a lot about male spirituality talks about how in the first half of his life, every man needs to build a tower, needs to achieve something, needs to prove himself to the world, make a name for himself. He needs to learn the …

Since the dawn of civilization, human beings have been struggling with the question of how to justify the authority of one person over another. What gives one person the right to tell another person what to do? In other words what gives authority its legitimacy, where does …

If we observe the stories of people who encounter Jesus in the Gospel, they are by and large people who are seeking help from Jesus, normally in the form of some physical healing. Invariably Jesus provides them with the help that they are seeking and they depart from Jesus …

Japanese culture is one of the most highly stratified and hierarchical on the planet. I have been told that until you know a person’s social ranking relative to your own, you cannot talk to them, because you do not know how to address with the correct protocols of respect. …

There is no free lunch. Or so we have been taught to believe in the capitalistic societies that we live in. Even if it’s someone’s else’s charity we are benefitting from, the lunch that we get free has to come from somewhere, value is not just created out of thin air – …