Inspired by the baptism of fire
Today marks a turning point in the liturgical year when we move out of the Christmas festive season into Ordinary Time.
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Sunday reflections
The child is revealed
What’s being revealed to us twelve days after Christmas, because this is what Epiphany means: something is shown, or revealed to us. We’re all in holiday mode and then these Magi, these wise men appear, following a star.
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Looking back, looking forward
Slim Dusty is fondly remembered as Australia’s ‘King of Country’. During his lifetime, Slim released more than a hundred albums, selling more than seven million records and earning over 70 gold and platinum album certifications.
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Time to reset our sights
What a year it has been as the pandemic raged across the world for a second year. It’s been a hard time in so many ways. But now, at last, it’s Christmas and we gather to give thanks for the many graces and blessings in our lives, despite the hard times, and to rejoice in the greatest gift of all, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, and our world and our destiny forever changed.
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The importance of women in the Church
Fresh from her encounter with the angel Gabriel, “Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country” to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was herself bursting with pregnancy in her old age. This meeting of two Spirit-filled pregnant women, seeking to understand what God is doing in their lives, is remarkable in the way it captures their very human interaction along with their prophetic voices.
In Scriptural terms, all this occurs with the highly unusual absence of male voices in the conversation.
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Dining at God’s table
I was surprised recently to hear one of my students describe Jesus as a “wowser” and Christianity as the world’s foremost proponent of “wowserism”. While I might be able to understand why a young person might express the latter sentiment (albeit unjustly), I find it difficult to see how anyone could accuse Jesus of being a “wowser”.
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The need to forgive ourselves
John the Baptist is among the most theologically significant figures in the Gospels. In Luke’s gospel, his birth narrative parallels that of Jesus. His conception is announced by an angel, and his birth was a surprise gift to his aged parents. The expectant mothers of Jesus and John meet and rejoice that they have been blessed by God. The children are cousins, and both will begin their mission in the desert.
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Prevailing hope, not despair
Over the centuries there have been terrible disasters that to the people of the time would have seemed like signs of the apocalypse. There was the Black Death in the 14th century that killed 50 million people in Europe or some 60 percent of the population; the First World War followed by the influenza epidemic; and the destruction wrought by the Second World War.
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The kingdom is the truth
The first reading today is from the Book of Daniel (2nd century BC). It foretells the coming of a mysterious “one like a son of man.” This was a title that Jesus used of himself. The Church reads this text as prophesying the universal Kingship of Christ.
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Always a faithful God
A man thrown into a den of hungry lions; three youths cast into a massive furnace; dreams and visions; kings gone mad; angelic beings appearing and disappearing: the Book of Daniel is wild stuff. It certainly captivated Jesus, who identified himself as the visionary’s ‘Son of Man’ riding on the clouds as Lord and Judge of the world.
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