As Jesus made his way to Jerusalem, and to his Passion and death, the Apostles James and John put to him a request. In doing so they put us all forever in their debt. Thank God for this instance of tactlessness and stupidity! Their ambitious striving for the top places in the coming Kingdom evoked from Jesus a response that gives us a privileged insight into into his own mind, into the Christian life; into God’s plan of salvation.
Homily for Sunday 28B, 10 October 2021 (Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30)
The story of the Rich Young Man we heard in today’s Gospel is such a divine word. We receive it as ever alive and active; not to be judged by us, but precisely to judge us; to scrutinise our secret thoughts and intentions (Hb 4:12). This is the passage that prompted the youthful Antony, father of all monks, to abandon all things in order to follow Christ, round about the year 269.
Homily for the 8 o’clock Mass, 12 September 2021, Sunday 24B: Mark 8:27-35
Today’s Gospel invites us all to make two decisions. Each of these decisions threatens to overturn our whole life and our whole normal way of thinking. Each will demand absolutely everything from us, up to our life itself. We could say that the purpose of St. Mark, in writing his Gospel, is to help us face these decisions, and, by God’s grace, make them our own.
Homily for 5 September 2021, Sunday 23B: Mark 7:31-37; Ps 118/119:137,124
Homily for Sunday 13B, 27 June 2021: Mark 5:21-43
The interwoven story of the daughter of Jairus, and the woman with a haemorrhage, is told by St. Matthew in 8 verses; by St. Luke in 16 verses; and by St. Mark in 22 verses. We’ve just heard St. Mark’s account. It’s marvellously well told: full of humanly interesting little details omitted by the others. Of the three versions we have, St. Mark’s is by far the fullest, most lively, most dramatic, most immediate.