2020 Pluscarden Pentecost Lectures - “‘It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive’: Praise in an Age of Agitation”

We live in times marked by the omnipresence of agitation—political, religious, economic, cultural, ‘virtual’, psychological, familial. Anger and unsettledness are everywhere. And, yet, the first words that the Church speaks every day are: “Lord, open my lips…

Homily for the 8 o’clock Mass, Sunday 6A, 16 February 2020, Matthew 5:17-37

We are in the Sermon on the Mount, according to St. Matthew. The lectionary gives us a series of extracts from that to be read over these Sundays before the beginning of lent. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus offers a description of those who belong to his Kingdom: their attitudes, their…