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Present Tense Saints
For two thousand years, the Catholic faith has proposed to every one of us that we are called to become Saints. When the Lord walked the earth, He counselled us – “Be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Mt.5:48). A saint is a person who has faithfully walked that way of perfection of which the Lord speaks, reaching Heaven as it’s conclusion. And so if the Lord tells us to ‘be’ perfect, then it may be hard to achieve – but it is at least possible. It’s all too easy for us to think about the Saints in Heaven in the past tense; they have been and…
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St Martha’s Candle
Martha was the sister of Lazarus (yes, that Lazarus) and of Mary. All three are now immortalised in the Gospels and they are frequently mentioned at Catholic funerals, for obvious reasons. We meet Martha in Saint Luke’s Gospel, where the Lord describes her as being “anxious and worried about many things” (Lk.10:41). We meet her again in the Gospel of Saint John, where we read the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Here, Martha goes out to meet the Lord who is coming to their house, while her sister Mary remains inside. It is on this occasion that Martha makes her confession of faith – “I have…
