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Gathering In, Sending Out
One of the themes I have heard over and over in recent weeks, and from all sorts of sources, is the idea of ‘gathering’ – as a Church, we are ‘gathered’ by the Lord. And the very word itself is repeated again and again in Scripture, associated with all sorts of imagery to illustrate the meaning behind the word. Christ tells us that when we gather in His name, He is there among us (Mt.18); and John tells us the Lord gathers into one those who are scattered (Jn.11). The Psalmist (Ps.102) also speaks of nations and peoples gathering in order to serve the Lord. Deuteronomy tells of the Lord…
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A Fount of Living Water
Scripture uses a very beautiful expression in several difference places – it is the metaphor of God as a spring of ‘living water’. In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah recounts the Word of the Lord which has come to him, admonishing the faithlessness of the people. Those words of the Lord use many motifs but among them, there is this line – “they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters” (Jer.2:12). The same idea is mentioned again later, when the prophet castigates the people – “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be put to shame; those who turn away from You shall be written…
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Exalting The Cross
‘Exaltation’ seems like such a strange word to use in reference to the Cross of Christ. Exaltation? Why on earth would we want to exalt an instrument of horror, humiliation, torture and death? What conceivable reason could there be for having a feast day to celebrate the Cross? The Christians of earlier centuries seemed to have had much the same thought; on the relatively rare occasions when a Cross was depicted in early Christian art, it was the Cross alone, in it’s simplest and plainest form, and certainly never with the figure of Christ upon it. Only much, much later did we begin to depict Christ upon that Cross –…
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Heavenly Lightning
In all of nature, one of the most beautiful and powerful events is lightning. Although it can sometimes seem a little frightening to us, it is hard not to be awed by the magnificence of a lightning storm as those great streaks flash across the sky. This lightning makes it’s presence clearly known, the brilliant luminance illuminating everything around it. In Christianity there is something similarly powerful and magnificent, whose strength is beyond measure – it is the Holy Spirit. This weekend, we will celebrate the great feast of the Holy Spirit – Pentecost. This is the culmination of the season of Eastertide and it is the fulfilment of the…
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Night Had Fallen
They say the Word of God “is alive and active”. Now, it may not always seem that way – there are many times we might be reading the Scriptures and, no sooner have we finished, we might be hard-pressed to summarise what we have just read or listened to. But it is not always like that – in fact, sometimes, quite the opposite happens. So it was today. Sitting at Mass early this morning, I had read the reading from Isaiah and the the Psalm, before the priest read out the Gospel from St John’s Gospel. It was the account of the Last Supper and the prediction of the betrayal…
