Fr Jim's (old) Blog

The three liturgies of The Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday, the Lord's Passion on Good Friday afternoon and the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday night are interlocking. There's no dismissal at the end the Thursday, no sign of the cross to begin the Vigil, and the Lord's Passion begins in media res and has neither a start nor an end. They are really one articulation of the paschal mystery of Jesus spread across three days. This year is I think the first time I've ever celebrated and preached all the Easter liturgies on my own. I even washed 12 feet this year (I've variously washed 3, 4 or 6 feet in years past depending on how many priests and deacons I had with me at the time). So this is the first time that I've ever written homilies for the three liturgies which interlink, rather than alternating preaching with an assistant priest or deacon. I don't usually write my homilies out, as I can usually compose them mentally, rehearse and learn t...

Last year our parish hosted a Men Alive weekend, where 45 men aged from 19 to 90 gathered to learn from Jesus and one another how to be the best man, husband and father they can be. Each month since then we've had a monthly gathering for the men of the parish, not just those who did the weekend, where we've had mass and discussion time.  We met this week and shared on the passage from Hebrews 11 which lists so many of the heroes of faith, contrasting this with what Bishop Robert Barron calls "the Homer Simpsonisation of men", where in lots of media especially comedies women are smart and virtuous and men are stupid and selfish. We each shared about a man of faith who had been an influence on us, whether a saint or someone in our own lives. As we spoke one younger man who was there for the first time spoke about a couple of personal issues, and one of the older men sitting across from him replied with affirmation, challenge, and the advice to take his questions t...

Like so many people I was astonished last November that Donald Trump was voted president of the US. In hindsight, President Trump won by doing what President Obama did eight years earlier: mobilising a cohort of people who usually didn't vote. In Obama's case it was young people, poor people and black people. I remember this well; I was in Chicago in 2008 and my friends who had never voted before were registering to vote. In Trump's case, it was the blue collar unemployed, racists and the anti-government fringe.  So, while lots of us are wringing our hands or expecting the apocalypse, the ever magnanimous Pope Francis has wise words for us "Wait and see". In an interview reported by the Catholic News Service he said Being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite reckless," the pope said. "We will see. We will see what he does and then we will judge -- always on the concrete. Christianity either is...

Well, the blog is back after too long away! This weekend in my homily we are watching the first two minutes of a TED talk by Tim Urban called "Inside the mind of a master procrastinator" Click here for the whole talk At lot of people can resonate with the way we tend to put off difficult, boring or unpleasant tasks, and the way that sometimes catches up with us. I then contrast that very human tendency with the very graced way that Peter & Andrew, James and John respond when Jesus calls them in Matthew 4:12-23. When Jesus calls, they respond at once (or immediately in other translations). But not everyone who Jesus calls acts this way. There are others who procrastinate, saying yes, I'd love to, but first let me finish what I'm doing or let me go and do that thing first such as in Matt 8:21 or Luke 14:18-20. But they never return, and we never even learn their names. They are the unnamed, uncredited extras in the drama of the gospels. So when we kno...

Our children at Holy Cross School are studying Cambodia as part of their religious education "Mission" unit. It's great to see the natural sympathy the kids have for kids who don't have what they have. They naturally sense the injustice and want to help. But their options for helping seem to be limited to the inevitable "let's do a fundraiser". Which means getting other people to give money. I see this premise also in high school kids who are full of good will to raise money for charity, and even better, go on a "mission trip" or immersion experience, but who rarely correlate their own standard of living with an unfair share of the world's resources, of which the object of their concern suffer the lack. For awhile I've been watching our school do the eco-friendly project of collecting the lunch scraps and feeding them to the chickens. But the quantity of food thrown out has staggered me - 4 or 5 buckets a day, which is far too much f...

Weddings. Check. Baptisms. Check. Funerals. Check. I've done plenty of each. But a couple of weeks ago I got a call to do something I've never done before: bless a boat! This was a new surfboat. Macs are a fairly competitive club and do well in the state competitions. The club president gave a speech, I did a one minute prayer and blessing with holy water, and the widow of a long time club member poured champagne on the boat before the crew took it out for an inaugural row. There was such a good vibe there, and a few people I know from the parish. It struck me that there is a strong sense of community there in the surf club. Three things which the church offers; community, purpose and opportunities to serve, the surf club also does. For people without religious faith there must be a number of similar places in society which offer these.

During my time in Omaha I studied the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius . It is one thing to study them, but another to do them.The exercises can be done as a 30 day intensive retreat, or a week by week program. Much as I would love to, there isn't a spare month I could be away from the parish again, so I am doing the 30 week version. I receive spiritual direction via Skype from my director (referred from the Jesuit retreat centre in Pymble ). Each week she sends me a list of scripture passages to meditate on and other prayer exercises, and then in an hour conversation via Skype we talk just about how I have been praying. It has been a very focused experience of prayer thus far. In other experiences of spiritual direction in the past we have talked about a broader range of issues of life, prayer and ministry, but this is just about prayer, nothing else. I am praying with passages of scripture which of course I have known, such as Jesus' declaration of bringing good news t...