The three women in tonight’s gospel were rushing to the tomb of Jesus to do him an ultimate favour they hadn’t done on Friday because of lack of time. Although they had diligently observed the rest of the Sabbath, their minds had been at work all that time, planning ahead. This is why on the way to Jesus’ tomb they…

It was the summer examination session of my second last year in the seminary. My colleagues and I were exhausted with the intensive mental effort required to pass the exams. We needed to do something different just for a break. I got an idea for a simple, pretty mindless, but useful physical activity. I’d climbed many times to the top…

Last week we heard of the sickening story of Kristy Bamu, a 15 year-old boy savagely tortured to death by his sister and her partner in a religiously motivated act. Somehow this story came into my head when I read today’s first reading about Abraham making a religious sacrifice of his only child. The original purpose of that story was…

Every Lent starts with the story of Jesus tempted in the desert by the devil. Saint Mark’s version is very short; in contrast to St Matthew and St Luke, he doesn’t present many details about the temptations or methods of the devil. Although Jesus spent more than a month in the desert, St Mark’s gospel barely mentions it. For him,…

In a couple of days Lent will kick off. Many people, even non-believers, will start it in the traditional way by consuming pancakes on Tuesday. Polish people actually followed their traditions and started last Thursday, eating piles of doughnuts – the ones I had were delicious. Combining those two traditions gives me two excuses to devour a lot of savoury…