The car on the drive has been fully loaded with outdoor and picnic equipment, a child has already been seated inside the car with seatbelt fastened. There’s a woman standing beside the car, slapping her forehead, suddenly remembering she has to go to Mass because it’s Sunday; opposite her stands a man in despair, frustrated by his wife’s sudden realisation.…
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‘The Lord appointed seventy-two others.’ That’s roughly three times the number of people gathered in this church this morning. Who were those ‘seventy-two others’? What were their names? We don’t know. We do know though that they were other than the twelve Apostles, the closest confidants of Jesus, who would later be given responsibility for the church. Those ‘seventy-two others’…
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My friends from Poland were usually surprised to hear I was a Parish Priest at St Peter’s Church in Buckie. The surprising bit was that the church bore the name of St Peter only. In my home country, if a church is dedicated to St Peter the Apostle, it’s virtually always dedicated to St Paul too. To a Polish Catholic’s…
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Pentecost Sunday. What are we celebrating today? ‘The outpouring of the Holy Spirit’ is the obvious answer in the light of today’s first reading, fifty days after Easter (that’s what Pentecost means). On the other hand, today’s gospel reading tells us that Jesus offered the Holy Spirit to the Apostles on the very day of his resurrection. To add to…
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There are two main challenges with creating a sermon on today’s parable. The first one is its renown; so much high-quality artwork and literature have been produced that my attempts can only be extremely dwarfed. The second challenge is the parable’s richness. Once I delivered a 30-minute sermon, touching various aspects of the story. Rest assured, I’m not going to…