6th Sunday of Easter A 10 May 2026 Sermon

 6^th  Sunday of Easter (A) 10 May 2026

‘Always have within you the reason for the hope you have’ 1 P 3,15

 This will help us and enable us to help anyone who asks us.

What is the reason for our hope?  We are promised a very happy eternity, ultimately meaning that we will see a lot more happiness than unhappiness if we see the whole span of time.

We face many difficulties  in this life but the consolations are much greater.

This is our hope and the same hope we can offer to others.

It is a real hope, not just a story someone has made up to feel good.

We love a happy ending; in this case we are headed right for one.

We need constant reinforcement of the basic pattern of our belief.

We believe all these things, but maybe not enough. Not yet but we are getting there.

The things we believe do not change, while we might change.

We can always return to base and make a fresh start, and that is why the Church offers cycles and seasons, where days and weeks can have their own way of influencing us for the good.

Our faith is the precious pearl (Mt 13,45-46) for which we would exchange all our possessions, so valuable is it.

We can share the reason for our faith without having perfect faith ourselves.

We are learning as we go. Those we share our faith with may be better at it than we are ourselves. Not a problem if it means we all reach the heavenly city.

The Church is the tree to which all the birds will fly (Mt 13, 31-32) the people that need to come in. Or call them the harvest that is waiting to be gathered.

Another reason it can be hard to share the faith is that the listener may disagree with one or more aspects and therefore be hard to convince.

Some listeners have gone so far as to kill the evangelist. We honour those who have had the courage to give up their lives in that way.

Another reason for difficulty is the perception that there is a certain arrogance in offering the faith to another. How do I know my belief is better than his? We do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ 2  Co 4,5 St Paul tells us.

Our belief is in Him not ourselves.

It does work a lot better if the one proclaiming the message is living a good life, but it is important to understand that the message remains through all weathers.  The heavens declare the glory of God. Ps 19,1

We will not force the faith on anyone to believe it, will not force it. We won’t torture you but we will seek to persuade you.

Our behaviour is our most ready form of advertising. Let your light shine Mt 5, 14-16     and 1 Peter you will convert others without a word being spoken (1 P 3,1-2)

We pray and fast; we come back again and again to the main points. All this we believe is real; we are on a winner here, and the finish line is in sight, poetically speaking.

The more we believe it the mor we will proclaim it. I should be condemned if I did not preach it 1 Co 9,16.

Today we honour our mothers. For many of us probably the most influential person in our reaching the faith would be that same person who has done so much else.

We pray for those mothers still with us, and for those who have left us, that their hope be fulfilled.

We cannot omit Our Lady, the perfect mother, who leads us all in hope as in every virtue, and whom we honour in the month of May.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

5th Sunday of Easter (A) 3rd May 2026 Sermon

 5^th Sunday of Easter 3rd May 2026 Revealing God

 Jesus came to show  us what God was like. If you see Me you see the Father as well.(today’s Gospel Jn 14,9)

 And what do we see when we look at Jesus? Tell John what you see and hear – the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame jump for joy – (Mt 11,4-5)

 This is what God is like: He saves, He heals, He lifts up from the ditch… all positive, and someone we are glad to know. He is everything that is good, kind, generous, merciful. He is all good and nothing bad.

 If we do not understand something about God’s promises, the fault will be with us, not God.

 If we can be patient we will understand all that we need to know of God's nature, and His way of acting.

 The whole idea of the Incarnation was that God would come down to the earth and start repairing things. By the time He came there was a lot of sin about - unconfessed, unrepented, unamended, which made a very murky environment for Him to work in. – so far were things degenerated that even when He came He was still not welcomed. (Jn 1,11)

 However, He did work many miracles, which were helpful to the people who received them, but also were strongly symbolic of what was achievable and what was to come.

 Amidst all these happy events, He came also to correct where beliefs and behaviour had become muddled.

 A lot of this side of His ministry struck resistance. Many preferred the dark to the light; many still do, but the offer of salvation is always there.

 He taught us that if we stay close to Him, we will be protected from the worst of the evil going round.  If we give up our false gods, amend our ways, we will know a much greater happiness.

 God is not cruel by nature, as some think, but always working for our advantage.

 Trust in Him (Jn 14,1). Stay on board and you will find all you need.

 If we approach Him He will not turn us away. A humble and contrite  heart You will not spurn (Ps 51,17)

 He came to show us what God is like. We could also say that He came to show us what we are like, or can be like. He took on our nature but without sin (Heb 4,15). He embraced our humanity but also acted to improve it, by removing the imperfections.

 We approach Him then, not in fear but trust.

 By a combination of mercy and grace Jesus will act in and around us to help us go deeper in our search for ultimate happiness; to find that place He has gone to prepare (Jn 14,2).

 At the Last Supper, when Jesus delivered these words, He was trying to strengthen His apostles, to cement them in their faith, so that they could be strong for others as well as themselves. By the time of Pentecost they were ready for that responsibility!

 As we can be ready for whatever mission the Lord has in store for us.

 

 

 

 

4th Sunday of Easter 26 April 2026 Sermon

4^th Sunday of Easter 26.4.26   Good Shepherd

Whenever we see a large number of people, we can think - more sheep for the Good Shepherd to gather in!

He wants to save all of them, and the worst ones even more again.

The Good Shepherd will not be satisfied just to keep most of the flock in view. He will go after the lost even if has the other ninety-nine in place.

(Parable of lost sheep Lk 15, 3-7)

And the salvation in this case is not just an impersonal rescue, like picking up a whole batch, but is a personal pursuit on the shepherd’s part.

He knows His sheep by name, and not just the name, but everything about each particular sheep.

He knows us far better than we know ourselves. All our hopes, fears, joys sorrows, what we most want, and least want. It is all in plain sight to Him.

He wants to help with all those things. Come to Me, and I will give you rest Mt 11,28)

It is tailor-made salvation, where whatever is wrong can be set right, and whatever is right can be made better still.

Imagine what a quantity of need there is, when a large number of people are considered.

We might get a general idea of the scale, but only God can see it exactly.

We have His full attention. He speaks to each one, on a personal level.

We should not make it hard for Him to find us. Instead, let us run to Him.

In our need let us go closer to Him instead of moving away.

We can take comfort that this world, as vast as it is, and often called cruel – is in fact under the providence of a loving and all-powerful God.

To know we have God ruling the world instead of nobody running it, is a great relief.  If we look into a vast sky or wilderness or sea - we are not seeing something impersonal. For the heavens declare the glory of God (Ps 19,1)

Sometimes the lesser beings show more sense than we do. They set about worshipping God, while we want to complain and dispute with Him.

Jesus calls His sheep to a deep trust in Himself. We will not run from Him when we realize how much He is doing for us.

He calls us by name; now we call Him by name. the Holy Name which is above every other name. (Ph 2,9-11)

So we see sometimes He calls , sometimes we call Him. The constant communication will bring much good fruit.

Today is Vocations Sunday, on which day we consider God's call for a number of His people to be priests and religious.

We need as well to pray for the context out of which vocations come.

If the general faithful are truly faithful they will generate more vocations, and it will not be seen as anything unusual or somehow wrong.

It is not unusual to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, to want more of what He is offering us.

Our prayer can help generate a climate of expectancy, whereby it is normal and good to consider religious life. Faith is contagious and will find its way in, even when opposed. We are glad to be part of the whole process. May His Kingdom come among us!

 

 

3rd Sunday of Easter 19 April, 2026 Sermon

3^rd Sunday of Easter  19 April 2026 Revelation

God likes to reveal Himself in stages. He wants us to know Him, to interact with Him. He appreciates that we can only take things in, bit by bit.

God can be seen as a remote figure, not greatly relevant.

There is a lot we cannot know about God, but there is always something more that we can know.

We learn about God from the Scriptures, from the Liturgy, the teachings of the Church, the inspiration of the saints.

We come to appreciate His perfection, His benevolence to us.

We discover the need to keep God central in our lives. We do not push Him to the side, whether through some grievance with Him, or through indifference or distraction.

Some of His mysterious nature He reveals to us when we are ready to absorb what He tells us.

Take the Emmaus story. The disciples had a good start in that they were weeping for Christ.

Then they took a wrong turning by admitting defeat too quickly.

Then they recovered again by recognizing Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

God wants us to know him better, to understand his words, miracles, prophecies etc

The success of Our Lord’s coming was total as regards Himself but not yet complete at ground level.

To help others grasp this teaching, it means some have to take the lead and give good example; to make God present in this place and time.

Much of the world is godless so it is a huge task, but this is a good place to be in the process – here in the house of the Lord.

Some things we understand, and one of those things is that God wants people to know him,  

If we call on God only when things are going wrong, that is treating Him like a repair-man. We don’t expect to know the names of all the people that do jobs for us; we do need to know God's name.

With God it is highly personal, and He wants us to respond  in that way as far as we can.

He wants us to take an interest in Him; to be aware of His personal presence, really acting for the good.

Everyone should be doing this. It would be a much better world if they did; for the moment we will have to get by on reduced numbers!

Once we start on the path of knowing God we will be drawn further and further along that path. God is loveable even though mysterious.

We pool our talents and see the whole Body moving forward.

We help each  other to find Him, and know Him better. One person is up, the other down; another day it can be the other way round.

Our public communal worship is important.

Today many see  the point of religion as ‘helping people’ and that is the only point for them.

But we need to know God as well, for our own benefit and because He commands it. He does not need our love but He desires it.

Those who want to know will know. Seek and you shall find. Mt 7,7

Does it look like nothing is moving in the spiritual world? There are things going on that we cannot detect from the physical senses.

However the holier our lives the more aware we become and the more we do find out.

Meanwhile we walk with the Lord, like the two disicples.

2nd Sunday of Easter A 12 April 2026 Sermon

2^nd Sunday of Easter A  12 April 2026 Expectant faith 

It was one thing to rise from the dead. Jesus then had another task to perform, and that was  harder – to convince people, including even His disciples that He had indeed risen!

The last chapters of each of the four gospels give accounts of the kind of resistance He met. The apostles just could not believe it; they were not used to things going that right.

We are so accustomed to bad news that when we hear the good we are inclined to doubt it. What’s the catch, we might say.

Our world is in many ways hostile to the faith, and this can affect us. We still have the faith but it is harder to flourish when surrounded by negative factors, such as ridicule, scepticism, denial, persecution etc.

Even those who had been with Jesus for years still had trouble believing His word, though they had seen so many miracles.

Jesus told His disciples He would rise (Mk 8,31),  so why did they not believe it?

The disciples believed, but not yet enough. They were too much accustomed to the world of death to be ready for resurrection.

Now they had more life in their midst than they could handle. They were joyful, but needed a new way of grasping things.

For our part, are we thinking resurrection? We are in the same position as those first disciples.  We need to build up our faith, our expectancy of  God's marvellous actions in our midst.

And as always when we need something big it is from God that our help will come.

Jesus gave His followers a necessary lift. He appeared to them over and over until it finally sank in.

He does the same for us, not with appearances, but evidence of His goodness in our midst.

Much of it comes through the saints, canonised or not, who have given witness by their lives of the truth of the Resurrection. They have gone out into the cold wind of resistance in all its forms, and kept the flame alight.

We share in the Resurrection of Christ, firstly by coming to faith in Him, then by acting according to His teaching, then also by receiving Him sacramentally.

The apostles reached a level of identification with Christ such that even the shadow of  Peter would heal the sick (Ac 5, 15-16) or contact (Ac 19,11-12) with handkerchiefs, aprons,  of Paul.

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One thing the apostles had to do was organize the Church, sending people here and there, esgtablishing new dioceses and parishes (as we would call them now). All one Church, just getting bigger.

It means that disciples come and go from different necessities, which means sometimes sad farewells, as more and more varied needs musdt be attended to.

Thus, in this parish we have reached a need for some re-positioning, and this always means some sadness, but of course some new friendships can be made, and life goes on. In our case resurrection life.

We are destined to meet again, in Heaven if not before.

In our particular case the moves are not so dramatic, all being in the same city.

But near or far, we are always bound by our link with Christ. We are at one with all who are at one with Him.

1 Th 5, 11 Therefore  encourage one another, and build each other up. Just as in fact you are doing.’  That’s what we will do, by God's grace.

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Vigil 2026 Sermon

Holy Saturday 4 April 2026  Keeping vigil

When we keep vigil it means we are waiting for something to happen which has not happened yet, but we greatly hope it will happen.

It can be associated with anxiety, like attending to a sickness; or with joy, as in welcoming a returning traveller.

We have both anxiety and joy in our dealings with God.

We are anxious if  certain problems we face seem larger than we are and might be too much. But we continue to wait and pray for a happy resolution of the problem.  In  our anxiety we reaffirm our trust in God.

We are joyful in our vigil as we sense the power of God  coming through, like the first light of dawn breaking up the darkness.

Our Easter vigil is of the joyful kind, as vigils go. We know that whatever anguish we feel at Christ’s death, the certainty of  His resurrection will be stronger.

This is why we have a Saturday Mass for the Resurrection, and not just go straight to the Sunday. The Saturday Mass forces us to express trust in God to bring events to their best conclusion. Expectant waiting is something we get used to in our faith life.

On Sunday morning we allow ourselves to feel the full force of Jesus’s resurrection. That is more straightforward. He is risen and will never go back to the tomb.

Fortunately the joyful side will eventually be the whole reality and not have to share the stage with anxiety and other negative factors.

Jesus spent only three days in the tomb and every other day outside of it, and He certainly will not be going back there.

This is ‘keeping vigil’ - the more we expect things to go the right way the more joyful we are in anticipation.

And the better we will behave, because we learn a divine patience, God is always acting for good. We know that even if we cannot detect the precise way He is doing that.

We  have just heard many readings, shedding light on various aspects of our faith. Whenever we mention the past, it is to remind us how much trouble we have seen, but gradually we will emerge from the rubble and have only joy!

We reclaim the past not ignoring it, but drawing wisdom from it.

Then finally tonight we go into the Mass as the crowning event , still anticipating, because other things need to happen – but we are more secure because we have come so far. Those readings are our own story, which is still being written.

After it all, we express gratitude for what has been and what will be.

We do not become jaded or cynical, thinking that talk of a better future is just wishing on a star.

We will not become cynical if we pray consistently. We do  not accept that the world can never change.

Worlds can change if people change. And that much any person can achieve.

5th Sunday of Lent A 22 March 2026 Sermon

5th Sunday of Lent 22 March 2026  Life triumphs

We have desire for two things, somewhat opposed but both valid.

One is to go to Heaven, the other one is to stay here. We are happy to die if it is somewhere out there, a remote event, but not if it is today or tomorrow!

If we die at an unwanted time and it means we go to Heaven, we can come to like that.

We are supposed to trust the will of God. He knows His timing and He may have different ways of dealing with each person. For example, a short life or a long life, who can tell?

We try to cure sickness, of course, but we give way to the inevitable. Much is beyond us.

God is not as worried about death as we tend to be, because He is Lord of the living and the dead. (Rom 14,9). He knows both sides.

We know that God is concerned more with the state of the soul than that of the body, so He works for a closer union with each person. He wants people to know and love  Him; to come to a life that cannot die, and which will  bear much fruit in doing Gods will.

My greatest aim is to please God, we can say, but in practice it is more likely we please ourselves while trying not to offend God.

If God created us and designed the whole universe, and how everything works, we can trust in His being able to handle our life and death.

What Jesus did with Lazarus was unusual, but entirely within His power.

We ask the Lord to give us the right balance in dealing with these things.

Ph 1,20-26 :I am happy to live happy to die, whatever God wants, I want.

We see this with Jesus himself. He died to please the Father, while also fulfilling His own will, over which He had perfect control.

We should take reasonable care of our health and try to live as long as possible, but not clinging to life through fear.  The martyrs show us the way. They could see Heaven more than earth as they gave up their lives.

It is alright to want these things, which are really different stages of the same reality.

So it is natural if I pray for a safe trip, or a good result to the medical test, but we will be able to cope with whatever happens.

I want to be as good a disciple as I can be. And that is the basis for a happy death.

We will not resent dying but will see it as primarily a joyful thing,  as we go to a better state.

We wish this for others whom we love, that each person will come to the full spiritual understanding of his own death and what is involved.

The miracle of Lazarus was just God’s way of  demonstrating the power that he has, and the goodwill He has towards us.

Who can raise the dead by a word? He whose voice will bring forth the dead (Jn 5,25).

He is teaching us two things. Let go of those you love, and do not doubt that there is enough Life there to receive them.

We are now in the last two weeks  of Lent and we will have deeper thoughts on these matters at this time.

The Crucifixion looks like the end of the road and the crushing of all  hope; yet so quickly is that position reversed.

Life overpowers death, and we must get used to that idea. Only three days in the tomb, a great many more days outside!

More generally this is how God deals with us. We  think He has forgotten us etc, but then He reveals His hand and we realize He has never left us.  How slow we are to adopt that message; can we go a little faster this final stage of Lent?