Today as we celebrate the feast of the Chair of St Peter, Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel Matthew (16: 13-19) in which Peter in answer to Jesus’ question ‘Who do you say I am?’ says: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. Fr Paul says, very simply, this [...]
Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Luke (11: 29-32) in which Jesus says, ‘This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah’. Fr Paul says the theme of today’s Gospel is that Jesus will be a sign just like Jonah. [...]
Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Matthew (6: 7-15) in which Jesus teaches his disciples to pray and tells them to keep it simple because ‘the Father knows what you need before you ask him’. Fr Paul says our Gospel today is about how to pray. Matthew puts the Lord’s Prayer right [...]
Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Matthew (25: 31-46) in which Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats to explain how God will judge people’s actions. Fr Paul says this is the last of Matthew’s great parables. The world is finally divided into the ‘goodies’ and the ‘baddies’. The [...]
Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Luke (5: 27-32) in which Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees, who chastise him for eating with sinners ‘It is not those who are well who need the doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the virtuous, but sinners to repentance.” Fr [...]
Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Matthew (9: 14-15) in which John the Baptist’s disciples asked Jesus, ‘Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’. Fr Paul says the Gospel reading seems at first sight a puzzling choice for the start of Lent, for it [...]
Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Luke (9: 22-25) in which Jesus says to his disciples, ‘What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose their very self?’ Fr Paul says these first four days of Lent, before the First Sunday of Lent, set the tone in [...]
As Lent begins, Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Matthew (6: 1-6, 16-18) in which Jesus says to the disciples ‘be careful not to parade your good deeds before men… your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’. Fr Paul says this Gospel reading from Matthew is one [...]
Fr Paul Gooley reads today’s Gospel from Mark (8: 14-21) in which Jesus warns the disciples saying ‘Keep your eyes open! Be on your guard for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod’. Fr Paul says the failure of the disciples to understand Jesus is one of the features of Mark’s [...]
Fr Paul Gooley says the 6th week of Ordinary Time is only short because Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday on 14 February. Fr Paul reads today’s Gospel from Mark (8: 11-13) in which the Pharisees question and test Jesus, asking him for a sign from heaven. Fr Paul says this little [...]