Jesus laments for the unrepentant towns In today’s Gospel from Matthew (11: 20-24) we hear Jesus lamenting over towns such as Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. He laments because he has worked many miracles in these towns, which the people have witnessed and yet still they fail to heed the message to repent; they [...]
The Gospel today comes from Matthew (10: 34 -11:1) and, like Saturday, our reading is at the end of the second set of Jesus’ sayings. On Saturday the theme was divine protection; today Jesus is challenging his disciples and us, as the readers of the Gospel, to give serious thought to what [...]
Feast of St Benedict Today we celebrate the memorial of St Benedict, who was born in 480 in Nursia in Italy and died in 547. After our Gospel from Matthew (10:24-33) we will learn a little bit more about St Benedict and his life. In his life Benedict studied in Rome and [...]
Jesus sends the twelve as sheep among the wolves In today’s Gospel (Matthew 10: 16-23), like the last couple of days, Jesus is instructing the disciples for their missionary work. Fr Paul says when we hear these instructions we need to be aware of 3 levels: The first level is that Jesus [...]
Jesus instructs his disciples Yesterday we began the mission discourse of Jesus with the naming of the twelve. Today in Matthew’s Gospel (10: 7-15) we are hearing of Jesus’ instructions to them as the commissioning of the twelve continues. Fr Paul says yesterday they were named and today they get their job [...]
Jesus names the twelve Today we move on to Chapter 10 of Matthew’s Gospel and Fr Paul says we need to be aware that Matthew’s Gospel is made up of five collections of the sayings of Jesus, or discourses as they are called. Yesterday we came to the end of the first [...]
The harvest is plenty but the labourers few Fr Paul says that in today’s Gospel (Matthew 9: 32-38) we hear of the completion of the ten miracles (or wonders) we began talking about last week. Matthew is stressing that Jesus is the Saviour of Israel and that people are in awe because nothing like [...]
Yesterday’s readings were replaced with those for the Feast of St Thomas so we missed hearing about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners in the readings for Ordinary time, in which Fr Paul says, Jesus was showing his love, care and compassion rather than sticking to the strict laws imposed by the Pharisees. In [...]
Feast of St Thomas, the apostle Today Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of John (20:24-29) about Thomas’ encounter with the risen Jesus. Apart from this passage and a couple of other places in scripture, Fr Paul says we do not know very much about St Thomas. Most of us know Thomas [...]
The power to forgive sins Today’s Gospel (Matthew 9:1-8) emphasises Jesus power to forgive sins. Fr Paul says that towards the end of the Gospel, those who have witnessed the events are filled with awe at what happened and praise God for giving such power to forgive sins to men, to us, not [...]