Home Homilies Michael Whelan SM, PhD

Gospel for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (18 August 2024)

The experience of “longing” helps us understand “life”. You knew longing as a child – “Are we nearly there yet?”. You knew it is an adolescent when you thought of the summer holidays. You knew it when you fell in love. You know it now – no matter how old you are. Being is be-longing. Enough is never enough. We are restless beings because we are made for “more”. Living is longing!

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Gospel for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (11 August 2024)

The Founder of the Marist Fathers – Jean Claude Colin (1790-1875) – said that once people have “tasted God” everything else will look after itself. All the idols that dwell within the thicket of unreality and prevent you hearing God’s invitation, will gradually disappear. Knowing you are loved is a powerful antidote to all manner of physical, moral and spiritual diseases!

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Gospel for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) (4 August 2024)

Bread, in the Bible, as elsewhere, is food. But in the Bible bread is also a profound symbol of God’s care and concern for the people with whom he has entered a Covenant. Bread is a communal symbol, representing hospitality and identity. Our English word “companion” – from the Latin com meaning “together” and panis meaning “bread” – reflects something of this tradition. A true companion is someone with whom we share bread.

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