27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Let the Children Come to me, in Families! (Mk 10: 2-16)
It is estimated that in Belgium over 70% of marriages end up in divorce – one of the highest rates in the world. Countries such as Spain and Portugal follow very closely with their percentage of divorce being well over 60%. It seems to me that, these days, as people prepare themselves for marriage they also might need to prepare themselves for divorce. I understand that it would be insensitive for us to stand at the pulpit and speak in a condemning way about divorce, given that it is a traumatic experience for people (including children) who have to deal with it. Sometimes it is not even their own fault that individuals […]
Month: September 2021
Sermon for 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B Homily
Believing and Belonging:
We saw someone who is not one of us…” (Mk 9:38, also Num 11:27)
There are two words that have featured very strongly in the study of religion since the 1990’s: ‘Believing’ and ‘Belonging’. In 1994, a British sociologist of religion (Grace Davie) published a book on the rise of secularism in Britain since 1945. She called her book, Believing without Belonging. In the book, she suggests that most people who do not belong to institutional religions have some form of belief about God. It is only that they don’t want to be part of a specific religion – either because they are tired of the atrocities committed in the name of religion or that they simply don’t have the time for it. There have been other books and articles on […]
Sermon for 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B Homily
25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Understanding the Faith Cycle
Mk 9:30-37
I shall share with you a reflection, based on the Gospel text of today, about what I think are the elements of Christian faith.
I would like to understand our Christian faith as a cycle. We can think of at least four major aspects or stages in this cycle of Christian faith: (1) Faith received; (2) Faith personalised; (3) Faith witnessed; and (4) Faith proclaimed.
Faith Received
We are Christians because someone shared with us their faith. Perhaps, most of us were born in a Christian family, and our parents shared their faith with us during our baptism; they brought us up as good Christians. I myself was born in a Christian family, in a village that was 100% Catholic. My people have been Christians […]
Learning to Live Together: Achieving the Spirit of Fratelli Tutti through Service Learning
Learning to Live Together: Achieving the Spirit of Fratelli Tutti through Service Learning
Abstract
In what is known as the “Delors Document of 1996,” UNESCO proposed four pillars of education in the 21st Century: Learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together. The aim of this chapter is to examine the similarity between the UNESCO document’s pillar of “learning to live together” and the spirit of Fratelli Tutti in building fraternity and social friendship among young people. Further, the chapter proposes “Service Learning” as a methodology of achieving the aims of UNESCO and Fratelli Tutti in the context of formal education.
The aim of the chapter is realised in three major sections and a strong conclusion. The three sections follow an adapted model of the pastoral cycle of […]
Sermon for 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B Homily
The Superstar with the Scar!
“Anyone who loses his life…will save it” (Mk 8:35).
The great orator Bishop Fulton Sheen in one of his many sermons makes a positive comment on the eagerness of Apostle Thomas wanting to put his fingers into the mark of the nails in the hands and feet of the Risen Christ (Jn 20:24-29). The Bishop says, Thomas wanted to see the scars of his superstar! Yes, our Superstar Jesus has his scars. He is a suffering servant!
The gospel text of today, on the one hand, invites us to a personalisation of our perception and experience of Jesus. Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?” (Mk 8:27). On the other hand, the Liturgy of the Word also invites us to acknowledge the role of suffering in the history of salvation. Jesus says, “The Son […]