Word in the Hand

Opening Prayer Here I am Lord, Listening Speak to me within my heart and soul. I am listening. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians 2:14 ‘in Christ, God leads us from place to place’ Reflection You have to ask yourself; what would you do if you had just risen from the dead? After all you had gone through and suffered –then to return to those people you thought were friends; who had said that they would stand by you and didn’t. Who had seemed to understand and didn’t. Would you be walking in the dust and dirt of a country road; would you be eating fish; would you be cooking fish? Almost the absurdity of this proves that Jesus is not just human – our pride, our ego would not have allowed us to do this; our feeling of superiority would have got the better of us. At the very least, we would have floated gracefully above the ground, a banquet would have been magicked out of thin air. We would have looked like the god we though we were. But if Jesus had done this; if the Christ that he became ha...

Here I am Lord, Listening Speak to me within my heart and soul. I am listening. John 20:14 Who are you looking for? Reflection How strange to be the only one here who mourns. Is it so easy to forget? Is our own safety so much more important? Those that said they would die with him – hiding behind shutters in darkened rooms. No matter, the whole world is dark to me now and I sit with just words of hope. The guards have left for their beds; they have had no need of their swords. But see; the stone rolled away. Will they have taken him? Will there be further humiliation to prove that we cannot stand against the Roman Empire? But where, where has he gone? A shadow crosses my eye line; perhaps one of the others, perhaps a gardener. Perhaps not a gentleman – to ask so starkly ‘Who are you looking for?’ But he may be my only hope, so I reply and then - he speaks my name. Master, Rabbi, Lord, friend, my life, my heart – it is him – how could I not have seen, not recognised? But not him – or r...

Gospel John 3:1-8 There was one of the Pharisees called Nicodemus, a leading Jew, who came to Jesus by night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who comes from God; for no one could perform the signs that you do unless God were with him.’ Jesus answered: ‘I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said, ‘How can a grown man be born? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?’ Jesus replied: ‘I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God: what is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows wherever it pleases; you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. That is how it is with all who are born of the Spirit.’ And here is a Before the Resurrection, Resurrection story. The Lord telling us what happens w...

Gospel John 20:19-31 In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’ After saying this he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.’ Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. When the disciples said, ‘We have seen the Lord’, he answered, ‘Unless I see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.’ Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was wit...

Gospel Luke 24:35-48 The disciples told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread. They were still talking about all this when he himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’ In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, ‘Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.’ And as he said this he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes. Then he told them, ‘This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in...

We have morning prayer before Mass and this morning, being the Anniversary of Hillsborough, and us being a Merseyside parish - there were many heartfelt personal prayers for victims, survivors and families. The emotions of all those present were evident from the heartfelt tones and hesitations in the voices. This type of vocal and implusive prayer is quite unusual in Catholic churches and I have been thinking since about how we really pray. There are, of course, dozens of ways, ritually, vocally, musically, communally and personally but the prayer is only ever about the line of communication between you and God and what is that like? Modern technology means that there are many methods of communication available yet people still sit alone in houses; feel alone in a crowd; have no-one to visit; no-one to understand; no-one to turn to. The line of communication may exist but it takes two, and maybe it has to be the right two, too. The thing with modern technology is that communication has...

Mark 16:1-8 When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ But when they looked they could see that the stone – which was very big – had already been rolled back. On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement. But he said to them, ‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him. But you must go and tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going before you to Galilee; it is there you will see him, just as he told you.”’ Happy Easter and how is it for you. Did you wake up with the brightest of new dawns and a ...

Here I am Lord, Listening Speak to me within my heart and soul. I am listening. Luke 23:46 Father, into Your hands Reflection Why? I remember, Lord, the ‘Come and See’. Remember, I came; following, listening, learning. Full of joy, full of hope – the New Day was going to dawn, the Kingdom of God was near. I did not come to ‘see’ this, Lord; standing ankle deep in the waste of the city, tears streaming silently down my face, my mouth full of blood as I bite down on my tongue to stop myself from crying out. For I do not want these others to know that I know you. I don’t know you. The fear, the demons, the hopelessness is back and you are not here to save me. The crowd shouts out to you ‘Save yourself’ and I truly believe that you could – even now, you could. But it seems you are taking yourself out of this world. Your light is too bright for them and they have closed their eyes against it. What sort of plan was this? You had driven me here with the message of love and forgiveness. But wh...

We are an impatient people. The Great Vigil Mass, meant to finish with the new day starts around 7.00/8.00pm so we are celebrating the Resurrection and home in time for hot chocolate and Match of the Day. This, of course, is me being flippant - a tone that creeps in when I am bothered by something. The something is the waiting, not a thing I am good at to be honest, I can meditate for hours....but waiting always brings out the 'there must be something I can be doing' in me. But today, there is nothing else. We do not create the Resurrection, the Risen Christ is not for us to conjure up. It is for the Father to give back the life that was surrendered. And really, why should He? Imagine our God, as big as you can imagine, beyond what you can imagine. Imagine our God of Trinity, dancing in love and life since forever, and one of Him is lost, for us. The gyroscope of power unbalanced, winding down, all because we don't know how much we mean to Him. Was three days the limit th...

Opening Prayer Here I am Lord, Listening Speak to me within my heart and soul. I am listening. Matthew 26:40 ‘Could you not watch with Me?’ Reflection Here we are, those that are left, at the foothills; the boundary between the desert and civilisation. Behind us miles of nothingness, scarifying winds and sand rubbing our bodies raw; emptying our minds of colour; the need to survive has taken away the desire for the world’s enticements. We are content that we simply live. Ahead of us, the next part of the journey; what seemed to be the goal but now I am not so sure; the well travelled road to the city gates then on to what lies beyond. What lies beyond? It’s not been that long, only a couple of weeks, but it seems a lifetime since he made the invitation ‘Come and See’. That’s what worries me now. His words always seem so simple, so obvious; ‘Love your neighbour’, ‘forgive’, ‘be as children’. Quiet words, tattooed onto your heart, impossible to ignore, impossible sometimes to obey. Sadn...

Now that I can start to see improvements in my son's health, the visit to the Hospital restaurant is turning into something of a people watching experience. As they say - all human life is here. And I am learning the trick of seeming to look one way whilst my gaze is concentrated on another. Today I watched a young woman following a complicated ritual surrounded by the ebb and flow of the staff and 'sleeping in parents'. I had a hunch, based on prior experience, that this was someone with an eating disorder and my observations seemed to prove me right. She was very calculating in her design. She took a table for four and put something, a coat, bag, briefcase (she did appear to be staff rather than visitor) on each of the chairs. Then she made two visits to the counters returning with the basics of four meals which she set out in front of each chair. When she was happy with the layout she sat down and ate the first of the meals, disappeared; returned with an extra coffee whi...

Opening Prayer Here I am Lord, Listening Speak to me within my heart and soul. I am listening. Mark 8:12 If I have anything to say about it, you'll not get so much as a hint of a guarantee." Reflection I know that sometimes you feel let down -you live with uncertainty, Life is hard at the best of times, at the worst of times – unbearable. And you want me to take that from you. People are not kind, they can be downright cruel. And you want me to change them. The future is bleak, not a place you want to be. And you want me to change that. And it’s not that I can’t …after all the life I want for you is not like that… But that is the life that is created by wanting what the world offers… You seek the rewards for following the rules; the promotions for achieving your targets; the lifestyles for being on top; the image for fitting in… And when you think you have done all that – the next rule, the next target, the next must have…? When all you have to do is – be mine. Yet it is no ea...