13 Sunday B: Talitha Kum

 Palmerstone North Evening Standard

When I was in New Zealand in 1973 I read this fascinating comment in a newspaper article by the Director of Radiotherapy and Radiology in that country: 'Cancer makes people start thinking of their lives. Everything they do has a keener edge on it and they get more out of life. In fact, some people never became complete human beings and really start living until they get cancer. We all know we are going to die some time, but cancer makes people face up to it. They are going to go on living with a lot of enjoyment, just because they have faced the fear of death. Cancer patients aren't dying. They are living. I have never seen a suicide because of cancer.'

Anthony Castle in 'Quotes and Anecdotes'

12 Sunday B: The Lord in the Storms of our Life

From Fr. Jude Botelho: "I say my prayers when it's calm." There is a story of about a captain who in his retirement skippered a boat taking day trippers to Shetland Islands. On one trip the boat was full of young people. They laughed at the old captain when they saw him saying a prayer before sailing out, because the day was fine and the sea was calm. However they weren't long at sea when a storm suddenly blew up and the boat began to pitch violently. The terrified passengers came to the captain and asked him to join them in prayer. But he replied, "I say my prayers when it's calm. When it's rough I attend to my ship." -There is here a lesson for us. If we cannot and will not seek God in quiet moments of our lives, we are not likely to find him when trouble strikes. But if we learn to seek him in quiet moments, then most certainly we will find him when the going gets rough. Flor McCarthy, in 'New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies'

Fathers' Day - Jun 17 2018

As A Life's End Draws Near, A Father And Son Talk

"For me, dying — it's very enlightening and certainly rewarding," David Plant (left) tells Frank Lilley. "Look at the opportunity to talk, for example. It's just incredible."

In 2010, David Plant was diagnosed with skin cancer. The cancer has since metastasized to other parts of his body, and David is now contemplating the end of his life. So, just before his 81st birthday, he sat down with his stepson to talk about their life together.

As Frank Lilley explains, "David is my stepfather, but I certainly consider him my father."

11 Sunday B - Kingdom of God

From Fr. Jude Botelho:

In today's first reading Ezekiel points to the cedar tree which is symbolic of David's kingdom, which God promises to restore after the exile. God will make things happen. "I myself will take the shoot from the top and I will plant it upon a high and lofty mountain." This prophecy indicates that David's kingdom will not only be restored to its former glory but will be fulfilled in the kingdom of Christ. We cannot do anything to bring about the kingdom but God can and will in His time and by His power.

10 Sunday B

From Fr. Jude Botelho:

The Lord of Division
I’d like to suggest that the Devil has been particularly successful in giving us one piece of truth from which we have made a religious belief: the portrait of a benign, sweet, marshmallow Jesus. We Christians have focused on passages like, “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart” and ignored counterbalancing passages such as, “I have come not to bring peace but division.” In today’s gospel we have just such a Christ, a demanding figure, the very Lord of division. 
William J. Bausch in “The Word –In and Out of Season”

Corpus Christi 2018

From Fr. Jude Botelho:

Food for the Journey I traveled to a place in the northern tip of Ireland one night to say Mass for a Prayer Group. It was a wild wintry night and, when the Mass was over, I was anxious to get on the road for home. As I dashed towards the car, I was stopped by an elderly lady, and I wasn't too please at the prospect of having to listen to her tale of pains and aches, while I was impatient to get going. I was very taken aback when she handed me a small boat-shaped basket, filled with triangular sandwiches, with all kinds of fillings. The basket was covered with cling film. "I just thought, Father, you might like to eat those on your journey home." She turned and went back into the church. For once I was stuck for words..! I still have the basket on my desk as I write here now. When I look at it I think of the Eucharist, 'food for the journey.' Jack McArdle in 'And that's the Gospel Truth"

Mothers' Day 2018

# 1: Mother’s sacrificial love: On Sunday, August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed just after taking off from the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. One hundred fifty-five people were killed. One survived with injuries: a 4-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, named Cecelia. News accounts say when rescuers found Cecelia they did not believe she had been on the plane. Investigators first assumed Cecelia had been a passenger in one of the cars on the highway onto which the airliner crashed. But when the passenger register for the flight was checked, there was Cecelia's name. "Cecelia survived because, as the plane was falling, Cecelia's mother, Paula Chican, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and then would not let her go." She was a real mother. That sounds to me like a metaphor of the love of God.