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Home / Homily Resources - Page 104
  • July 14, 2021. Wednesday of Week 15 in Ordinary Time


    All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

    Read More July 14, 2021. Wednesday of Week 15 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 13, 2021. Tuesday of Week 15 in Ordinary Time


    For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.”

    Read More July 13, 2021. Tuesday of Week 15 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 12, 2021. Monday of Week 15 in Ordinary Time


    Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

    Read More July 12, 2021. Monday of Week 15 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • Liturgy | Presider's Page

    Presider’s Page for 11 July 2011 (15th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

    God has blessed us in very many ways: God has showered grace upon us. During today’s gathering, we give thanks to the Lord for all we have received.
    • Sunday 11 July marks the 100th anniversary of the Truce that ended the War of Independence in Ireland. Accordingly, today is the National Day of Commemoration of those who died in past wars or on service of the United Nations.

    Read More Presider’s Page for 11 July 2011 (15th Sunday in Ordinary Time)Continue

  • Sunday July 11, 2021. Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time


    He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

    Read More Sunday July 11, 2021. Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 10, 2021. Friday of Week 14 in Ordinary Time


    What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

    Read More July 10, 2021. Friday of Week 14 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 9, 2021. Thursday of Week 14 in Ordinary Time


    When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

    Read More July 9, 2021. Thursday of Week 14 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 8, 2021. Wednesday of Week 14 in Ordinary Time


    As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”

    Read More July 8, 2021. Wednesday of Week 14 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 7, 2021. Wednesday of Week 14 in Ordinary Time


    These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’

    Read More July 7, 2021. Wednesday of Week 14 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 6, 2021. Tuesday of Week 14 in Ordinary Time


    When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

    Read More July 6, 2021. Tuesday of Week 14 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 5, 2021. Monday of Week 14 in Ordinary Time


    Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.

    Read More July 5, 2021. Monday of Week 14 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • Editor's Choice | Liturgy | Presider's Page

    Presider’s Page for 4 July (14th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

    God calls us together for praise and worship today. As weak and sinful people, we gather to ask the Lord’s mercy. We know that divine grace is sufficient for us. Together, we praise and thank our God for the constant care we receive. 

    Read More Presider’s Page for 4 July (14th Sunday in Ordinary Time)Continue

  • July 4, 2021. Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time


    Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”

    Read More July 4, 2021. Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • Saturday July 3, 2021. St Thomas, Apostle


    The doors were closed, but Jesus came in and stood among them. ‘Peace be with you’ he said. Then he spoke to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.’ Thomas replied, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him:

    ‘You believe because you can see me.
    Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.’

    Read More Saturday July 3, 2021. St Thomas, ApostleContinue

  • July 2, 2021. Friday of Week 13 in Ordinary Time


    But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

    Read More July 2, 2021. Friday of Week 13 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • July 1, 2021. Thursday of Week 13 in Ordinary Time


    Then some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”, he then said to the paralytic, “Stand up, take your bed and go to your home.”

    Read More July 1, 2021. Thursday of Week 13 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • June 30, 2021. Wednesday of Week 13 in Ordinary Time


    The demons begged him, “If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.” And he said to them, “Go!” So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the water. The swineherds ran off, and on going into the town, they told the whole story about what had happened to the demoniacs. Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighbourhood.

    Read More June 30, 2021. Wednesday of Week 13 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • June 29, 2021. Ss Peter & Paul, Apostles


    And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

    Read More June 29, 2021. Ss Peter & Paul, ApostlesContinue

  • June 28, 2021. Monday of Week 13 in Ordinary Time


    Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

    Read More June 28, 2021. Monday of Week 13 in Ordinary TimeContinue

  • Editor's Choice | Liturgy | Presider's Page

    Presider’s Page for 27 June (13th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

    As summer takes hold of us, we give thanks to God for all the gifts we enjoy. We rejoice in God’s saving power: death itself is in his hand and all the living depend on God alone.

    Read More Presider’s Page for 27 June (13th Sunday in Ordinary Time)Continue

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  • 18 comments

    Seán Ó Conaill: Violence in the Bible: A Motivational Pattern?

    April 6 2026
    Sean O'Conaill
    "... Augustine’s Neoplatonism and ... Anselm’s philosophy of cosmic order. These are both very powerful ways of thinking, but their very power can make them obtuse to the tonality of Scripture." This is most helpful Joe. I can see far more clearly now how the 'evangelical albatross' takes flight - from the misapplication of Anselm's focus on the cosmic divine order to mean that it was this 'divine order' - this towering beautiful schema - that God the Father was chiefly concerned with in asking Jesus to accept the Cross - rather than our own liberation - as individuals as well as collectively - from the power of evil as it confronts us daily. This is where the understanding of the long historical debate over atonement - e.g. between Abelard and Bonaventure's 'takes' and Anselm - becomes critical. Still today the Catechism tends to instil the notion that Catholic theology is one perfectly consistent and logical synthesis - a 'seamless robe' rather than an ongoing discussion 'in faith'. You yourself, Joe, cannot be blamed for that - ready as you are always to engage with anyone who floats an opinion. Thanks and God bless!
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  • 18 comments

    Seán Ó Conaill: Violence in the Bible: A Motivational Pattern?

    April 6 2026
    Joseph O'Leary
    Sean, I would say that Anselm has to be placed within the history of metaphysical theology (which begins with Philo and in the specifically Christian world with Justin Martyr), as a key moment in it (he is called the father of scholasticism), occasionally going too far in a rationalistic direction. My general approach is to "overcome" such metaphysical constructions and to "step back" to the foundational biblical phenomena which the metaphysical approach tend to occlude. But like Heidegger in the realm of philosophy, I think the first step in any such critical retrieval of the past is to understand what the figure studied was attempting to do. Heidegger would say that all the great metaphysicians from Plato and Aristotle to Nietzsche need to be "overcome" but he cautioned against dismissing them. He did not see metaphysics as false, but as creating a blind spot due to its point of departure. Moreover, he found positive material for his step back to a phenomenological thinking of being within the great metaphysical systems. In the case of theology, the first step is to understand what the theologian studied was attempting to do. Karl Barth's book on Anselm names his project as Fides Quaerens Intellectum (https://www.scribd.com/document/789781183/Anselm-Fides-Quaerens-Intellectum-Karl-Barth ). Barth would say that even when he seems to be proving the existence of God by mere reason, Anselm is thinking from faith, and as a saintly monk is thoroughly in line with what the Gospels urge: as you put it, "we are instructed by Jesus himself to ‘come to’ the Father on an intimate, ‘personal’ and friendly level" this applies more to Anselm than to other theologians since the "frame" of his thinking is friendly, contemplative (not merely "intellectual") dialogues, punctuated by bursts of praise for God and concern for the salvation of humankind. The "faith" that is "seeking understanding" is a living faith, not just a set of tenets. The same is true of Augustine, his major predecessor. The search for understanding is a spiritual exercise, and when the theological effort falls short one falls back on faith itself with new appreciation. Having fully appreciated the texture of Augustine's or Anselm's theological thinking, to "overcome" them and "step back" from them means basically to show how their understanding of Scripture was limited by their metaphysical way of thinking, by Augustine's Neoplatonism and by Anselm's philosophy of cosmic order. These are both very powerful ways of thinking, but their very power can make them obtuse to the tonality of Scripture. Yes, measured against the scriptural realities (as apprehended in light of contemporary insight), there is a certain inadequacy and inappropriateness in Augustinian and Anselmian discourse, as you are showing in the case of Anselm. While these saintly teachers lift us up, we may also address a critique to them, in a hermeneutic from faith to faith.
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  • 18 comments

    Seán Ó Conaill: Violence in the Bible: A Motivational Pattern?

    April 6 2026
    Sean O'Conaill
    Thanks, Joe. I respect your sense of duty to do justice to Anselm, a fellow theologian - but all of it makes of God the Father someone (or something) far more complicated for the ordinary person than the Jesus through whom - surely - we are instructed by Jesus himself to 'come to' the Father on an intimate, 'personal' and friendly level? In future I think that's how I'll 'frame' St Anselm - as an intellectual who saw Jesus as restoring the perfect order of the universe in honour of God - whereas for Jesus himself his concern was always the troubled or 'disordered' person in front of him. As troubled individuals we need to, and should, see the Father as equally concerned for us as persons - in order to make us also loving - because it is through the loving lives of individuals that Creation is indeed restored. Where you always seem to want to see the positives in Christendom, I tend to see a legacy of things missing that were not missing in the early church - especially the 'Christus Victor' emphasis on Jesus as revealing and defeating the demonic aspects of pagan imperialism. 11th century Europe - the Europe of the First Crusade - was surely not the New Creation that Paul envisaged, even if the influence of the church upon the state was then at its zenith? I still find it astonishing, and lamentable, that YouCat gives to young people today no clear intellectual framework for connecting 'sin' and violence, when for e.g. St Augustine that connection was obvious in the sin of pride. Can you understand and explain that obvious lacuna? For me we do not hear often enough that Jesus sets the pride of his enemies in high relief by his humility - and that this was also the Father's intent. Anselm's greater concern for a universal order - and a tendency for churchmen more generally not to want to see the pride of the Christendom ruling classes who patronised them - must surely be part of the answer to YouCat's 'voids'.
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  • 18 comments

    Seán Ó Conaill: Violence in the Bible: A Motivational Pattern?

    April 6 2026
    Joe O'Leary
    Is Anselm's theology "always a pastoral albatross"? It seems that in his day he was relieving Christians of another albatross, namely the crude "deceiving Satan" account that had crept into Christian doctrine early on, and also the crude ideas that people formed from an untutored reading of the New Testament. His own theology is caricatured as being based on a divine jealously for His offended honour. But Southern (and also Flämig) put this in perspective: "God's honour is the complex of service and worship which the whole Creation, animate and inanimate, in Heaven and earth, owes to the Creator, and which preserves everything in its due place. Regarded in this way, God's honour is simply another word for the ordering of the universe iin its due relationship to God. In withholding his service, a man is guilty of attempting to put himself in the place of the Creator. He fails; but in making this attempt, he excludes himself from the order and beauty of the universe [a phrase Anselm uses frequently, as in ch. 15]. His rebellion requires a counter-assertion of God's real possession of his honour, not to erase an injury to God [NB], but to erase a blot on the universal order. To do this, God as Man makes good the damage; and God as Lord takes seisin [a feudal term] of his honour once more. And so the whole servitium debitum of the universe is re-established, and God’s ‘honour’ in its full extent is displayed in the restored order and beauty of the whole. All this is capable of expression in entirely non-feudal language. But Anselm used the language of feudal relationships, not because he approved every aspect of them, but because they provided an example of hierarchy, which both philosophically and morally he found most satisfying; and – contrary to what is often thought – he valued hierarchy as an expression of the rule of reason. Those critics who have imagined Anselm’s God as a jealous tyrant, greedy for recognition and honour, have failed to recognize that the feudal image, however unsatisfactory in some of its implications, stood for rationality prevailing against the inroads of self-will and chaos. The rationality of Anselm’s theology is based on the principle that there is nothing arbitrary in God.” (Southern, 226-7) “It is unbecoming to God to overlook disorder in his kingdom” (Deum vero non decet aliquid inordinatum in suo regno dimittere, ch. 13) so he cannot just leave sin unpunished. From the modern point of view this sounds like a big fuss about nothing. “If injustice is merely dismissed out of mercy, then it is freer than justice”; Boso objects that we pray “forgive our sins as we forgive others.” Anselm replies that everything Boso says about God’s freedom and will and loving-kindess is true, but we must understand these is such a rational way that we do not appear to contradict divine dignity. Nothing arbitrary means nothing violent, or at least no unjust violence. Feudal honour is a social bond integrating the whole society, not honour in a later individualistic sense. God punishes sin right through Scripture – what place does that have in Girardian theology? Anselm wants to make it perfectly rational and at the service of the order of all creation. But some of his statements make us uneasy: “as man in sinning robs from God what is His, so God in punishing takes from man what is his” (ch. 14). This sits ill with the Enlightenment with inalienable human rights, with Rousseau’s rejection of Original Sin, and in general with our modern inclination to “forgive myself the lot!” and “cast out remorse” (Yeats, “A Dialogue of Self and Soul”). Anselm follows Augustine in seeing God as the source of all goods and the orderer of all evils – not in an arbitrary or calculating way but just by being God, manifest in the order and beauty of Creation. Anselm’s God is not affected by human sin, but his cosmic providence is impugned by it and is preserved by the law that all sin must be followed by satisfaction or punishment (necesse est ut omne peccatum satisfaction aut poena sequitur, ch. 15). Is this just pabulum for PhD theses, with no vital relevance today? I would say that worry about cosmic order and justice remains a live issue. I met a young Swiss financial wizard the other day who declared himself a nihilist, in the sense that the universe is a mess, and humanity a barbaric breed, and all we can do is ensure some semblance of social order. Our religion claims much more than that, and wants to find a divine purpose in evolution (with Teilhard, who gave the best reinterpretation of Original Sin). When we undertake such cogitations (or attempt to dialogue with Buddhist ideas of karma), Anselm may draw surprisingly near. The lunar astronauts said that from space they saw the earth as a lifeboat, and others with access to the view from space had the same impression – a tiny community clinging to the edge of the vast uninhabited waste, and direly in need of clinging together to survive. Is there no ordering divine principle presiding over all this? I skip the long discussion of the number of the fallen angels being made up for by the number of the elect, a totally obsolete and tedious topic. Anselm's horror at sin produced a statement that is surely the source of a notorious one from Newman: "Were it not better that the whole world, and whatever is that is not God, should perish and be reduced to nothingness, than that you should make one movement of the eye that is against the will of God." (ch. 21). Newman wrote: "Man had rebelled against his Maker. It was this that caused the divine interposition: and to proclaim it must be the first act of the divinely-accredited messenger. The Church must denounce rebellion as of all possible evils the greatest. She must have no terms with it; if she would be true to her Master, she must ban and anathematize it. This is the meaning of a statement of mine, which has furnished matter for one of those special accusations to which I am at present replying: I have, however, no fault at all to confess in regard to it; I have nothing to withdraw, and in consequence I here deliberately repeat it. I said, 'The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.' I think the principle here enunciated to be the mere preamble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as an Act of Parliament might begin with a "Whereas." It is because of the intensity of the evil which has possession of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has been provided against it; and the initial act of that divinely-commissioned power is of course to deliver her challenge and to defy the enemy. Such a preamble then gives a meaning to her position in the world, and an interpretation to her whole course of teaching and action." (Apologia, ch. 5). Southern actually compares the two passages, finding in Newman's words "a rhetorical exaggeration, even (if one may say so) an absurdity, which is never found in Anselm" (pp. 217-18). The rest of Part 1 accentuates the impossibility of man being redeemed. By Original Sin man cheated God of the beautiful work he was to achieve as man flourished (ch. 23). Boso pleads that man is now is incapable of giving God what he might have been able to in his unfallen state, and how can he be blamed for not giving what he is impotent to give? (ch. 24). But, laying on a huge guilt trip, Anselm argues with fierce Augustinian logic that this very impotence is inexcusable. Boso says: "It is too true. He is unjust because he does not render to God what he owes, and he is unjust because he is unable to render it." Now God cannot let the sinner perish (since he must fill up the seats left vacant by the fallen angels, and since it would be a defeat for God if his creature, man, were to be a complete disaster. So it is necessary that man be saved by Christ. Boso agrees, that is his faith, but he does not understand how, qua ratione, a phrase he repeats obsessively. Both Anselm and Boso agree that one who says something is impossible, though is must necessarily be, just because he does not know how it can be (qui idcirco astruit esse impossibile, quod necesse est esse, quia nescit quomodo sit) is a dolt, insipiens). Part 2 will give a positive account of how God saves man without compromising reason and his own dignity. There is very little about "honour" here, just Augustinian ideas about bondage to sin. Anselm may go farther than Augustine in highlighting the desperateness of man's plight and the dramatic nature of redemption. Luther goes further and resolves the issue more radically in his doctrine of Justification, underlining the sheer gratuity of God's grace and forgiveness, and cutting through Anselm's ratiocinations.
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