Reflections for Lent & Easter

Good Friday 2019

They called him the good thief; and someone, somewhere at some time gave him the name Dismas. It is a dismal sounding name. Perhaps, I thought, it is so because of the sadness of his life? I only recently learned Dismas is a name given to him in the gospel of Nicodemus, an apocryphal writing, and the name means sunset or death. We do not know his age or his village. We do not know his crime, although over the centuries he has been called the good thief.

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Holy Week 2019

‘And then the beating began.’ The first words that burst forth, uninvited from ‘CocoJo’s lips when I met him on a glorious February afternoon a few weeks ago. I had dropped into the Medaille Safe House to deliver clothes donations from my local parishioners. Clearly in need of a listening ear, CocoJo approached me. Bearing his untouched cup of coffee in his hands, he recounted without bitterness how ‘his friends’ had said they were offering him a job and a better life in the U.K Now he was trapped in the back of a van

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5th Sunday of Lent 2019

My father always said that I did more and better work than two grown men could do. It wasn't difficult for me because I suppose that I was a bit of a perfectionist. I liked things done quickly, efficiently, and tidily and, as we weren't well off, I was very useful about our little holding. But I found later that, riches don't make a person good or happy, and on the whole my family was both. We were faithful to the law and we all cared about each other and that was enough.

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4th Sunday of Lent 2019

Have you ever experienced losing something you treasured, or something important in your life? You never notice it is missing until the moment comes to use it, wear it, display it or pass it on to someone else. Then comes the frustration of: “Did I put it somewhere for safekeeping? Did I give it to someone? Did I loan it to someone? Did I carelessly put it somewhere? Was it stolen from me?”

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