Short Talks
This section of the website comprises short stand-alone talks and articles on different aspects of the Christian Faith, including the teaching of Jesus, the seasons of the Church’s Year and Feasts and Festivals. More talks/sermons/homilies/articles will be added in due course.
The section of the website entitled The Christian Faith provides more extended teaching on larger content areas, such as the Creed and the Sacraments.
The temptations of Christ
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (NRSV, Matthew 4:1)
Today brings us once again to the parting of the ways. By the majority of people Ash Wednesday comes and goes unheeded as they hurry on along the bustling highway of the world. But the faithful disciples of Our Lord turn aside in spirit and follow him into the wilderness there to renew the battle against those temptations which, in countless ways, seek to entice us away from him.
Minor Passion characters and discipleship
This section in Holy Faith comprises six short talks on Passion characters who are minor in the sense that they appear only briefly in the Gospels. The six are: the Temple traders; the man with the jar of water; the mob and Pilate’s wife; the two robbers; the merciful soldier; and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.
The Temple traders
Repentance and discipleship
Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the Temple and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons (Mark 11:15)
When Jesus arrived at Jerusalem at the beginning of that momentous Holy Week, he at once made his way to the Temple. The Temple building itself was situated in the northern part of a vast courtyard, the court of the Gentiles into which, as its name implies, people of all nationalities and religions were admitted. It was this court which Jesus entered on his arrival.