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.
Conflict
“…he shall give his angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways” (King James Bible, Psalm 91:11)
The angels have always been a familiar reality in the lives of Christians, from Our Lady and the Apostles to the present day. Indeed, they played a prominent part in the history of the first years of our Holy Faith – the announcement to Zechariah of the birth of John the Baptist and to Our Lady of the Birth of Jesus; the Nativity in Bethlehem, the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt, Our Lord’s temptations in the wilderness, his agony in Gethsemane, his Resurrection on Easter Day, his Ascension into Heaven, and, after the establishment of his Church, the escape of St Peter from prison on the eve of his execution – all these events were attended by God’s angels, acting sometimes as his messengers, sometimes as his appointed guardians.
The Transfiguration and the Sunday Communion
“…Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white” (NRSV, Luke 9:28,29)
The Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord marked the beginning of that 120 mile journey that was to take him for the last time along the road which wound its way to the south to Jerusalem and to Calvary.
Good Samaritan
“But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity” (NRSV, Luke 10:33)
The lawyer to whose question “And who is my neighbour?” we owe the Parable of the Good Samaritan, was not a lawyer in the modern sense, but an expert in the Jewish Law – what we would call an Old Testament scholar, commentator and exponent.
As regards the characters in the parable itself, the priest was not a resident of Jerusalem but officiated at the Temple sacrifices in a part-time capacity for a spell of one week twice a year. The Levite was one of the Temple servers or choirmen whose duties were also arranged according to a rota.