Sunday matters - an update

 

A recent family visit to Toronto offered a welcome opportunity to experience the celebration of Mass in a truly cosmopolitan and culturally diverse setting. Canada, like every nation, faces serious challenges, and the behaviour of its closest neighbour does not always make life easier. Yet Canada remains a striking example of how an extraordinary diversity of cultures can live, work, and worship together in relative harmony.

Who presides?

 

Who presides at the Eucharist? Jesus Christ does.

This is the central truth we must never lose sight of. The ordained minister acts in persona Christi—in the person of Christ, on His behalf, and also in Him and through Him. This can be difficult to accept when some ministers have gravely violated their vows and caused deep harm. But their crimes must never be confused with the sacramental action they perform. Christ is the true presider, and His work is not undone by human sin.

In the name of all creation

 

All of creation is suffering serious harm because of human greed and disordered behaviour, greatly aggravated by wars, repression, and the misuse of the gifts God has entrusted to us (refer to Laudato Si). Creation is a gift, and we are part of it. If creation “groans” as Saint Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans (8:22), then we, too, “groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (8:23). Our time on earth is limited, and the older we grow the closer we come to that moment when creation itself “will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (8:21).

The late Pope Francis captures the intimate bond between creation and the Eucharist in Laudato Si:

Faith and doubt - a human dialogue

 2nd Sunday of Easter - Sunday 12 April 2026

 Lectio Divina:*

Acts 2:42-47 Psalm 118(117)

1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Meditatio:

‘ Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ (John 20:29)

 Commentary:

To have faith is to trust and to entrust. It means taking a step, sometimes a leap, without full certainty. Faith does not require doubt, yet because we are limited creatures, doubt often accompanies the journey. In trusting, we hand our doubts to God, and God receives them. Simple? Yes and no. Life is rarely clear‑cut, and questions press in on every side.

A second century celebration of the Mass

 

Throughout the Easter season we repeatedly hear Gospel accounts of the Risen Jesus sharing meals with his disciples. On the road to Emmaus, for example, we read that Jesus “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them” (Luke 24:13–35). The evangelists clearly intend us to recognise in these moments the early Eucharistic life of the Christian community.

A century later, Saint Justin Martyr—born in Flavia Neapolis (modern‑day Nablus, north of Jerusalem) around the turn of the first century and martyred in Rome about AD 165—gives us one of the earliest detailed descriptions of how the Eucharist was celebrated following baptism (First Apology, 65–67). He explains that:

Silence and listening

How might our parish churches look like in 2050 #6

It seems to me that people hunger, thirst, and cry out inwardly simply to be heard — by someone, anyone, at some moment, in some way. A lack of opportunity, space, or means to be listened to lies at the heart of many personal and societal wounds. We carry so much within us, and often we do not even know the half of it.

The new passover

 

Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist #4

Picking up again on the Jewish roots of the Christian Eucharist the author, Brant Pitre, draws together several themes that have echoed through the Easter Triduum:

• The once‑for‑all sacrifice of Jesus on Good Friday – the true Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
• The meal of the Last Supper, where Jesus gives his Body and Blood “for you and for many.”
• The proclamation of a new covenant, sealed in Christ’s blood.
• The liberation of God’s people on the night of the Pasch or Passover.
• The real presence of God among His people, made sacramentally present in the Eucharist.