What’s missing from the complement of signs of Jesus?  Now that we’ve heard the last of them, the raising of Lazarus, what comes next? Jesus called his miracles “signs”, so that they point on to something ordinarily beyond our grasp.  All his signs overcame some natural impossibility: The lack of wine at Cana The mortal illness of the courtier’s son The disability of the man at Bethesda The hunger of the 5,000 in the wilderness The properties of the Lake's water The disabilit

In the long aftermath of his healing, the man who’d been born blind testifies to Jesus before he sees him.  And that's how it is with every one of us: we witness to Jesus by what we say and do long before, it seems, we get to see him face-to-face. That witness precedes sight, that testimony comes before certainty, speaks to us about the minimums needed to become Christian.  It's not necessary that all questions are answered or that all doubts have been dispelled.  We certainl

And there, the Samaritan woman remains, in Sychar, until the Holy Spirit descends to open up the Kingdom of God to all nations. There is joy in her, seen in the resumption of hospitality.  Because of her serial monogamy, she has had to suspend her role in society, including as a provider of hospitality.  That role is resumed with the Lord’s simple request for a drink.  And he stays two more days, enabling her to fulfil the demands of hospitality for honoured guests.  The timi

There is evidence in the Gospels that the disciples really did understand Jesus predictions about his Passion, that they took him at his word when he said that he would suffer a violent end.  We're not just thinking of Judas’ attempt to turn the blood money.  We would also be thinking of times when the disciples showed readiness to take up arms in the name of Christ.  And all of them involve the Apostle Peter. Only Holy Thursday night, there is Peter's promise that he would d

Temptation works on us because there is truth in it.  Temptation doesn't work for us because there is not enough truth in it.  There is, in temptation, a lie which has been put alongside the truth, to make it plausible and desirable.  We’ll accept the lie if we only see the truth it’s attached to.  So, if we separate out the truth from the lie in any idea we have, then we shall discover the temptation and more often avoid sin. To see how this works in practice, we can take th

If discouragement set in as you heard the Lord identify a new range of bad acts, we need to find a way back for you.  Discouragement is close to hopelessness.  And hopelessness is the enemy of faith. The way back from discouragement for us ourselves will be found in the Fourth Beatitude: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right; they shall be satisfied.”  Whenever we're feeling discouraged, that's the time to check on how much we want what is right. The way

Easter Fire in Diemarden ( license ) Why would the Lord describe us salt and light?  We’re not asking what those images mean – we can come back to that – but why he applied them to us.  What has changed to make him say this about us?  Because we feel very much the same in ourselves: we’re the same people as we were yesterday; we’re the same people we expect to be tomorrow.  We have families, jobs, responsibilities to attend to.  It all seems the same.  Yet now we are also sa