Author: Howard

The third Sunday in Advent is widely marked as a time for thinking about the spiritual gift of Joy. Well at least, we may light a red candle among the other purple ones in the Advent wreath and tell the kids that it stands for Joy, alongside Hope, Peace and Love. So is that it… Continue reading Sources of Joy

The second Sunday in Advent every year focuses on the ministry of John the Baptiser, not merely to note his importance as a precursor to the public career of Jesus, but in order to make us think about how we share in the ongoing proclamation of the Gospel of God’s reign over human affairs in… Continue reading John the Messenger, then and now

Well, not Jesus actually, just this pesky diocesan theologian who vanished off cyberspace for the five months or so it took to plan and then enjoy a twelve-week overseas pilgrimage with my wife. Meanwhile back in the jungle, Advent Sunday is upon us and I have found a few things to say about the texts… Continue reading He’s Back!

I am having trouble putting together a podcast on this Sunday’s Gospel reading because I am angry with the text. The fifth Sunday in Lent is supposed to stimulate us to think about the redemptive effects of Jesus’ suffering, but the writer of the fourth gospel is intent on convincing his readers that Jesus didn’t… Continue reading Passion Sunday … without the passion bit?

How does the sight of the crucified Son of God offer hope to our world? You can hear my comments on this Sunday’s Gospel reading here…. Howard Pilgrim

And so Lent begins, as always, with a Gospel reading depicting the Temptation of Jesus, of a very biblical 40 days in the wilderness which we are invited to replicate with our 40 days of fasting and prayer. Well, that’s the liturgical theory anyway. Given that we are now in Year B, when Mark and… Continue reading Testing times

For the third week in a row, we are reading another healing story from the first chapter of Mark’s gospel. Enough already with the healings, Jesus? You might suppose so, except that this time it is a leper who needs Jesus’ healing touch, not least because no one else will touch him. They are all… Continue reading A third kind of healing…

I am out on the road this week and unable to produce a podcast, but here is a summary of three points I wanted to make about the gospel reading (Mark 1:29-39) for this Sunday (Epiphany 5/Ordinary Sunday 5 in Year B). 1. Jesus’ preaching tour in Galilee continues with further demonstrations of God’s healing… Continue reading “Love lift us up where we belong….”

Oh yeah! Most of us have met self-proclaimed spiritual authorities like this, gurus with no qualifications other than the adulation of their adoring fans, who don’t respect the opinions of anyone else nor enter into reasoned discussion with scholars who have expertise in any field on which they wish to pontificate. A few dismissive put-downs… Continue reading “Teaching with Authority”…. ?

This Sunday’s gospel reading gives us Mark’s version of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee and the calling of his first disciples, and it is rather different from John’s story last week. Mark sees Jesus’ prime task as continuing and expanding John the Baptist’s mission of calling Israel back to God as a… Continue reading Coming fishing?