February 2011

When Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “You cannot be the slave both of God and of money,” He goes to the heart of the problem. Earning and spending are necessary, and prosperity in itself is good, but our human condition is such that we can so easily allow ourselves to be enslaved by materialism. We […]

Aggression is one of our instinctive reactions to difficult situations. Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel tells us that if we respond to aggression with more aggression we risk creating an endless cycle of violence. Violence harms our unity, setting one person against another and making cooperation impossible. Jesus teaches that God’s love extends to everyone,

In his Gospel St. Matthew portrays Jesus as a new and greater Moses. It was on a mountain Sinai, that Moses delivered the Law of God. Now it’s on a mountainside, in His Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus delivers the new law. When He says, “You have learnt how it was said to our

When we read today’s Gospel reading we get a little snapshot of Jesus’ teaching. It’s a tiny reading, just as four verses long. If we look at the words we have heard today alone we get some meaning, but it is by other means the whole picture. Fortunately we have every opportunity to look a