We have come to the end of the Church’s liturgical calendar, Year C. This Sunday is the second last Sunday of our liturgical year. As we approach the end of the Church year, it’s not surprised that through the scripture we reflect on, the Church invites us to contemplate the final end of things. 

There’s no doubt that people have many kinds of questions about heaven or resurrection and what it will be like. The Gospel this Sunday confronts us with the theme of resurrection and life after death.

There are some really beautiful, powerful words and images offered us in this morning’s readings: how God sees the vast, immense universe around us, and all that exists in it.

The parable about the pharisee and the tax collector, like all of Jesus’ stories, makes his listeners stop and think…  Here Jesus talks about two men, both of whom are honest. But there is a problem with one of them.

Jesus and his close followers are on their way to Jerusalem, and as he goes he instructs them. It is not a question of conversion, for that has already taken place. It is a more a question of growth in understanding of what Jesus is about and commitment to that.

I joined the Catholic Church when I was 15 years old. As a baby, I had been baptised in the Anglican Church, and my mother was a very devout Anglican all her life, as had been her parents.

There was this story of an old but sick man who won a huge prize from lotto. The relatives were afraid that if they broke this news, he might have a heart attack and die.

When seeing his chosen people turning away from Him and worshipping the golden calf made of their hands, God was full of wrath, dressing down Moses, “Your people whom you brought out of Egypt…” sounding like God is disowning his people.

In 2018, I attended the episcopal ordination of Bishop Ewald Sedu, in Maumere. Maumere is a very Catholic town, on the very Catholic island of Flores, in very Christian eastern Indonesia.

How many of us, especially the younger generation, have thousands of Facebook friends but have never met them in person? I am sure one of them.