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.

The first reading from the Prophet Jeremiah speaks of how Jeremiah was ill treated for doing God’s work. He is thrown in the well since he is accused of dampening the spirit of the soldiers and the people by speaking the truth.

The Gospel reading for this Sunday invites us to be ready and dressed for action. We remember the Gospel from last Sunday, where the rich man, seeing the bumper harvest he had, thinks of building bigger barns and store all the wealth to himself and doesn’t even give a second thought of sharing it with the other.