relax a little and invite Jesus to take the initiative for growth, peace and joy in your life
Ash Wednesday
a favourable time
Lent is the time to free ourselves from the illusion of chasing after dust. We ask ourselves today: Where do I stand? Do I live for fire or for ash?”
united in worship
And it is Christ who brings us together tonight, Anglican and Catholic with friends, to focus again on what is essential. We are united by the challenges we face here in this place. We are at a spring-time of faith in our dioceses, with citizens hungry for mature and adult faith.
forty days of growth
It’s Ash Wednesday and today’s reflection takes the form of a five minute podcast. You might listen sitting at home with your morning coffee, or perhaps on the drive to work.
Ash Wednesday
Whatever season of the year you are living in today, and whatever season of life's journey, today we enter together a spring-time of growth for relationship with God....
unto dust…
The encouragement that usually accompanies the imposition of Ash Wednesday ashes is "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." But when I was a child the...
Ash Wednesday
Lent only makes sense for sinners. Other good people might engage in Lenten disciplines of fasting and penance, but these practices will only bear fruit for the one who...
pancake feasting
Happy Mardi Gras! No, I'm not encouraging you to dress in pink (or less) and parade in public. Mardi Gras has a more original significance, literally "Fat Tuesday"...
lenten realignment
This week with Ash Wednesday we begin the Season of Lent. In these forty days we allow ourselves to become aware of our deepest desire, that is, our attraction to...
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Annunciation
A couple of thousand years ago, a young Jewish woman was going about her normal morning routines, perhaps with a mixture of house and garden work, chatting with parents and neighbours, aware of the local drought, the sickness of a neighbour and annoyed by the neighbourhood’s lack of sleep caused by the Romans’ noisy party the night before, when God broke into her routine and entered her life in a new and powerful way.
the real centre
Over the last month I have had the opportunity to work with many people across Aotearoa and further afield. In every retreat and seminar I have been with committed and faith-filled people who often feel as though they are on the periphery of the Church
the adventure
It’s easy to make the mistake of seeing life as a treadmill, day after day ups and downs, a movement through time from youth to old age, then death and beyond.
Too often if feels as if we are helplessly captive carried along by the momentum of all that is expected of us and demanded from us, and we risk falling into an existence mode, a daily rhythm of survival, enduring, coping and so the treadmill rolls on.
the bigger picture
Over the years, and even in recent months, weeks and days, I’ve prayed many prayers which have not been answered as I had hoped.
You’ve probably had the same experience: praying and wondering if and when or how your prayer will be answered.
moving waters
Bible questions still pop up regularly in quiz shows and they often cost otherwise sharp players much needed points.
I’m ready for a question asking for the two names for the last book of the Bible. The book often known as Apocalypse is perhaps more often referred to as the Book of Revelation.
It’s common (thanks to movies) to think of an apocalypse as a devastating and unwelcome time of destruction.