Sunday Reflections, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, 23 August 2026

St Peter

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

'You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it' (Matthew 16:18; Gospel). 

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, Scotland, India)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)  

Gospel Matthew 16:13-20 (English Standard Version Anglicised)

At that time: When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Benedict XVI in 2010

[Wikipedia; photo]

This week I'm using what I've used before, with some slight editing. Again I fall back on Pope Benedict XVI. This is the Angelus talk on today's gospel that he gave on 24 August 2008 in Castel Gandolfo. I have highlighted parts of it, something I found difficult to do as it is so deep and rich - and yet so clear and simple.

Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday's liturgy addresses to us Christians but also at the same time to every man and every woman the double question that one day Jesus put to his disciples. He first asked them: ‘Who do men say that the Son of man is?’ They answered him saying that some of the people said John the Baptist restored to life, others Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. The Lord then directly questioned the Twelve: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter spoke enthusiastically and authoritatively on behalf of them all: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. This solemn profession of faith the Church continues to repeat since then. Today too, we long to proclaim with an innermost conviction: ‘Yes, Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God!’ Let us do so in the awareness that Christ is the true ‘treasure’ for whom it is worth sacrificing everything; he is the friend who never abandons us for he knows the most intimate expectations of our hearts. Jesus is the ‘Son of the living God’, the promised Messiah who came down to earth to offer humanity salvation and to satisfy the thirst for life and love that dwells in every human being. What an advantage humanity would have in welcoming this proclamation which brings with it joy and peace!

‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus answers Peter's inspired profession of faith: ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven’. This is the first time that Jesus speaks of the Church, whose mission is the actuation of God's great design to gather the whole of humanity into a single family in Christ. Peter's mission, and that of his Successors, is precisely to serve this unity of the one Church of God formed of Jews and pagans of all peoples; his indispensable ministry is to ensure that she is never identified with a single nation, with a single culture, but is the Church of all peoples - to make present among men and women, scarred by innumerable divisions and conflicts, God's peace and the renewing power of his love. This, then, is the special mission of the Pope, Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter: to serve the inner unity that comes from God's peace, the unity of those who have become brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

In the face of the enormous responsibility of this task, I am increasingly aware of the commitment and importance of the service to the Church and the world that the Lord has entrusted to me. I therefore ask you, dear brothers and sisters, to support me with your prayers so that, faithful to Christ, we may proclaim and bear witness together to his presence in our time. May Mary, whom we invoke with trust as Mother of the Church and Star of Evangelization, obtain this grace for us.

Young Jew as Christ

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

Pope Benedict's short reflection touches on so many fundamental things. Our faith as Christians is in the Person of Jesus Christ, God who became Man. Jesus calls us into a personal relationship with him, not in an exclusive 'You and I only' sense but in an intimate 'You, I and all of us' sense as members of the Church with a common mission given by Jesus to the Church.

As members of the Church we share in the mission given us by Jesus Christ. Pope Benedict says, I therefore ask you, dear brothers and sisters, to support me with your prayers so that, faithful to Christ, we may proclaim and bear witness together to his presence in our time. 

Our common mission is to proclaim and bear witness together to his presence in our time. That means that Jesus calls each of us to realise that every person we meet is meant to meet Jesus in us - in every aspect of our lives, private and public. 

Yet so many politicians, for example, who announce to the world that they are faithful Catholics promote the evils of abortion and the genital mutilation of confused minors who think they want to be the opposite sex. Many voters who see themselves as faithful Catholics support them in this. This, in effect, is saying that Jesus Christ our Saviour promotes the killing of unborn children and the physical/sexual abuse of minors. 

Pope Benedict by addressing us as Dear brothers and sisters, reminds us of our deepest identity: we are sons and daughters of God the Father through our baptism. We are brothers and sisters of Jesus through our baptism. As such, we are brothers and sisters of one another through baptism.

Our baptism, through which we have received our Christian faith, is pure gift from God. Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. We are called by baptism to proclaim the presence of Jesus in the world so that others may come to know Him. Pope Benedict doesn't mention baptism specifically but everything he says makes sense only in the context of our having been baptised.

Jesus through his Church does not identify himself with any particular nation or with any particular ethnic group. Yet he speaks to each nation, to each group, to each individual within their own culture. Some years ago in the Philippines when celebrating Sunday Mass in a home for girls most of whom had been abused before going there, I showed during my homily a very poor black-and-white reproduction of Rembrandt's painting above. One girl, aged about 14, asked me if she could have the picture. (I later had a proper copy made and framed for her). I asked her what had attracted her in the painting. He is so human, she said. This painting done in Amsterdam nearly 400 years before spoke to her heart. Rembrandt, through his painting in which he had a Jewish refugee from Spain as a model, was able to proclaim and bear witness to the presence of Jesus in our time to a young girl in the Philippines in the 21st century who had suffered greatly.

These are some random thoughts. Pope Benedict's Angelus message has so much in it and can be a source of prayer and contemplation in trying to answer the question Jesus puts before us today: But who do you say that I am?

Collect from the Mass for the Pope

O God, who in your providential design 

willed that your Church be built 

upon blessed Peter, whom you set over the other Apostles, look with favour, we pray, on Francis our Pope 

and grant that he, whom you have made Peter's successor, may be for your people a visible source and foundation 

of unity in faith and of communion.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Tu es Petrus

Setting by Palestrina

Sung by Yonsei University Concert Choir, South Korea

conducted by Hae Ock Eunice Kim Bang        

Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam. Et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum.

You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:18-19; today's gospel). 

Traditional Latin Mass

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 08-23-2026 if necessary).

Epistle: Galatians 3:16-22. Gospel: Luke 17:11-19.

Codex Aureus of Echternach

German Miniaturist [Web Gallery of Art]

The lowest panel depicts the Gospel, the healing of the ten lepers.

 

     

Sunday Reflections, The Ascension; 7th Sunday of Easter, Year A, 14 and 17 May 2026

 

Ascension Cupola

Italian Mosaic Artist [Web Gallery of Art]

Ascension, Year A

The Ascension is celebrated on Ascension Thursday, 14 May, in England & Wales, Scotland. In the USA it is celebrated on Ascension Thursday in the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha, Philadelphia. In all of these places Ascension Thursday is a Holyday of Obligation.

The Ascension is observed on Sunday, 21 May, in Aotearoa-New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Philippines, USA (apart from the jurisdictions mentioned above).

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, Scotland, India)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Matthew 28:16-20 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Ascension

Andrea della Robbia [Web Gallery of Art]

The reflection is for the Ascension.

Halliday Square, Dublin

[Original source: myhome.ie]

Early in the summer of 1953 when I was ten my father taught me how to ride a bicycle. In August of that year, when we were on holiday in Bray, south of Dublin, he taught me how to swim. I borrowed my cousin Deirdre's small blue bike and practised on Halliday Square, Dublin, just below Finn Street where we lived. It had a long enclosed garden in the centre where some local people grew vegetables, as I recall, and in my young mind was a kind of racing circuit.

However, in order to do any racing I had to learn first to keep on the bike while moving. My father held on to the saddle while I moved forward, wobbling quite a bit for about ten metres before we'd start again. I'm not sure how many times we repeated this or over how many evenings. But a moment arrived when I realized that I was moving forward steadily and surely - and that Dad wasn't holding on to the saddle. I was on my own. A great thrill - with an awareness that I couldn't 'unlearn' how to ride. From that moment I could only move forward, in more senses than one. And before long I found myself racing around the circuit that was Halliday Square, sometimes against others, sometimes just 'against myself'.

Bray Head and beach, Bray, Ireland

[Wikipedia]

Dad's approach to teaching me how to swim was similar. He held his hand under my chest, in fairly shallow water, off the stony beach in the photo above. I was trying to do the breaststroke. As with the bike, he showed great patience and I had absolute trust in him knowing that he wouldn't let me sink, just as he hadn't let me fall off the bicycle.

Once again there was the magic moment when I realized that Dad's hand was no longer touching my chest - I was swimming on my own. And as with cycling, this is an ability that you cannot 'unlearn'.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth, Jesus tells the Apostles in the First Reading (Acts 1:8).

My experience with my father - and with my mother too who often said to me in my childhood years, When you're 21 you'll be responsible for yourself, giving me a goal to reach - helps me understand something of the meaning of today's feast. If my Dad had kept holding on to the saddle of my cousin's bike I would never have learned to go on my own. If he had kept holding me while teaching me to swim I would have remained dependent on him.

If Jesus, the Risen Lord, had stayed with the Apostles they would have remained in Jerusalem and never have gone to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

For the next eight years after learning to ride a bike I cycled to school twice each day -  if it was raining I'd take the bus - coming home for lunch, getting about an hour's exercise in the process without calling it that. And in a very real way my Dad was always with me because he had enabled me to acquire a skill that in turn gave me a new freedom that brought with it new responsibilities and new possibilities. New possibilities and the responsibilities that go with them continue to arise in my life as a priest.

 

Perhaps the biggest influence of Dad on my life was his practice of going to an early Mass every working day. A carpenter, he spent all his working life on construction sites and became a highly respected general foreman and mentor of young workers, including architects. During my secondary school years I felt drawn by his example to go to daily Mass. He never suggested that I do this. It was his example that spoke to me. I've no doubt that this was part of God's preparation for me to become a missionary priest.

And in the life of the Church, as in the life of each individual, new situations with their challenges are constantly arising. The one thing that we can be certain of as disciples of Jesus carrying out the mission he has entrusted to the Church, whatever our particular part may be in that, is the truth of his final words before his Ascension, And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

He is with us always through his Holy Spirit whose coming we will celebrate on 24 May, Pentecost Sunday.

Antiphona ad introitum  Entrance Antiphon Acts 1:11

Viri Galilaei, quid admiramini aspicientes in caelum? Men of Galilee, why gaze in wonder at the heavens?

Quemadmodum vidistis eum ascendentem in caelum, ita veniet, alleluia, [alleluia, alleluia]. This Jesus whom you saw ascending into heaven will return as you saw him go, alleluia, [alleluia, alleluia].

Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year A

These readings are used in regions where the Ascension is observed on Ascension Thursday.

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: parts of  the USA)

Gospel John 17 1-11 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

Traditional Latin Mass

The Ascension of the Lord

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-14-2026 if necessary).

Lesson: Acts 1:1-11. Gospel: Mark 16:14-20.

The Ascension of Christ

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight (Acts 1:9; Lesson). 

Sunday After Ascension

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-17-2026 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Peter 4:7-11. Gospel: John 15:26-27; 16:1-4.

St Peter Preaching

Masolino da Panicale [Web Gallery of Art]

Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8; Epistle).

Sunday Reflections, 3rd Sunday of Easter, 19 April 2026

 

Supper at Emmaus

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:35; Gospel)..

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand)

Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, Scotland, India)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 24:13-35  (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

On the first day of the week, two of the disciples of Jesus were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognising him. And he said to them, ‘What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?’ And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?’ And he said to them, ‘What things?’ And they said to him, ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.’ And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going further, but they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, for it is towards evening and the day is now far spent.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognised him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’ And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the Eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Cliffview, Lancaster, Kentucky

Today's gospel reminds me of a 'casual' meeting during Lent of 1969. The previous September I had begun a three-year course in music at Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY, north of New York City. (In 1966 the trustees of the college, run by the Religious of the Sacred Heart, had dropped 'of the Sacred Heart' from the name of the school - a sign of things to come in the Church.) In 2024 it became Manhattanville University.

I was on my way to class one morning and met a student named Betty coming from class. We stopped for a brief chat. I asked her what she planned to do for the Easter vacation. She told me that she and a few other students were going to work in a parish in eastern Kentucky for the week. I had no pastoral obligations after the Holy Week ceremonies - I was one of the chaplains at the college while a student - and asked Betty if there was room for one more. There was.

We drove the 1,500 or so kms to Lancaster, Kentucky, one of four towns in a very large rural parish where there were only a handful of Catholics, where there was widespread poverty and the remnants of an anti-Catholicism that was based mainly on ignorance. The parish priest was Fr Ralph Beiting, then in his mid-40s, whom I mentioned last week. We met some college students from other parts of the USA.

Our work that week was not what you would call exciting. We spent most of our time cleaning out parish buildings, scrubbing and polishing floors. This was in preparation for summer programmes that included a Bible school for young people, summer camps from Monday to Friday in nearby Cliffview (see photo above) for children, boys one week, girls another, black and white children together at a time when there was very little social interaction between the two groups. There was house-to-house visitation in pairs, and similar activities in the other three towns in the parish and in the four counties where they were located.

Fr Ralph Beiting

1 January 1934 – 9 August 2012 [photo]

The six weeks I spent in Kentucky in the summer of 1969 is the only extended experience in my life that I would like to re-live, if that were possible. (A glorious winter’s day skiing in January of the same year in Toggenburg Ski Resort, near Syracuse, NY, my only time to try it, is the only short-term experience I’d love to re-live!) The Kentucky experience was one of discovery. I discovered that I had the ability to sit and listen to individuals. That is because a number of the college students I was working with, and one or two older persons, approached me and opened up to me. I had been totally unaware before that of this quality that others saw in me.

I also saw the different gifts that people have. Fr Beiting was a wonderful organiser, a man who inspired young people, who expected all the volunteers to attend our daily Mass. He responded to the spiritual and corporal needs of the people he served, his own people. He went preaching from town to town with seminarians to accompany him, setting up his microphone at a crossroads or other places where people might congregate. On one occasion he was driven out at gunpoint but showed up next day, not to preach, but to let the people know he was there. Eventually people saw that he was carrying on an old tradition in that part of the USA of travelling preachers, rather like Jesus himself. But the Protestant preachers seldom moved around anymore. Fr Beiting preached basic Christianity and was a 'man's man' in the best sense of that expression.

But if you wanted to talk about a problem, Fr Beiting wasn't the best person to sit and listen to you. Another priest I met was wonderful with children but found adolescents and young adults difficult to relate to. Each of us has our own specific gifts from God, all of which are needed. Fr Beiting made it possible for people to discover their gifts and use them in the service of others. 

This was a like a liberating revelation to me, a sense of realising what St Thérèse of Lisieux said about holiness: it is becoming what God wants us to be. It was for me something like the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

For a very long time after that summer 57 years ago I felt something like what one of the two disciples in today's gospel said: Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?

Another grace I experienced was the importance of friendship in our lives. I made some life-long friends that summer. In one instance God used me many years later to pull back one of those friends from suicide.

My 'casual' meeting with Betty on campus that Lenten morning wasn't, as I look back, the beginning of a conversion like that of Saul experiencing the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus. It was rather like the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, a growth in awareness of who I was as one called by God to the priesthood. And it was an experience of the joy of being a priest, a grace reinforced while working with joyful, dedicated priests that summer and for part of the following summer. And much of that joy came from the Lord through the generous, idealistic young people I was working with in Kentucky.

The road to Emmaus can be anywhere and the Lord can meet us through others we meet on that road. The two disciples who met Jesus, who invited him to dine with them, experienced the truth of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11).

Two Were Bound for Emmaus

Written by Bob Hurd, arranged by Craig Kingsbury

Sung by a choir of St Francis de Sales Parish, Ajax, Ontario, Canada

The song is based on today's gospel and on John 21

Traditional Latin Mass

Second Sunday After Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 04-19-2026 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Peter 2:21-25. Gospel: John 10:11-16.

The Good Shepherd

Early Italian Christian Painter [Web Gallery of Art]

Communion Antiphon (John 10:14)

I am the good Shepherd, alleluia, alleluia. I know My sheep and Mine know me, alleluia, alleluia.