Month: June 2026

Singing Among the Thorns

(2Kgs.4:8-11, 14-16; Rom.6:3-4, 8-11; Mt.10:37-42)

In Raphael’s painting The Madonna of the Goldfinch (1505), the Blessed Virgin Mary is sitting calmly with two little boys. John the Baptist is on the left and he’s showing Jesus a small goldfinch.

The colourful European goldfinch often features in Renaissance art.[i] Why? Because it symbolises the Passion of Christ and it teaches us about the life of the Christian disciple.

The goldfinch’s black, red and white colours reflect Christ’s suffering; the way it feeds on thorny thistles points to the crown of thorns; its gold stripes remind us that the ancients always associated gold with healing, and this bird sings.

In the Middle Ages, the goldfinch inspired the legend of a bird that watched Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary. Jesus’ crown of thorns distressed that bird, and as it tried to pluck the thorns out, a drop of Christ’s blood stained its face red.

This songbird, then, reminds us that beauty and suffering, innocence and cost, are natural companions.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me… Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.’

Jesus’ words sound harsh, but the goldfinch helps us understand what he’s saying. Jesus is essentially talking about costly love. He’s saying that just as the deepest love always involves some pain, so following him means letting the cross shape our lives. It means reordering our interests and affections so that our whole life centres on God.

This is what St Ignatius of Loyola did. After his leg was shattered in war, he spent his long recovery reading the lives of the saints and the Gospels. This taught him that his quest for honour and adventure was misguided.

He abandoned his worldly ambitions, sold his sword and fine clothes, and started living a simple life of prayer, penance, and priestly service. He was willing to sacrifice everything for Jesus Christ.

Discipleship isn’t about choosing suffering, though. It’s about choosing truth and faith over comfort and convenience, and accepting what follows. That’s why Jesus goes on to say: ‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’

Like the goldfinch that lives among the thorns and still sings happily, so a faithful disciple will find beauty and joy even in the toughest situations.

That’s what St. Maximilian Kolbe found when he voluntarily entered the brutal thorn‑scape of Auschwitz.  

After a prisoner escaped, the Nazi guards decided to punish ten men with death. When one condemned man cried out for his family, Maximilian stepped forward and offered to take his place. For weeks he and the other nine men were locked in a small, dark cell with no food or drink.

Other prisoners later reported that instead of the usual cries and shrieks, they heard songs and prayers. They heard the Rosary and hymns to Our Lady.

Maximilian had turned that horrid death cell into a prayer cell, and it became an oasis of love. [ii] Like the goldfinch, he did not avoid the thorns; he accepted them and his faith and love made that place a window of grace. And he shows us how beauty and song can persist even in the most awful situations.

Christian life isn’t lived in a thorn-free world. Families are complicated, faith can be demanding, and doing the right thing often costs more than we expect. Jesus understands this. But he also insists that a life lived honestly, even with pain, is fuller, richer and far more worthwhile than a life lived superficially.

That’s why he starts talking about hospitality: ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,’ he says, ‘whoever gives even a cup of cold water… will not lose their reward.’

In other words, the Christian life isn’t just about heroic sacrifice. It’s also about small, faithful acts done with great love, such as sharing a drink, offering encouragement and staying present when it’s easier to leave.

These are all signs of a life centred on Jesus.                

Today, our challenge is not that we love too little, but that our love is scattered, unfocussed and may be taking us nowhere.

Jesus is inviting us to place our lives in his hands; to boldly reach out and accept the fulfilment and joy that only he can give.

To live like the goldfinch.

That little bird reminds us that Christian hope is not naïve optimism.

It’s life that has learned how to sing among the thorns.

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[i] https://www.birdspot.co.uk/culture/the-goldfinch-in-art

[ii] https://newsletter.companionsofstanthony.org/newsletters/2018-fall/st-maximilian-kolbe-a-reflection/

Salmon Run

(Jer.20:10-13; Rom.5:12-15; Mt.10:26-33)

Every spring, countless salmon swim huge distances upstream to return to their birthplace.

It’s not an easy journey; it’s a gruelling pilgrimage as they swim against powerful currents, leaping up waterfalls, slipping past predators and climbing over any obstacles that block their way.

What drives them onward is an inner summons to go home. And it’s from this inward call that their courage emerges, as they risk everything for the next generation.

The salmon run is rather like the Christian life, for we’re all journeying towards a home that’s not finally of this world. There is a difference, though, in that our quest isn’t just for others. It’s also for ourselves.

Our call is to swim against the current of worldly culture and comfort, facing obstacles, frustrations, and sometimes even threats, from powerful forces.

Yet the Christian’s courage is based on purpose, for our vocation is to love, our mission is to bear fruit, and our hope is for an eternal home. Our small faithful acts, like an encouraging word, a forgiven insult, and a visit to the lonely, are the steps that take us ever closer to the life that God has planned for us.

And because we’re answering a divine call, our risk-taking is not foolishness but faithful obedience.

This is what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel. Like ‘sheep among wolves’, he sends his disciples out into a world that can be hostile. He doesn’t deny the possibility of rejection, slander or even bodily harm, but he does tell us not to fear those who can only harm the body but not the soul. Rather, he says, stand in awe of the One who created both body and soul and who still holds them in his power.

And he comforts us: just as the Father knows the sparrows, he has counted every hair on our heads. In other words, the God who calls us upstream is not distant; he knows us intimately. Understanding this frees us to do what we must, because we know we are loved, and that he’s always with us.

Through the ages, many saints have not only faithfully travelled this challenging path; they have also encouraged others in their own journey.

In Rome, St Philip Neri was a popular confessor. One day a young man came to him, feeling crushed by shame and convinced he could never change.

Philip listened, and then, smiling, he simply said, ‘Begin again’.

For months this man stumbled and failed, but each time he returned to Philip’s door he found the same warm welcome and patient counsel. Slowly the man changed; eventually he became a generous servant of the poor.

Philip’s repeated invitations to ‘begin again’ are like a person on a riverbank scooping up a weary salmon in their hands and setting it beyond the rocks. Saints don’t scold a tired swimmer out of the stream. They steady, they encourage, and help them try again.

In New York and Quebec, St. Kateri Tekakwitha lived a quiet life of faith at a time of great cultural dislocation and suffering. Every day she practised small acts of devotion, gentle care for her people, and courageous refusal when pressured to abandon her faith.

Like the salmon edging its way upstream, Kateri approached holiness in patient, ordinary steps. Her life teaches us that holiness is often the accumulation of small, faithful choices rather than one grand leap.

And in the Mediterranean, St Paul’s missionary journeys were full of storms, shipwrecks, beatings, and betrayal. He describes his life as being in perilous waters, and yet he never abandons his mission to spread the Gospel.

St Paul’s willingness to endure hardships for the sake of future generations of disciples is like the salmon that dies after spawning. He reminds us that our sacrifices can bear life beyond our sight and even our lifetime.

Like St. Philip who encouraged sinners to ‘Begin again,’ like St. Kateri refusing to abandon her faith, and like St Paul enduring great hardships for the sake of the Gospel, we are all summoned to keep swimming upstream.

And when the current is too strong, Jesus often sends a saintly hand to carry us past the rocks.

In his book The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton writes that any old dead thing can drift with the stream, but only a living thing can swim against it.

This is why we admire the salmon so much. It fights its way against the current for only one reason: to bring life. 

That, ultimately, is what we are all called to do, too.

As Jesus himself tells us: ‘I came that they may have life, and have it to the full’ (Jn.10:10).

An Open Door

(Ex.19:2-6; Rom.5:6-11; Mt.9:36-10:8)

Dorothy Day was a feisty, plain‑spoken woman, a journalist and Catholic convert.

In 1933, with her partner Peter Maurin, she opened a small kitchen in New York as a radical experiment in Christian care. People came for soup and left with changed lives.

One day, a reporter visited one of her first houses of hospitality. He expected to find quiet and orderly charity, but instead found an open door with people coming and going, food cooking, children laughing, others arguing, and a man dozing at the table.

At one point a bedraggled woman arrived, soaked and shivering. Someone gave her a blanket; another ladled soup. No-one passed judgment, for all were welcome, whatever their story. The door was always open.

Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker Movement grew to include a newspaper and 75 houses of hospitality, where anyone in need was offered a meal, a bed, and human dignity. Today there are over 240 such communities around the world.

Dorothy lived simply, loved fiercely, and always insisted on welcoming the poor before anyone else. She strongly believed that you love God just as much as the one you love least.

Her approach, she said, was ‘living from day to day, taking no thought for the morrow, seeing Christ in all who come to us, and trying literally to follow the Gospel.’ If the door to Jesus’ mercy is always open, she thought, then her door should remain open, too.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sees a crowd of people looking helpless and dejected, ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’ But it’s not just pity he has for them; it’s compassion. And compassion is recognising someone else’s pain, and then doing something about it.

So, Jesus commissions his disciples to help these people. He sends them with authority, but knows they can’t do it all on their own. That’s why he tells them to ‘Pray to the Lord of the harvest.’ They will need the Holy Spirit.

Someone else who boldly answered Christ’s call was St Benedict of Nursia (d.547), the father of Western monasticism who founded the monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. His Benedictine rule balances prayer, work and communal life, and has since guided religious communities all over the world.

St Benedict believed that the monastery door is a place of encounter with Jesus himself: ‘Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ,’ he said. For him, every open door is a sacramental threshold.

Under the discipline of ora et labora (prayer and work), he trained his monks to see ordinary tasks like washing dishes, tending fields and greeting travellers, as both acts of worship and opportunities for mercy and service.

Today, St Benedict reminds us that a consistently warm welcome delivered with genuine care is the essence of Christian mercy. It turns an ‘open door’ into a place of encounter with Jesus Christ.

St. Martin of Tours (d.397) also answered Christ’s call. One day, as a young Roman soldier in Gaul, he met a freezing beggar and gave him half of his cloak. That night, in a vision he saw Jesus wearing that half-cloak, and he realised that serving the poor means serving Christ.

He left the army, got baptised and dedicated his life to the Church, working to protect the poor and vulnerable. He established hospices and monasteries where travellers and the needy were always welcomed.

St Martin saw prayer and practical mercy as deeply intertwined, and regarded charity as ‘prayer in action’.

Dorothy Day, St. Benedict, and St. Martin understood Jesus’ concern for the helpless. Dorothy Day’s kitchen kept its door open to whoever knocked. Benedict’s Rule turned every guest‑door into an encounter with Christ. St Martin’s cloak reminds us that a single act of mercy can open a life to service. And all three show us how compassion moves from feeling to faithful action.

‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few,’ Jesus says. He’s calling us to join him in having real compassion for those who struggle.

Some years after Dorothy Day opened her first house of hospitality, a young man arrived at mealtime. He was a quiet man with rough hands and a face that knew all about shut doors. He sat down, ate quietly, and then, as the plates were cleared, stood and handed the volunteer a note. It simply said: ‘Thank you.’

He returned the next week, and the week after that, and before long he was helping in the kitchen himself – washing dishes, putting out chairs, and greeting newcomers.

What began as an open door and a single meal became a whole new life.

A Way of Life

(Deut.8:2-3,14-16; 1Cor.10:16-17; Jn.6:51-58)

In Fred Zinnemann’s film A Man for all Seasons (1966), there’s a dining room scene with a long table, polished silver and men sitting stiffly in their chairs. At the head of the table is Sir Thomas More, a quiet, well-respected man.

At first, they’re eating and talking politely, avoiding what’s really on their minds. Then a robust debate begins on loyalty and conscience: What should a man do when power demands him to compromise?

A young servant is then invited to sit down and give his opinion. The effect is instant: they all stop talking, and you can see in their faces that something has changed. In that moment, hospitality and truth meet over a simple meal.  

This scene shows how a simple meal can change people’s hearts – especially when truth is spoken with integrity, and all are treated with dignity.

In other words, meals don’t just fill us up; they form us as human beings.

Think, for a moment, of St Teresa of Calcutta and her Homes for the Dying. When someone was brought in – wretched, abandoned, and often filthy – St Teresa and her sisters received them warmly. They washed them gently, offered them a meal, and sat down with them at the table while they ate. Teresa treated each person as a cherished guest, honouring their humanity and dignity.

Those small, humble meals were never just about filling a stomach; they were acts of mercy that recognised Christ in the other. In that way, St Teresa revealed how table hospitality can itself be a kind of thanksgiving, an honouring of God present in our neighbour.

Today, on Corpus Christi Sunday, we come together to celebrate the Eucharist, which literally means ‘thanksgiving’. But we’re not here simply to remember a past meal. Rather, we’ve come to enter into a living gift, where Jesus gives us his Body and Blood so that we ourselves may be fed, forgiven, and sent.

Like the table in that film, the altar is a place where hospitality and truth meet, and the encounter changes us.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven,’ and he invites us into an encounter that’s both humble and life‑changing. We take him into our bodies, and we become what we receive.

The Eucharist shapes us, not just by ceremony but also by shared dependence and gratitude. And on this, two points can be made:

Firstly, thanksgiving names our dependence. In that film’s table scene, the invitation to the servant acknowledges that everyone at the table needs to be heard and that no-one is self‑sufficient. Eucharistic thanksgiving therefore is the Church’s way of saying, ‘we need this.’

In the same way, we admit that we don’t live by our own strength alone, for we need God’s mercy and nourishment. That honesty breaks our pride and it opens us up to God’s gift. Indeed, saying ‘Amen’ at Holy Communion is not just a formula; it’s publicly declaring: ‘Yes, I accept this gift; and I belong to this body.’

Secondly, thanksgiving sends us out into the world. The table in A Man for All Seasons shapes conscience. Thomas More’s faithful presence at table and his refusal to be bought or silenced, witnesses to others and calls them to integrity.

The Eucharist, too, does more than comfort; it shapes and commissions us.

In our second reading, Paul reminds us that the cup we bless is the blood of Christ, and the bread we break is the body of Christ. If we truly receive Christ’s Body and Blood, that reception must show itself in concrete acts, like feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and helping the lost.

Receiving grace without letting it form our choices is like taking nourishment and never moving – something that’s impossible for a healthy body.

So, here are three simple ways to let Eucharistic thanksgiving shape your life this week:

Firstly, turn your ordinary meals into small sacraments. Before you eat, name a gift you received that day. Such practices help make us thankful.

Secondly, let gratitude become generosity. If Jesus has fed you here, then pass it on. Find someone to serve this week: someone overlooked, lonely, or in need. Let your thanks be active.

And finally, prepare well for Communion by confessing what separates you from God and your neighbour, and come to the sacrament with a contrite and thankful heart. And when you say ‘Amen,’ mean it: ‘Yes, I receive’ and ‘Yes, I believe.’

St. Augustine reminds us that God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. When we receive the Body of Christ, we are drawn into that nearness and sent to reflect it to others.

The Eucharist therefore is the school of gratitude.

And thanksgiving is not just a feeling, but a way of life.