Author: Simon Sleeman

Fr. Fintan Lyons: The gospel passage today is about Jesus sending out 70 others (or 72 in some manuscripts) ahead of him to preach the coming of the kingdom, in areas where he himself intended to go. ‘Others’ in the text refers to the previous chapter when Jesus sent the twelve apostles out on a similar mission, a small number sent out among the local Jewish villages. Since in those times there were thought to be just 70 nations in the world, some commentators have seen in the number 70 an indication of Luke’s view, throughout his gospel, that the message was for all nations, salvation was for all the world. 

While the passage we have heard refers to Jesus’ lifetime on earth, we can transpose it to our day in order to reflect on the task of today’s church, the preaching of the gospel. What does the form it took at the time of the seventy say about the Church’s task today?

In the gospel passage these men are being sent out ahead of him into what may well prove hostile territory. They are told to travel light, not to get involved in discussions on the road, to check on people’s reaction to them, to see if their greeting of peace will be accepted. But where accepted they, are to cure the sick, cast out demons and say that the kingdom of God is at hand. 

Proclaim peace, they are told, and show you are not afraid of rejection by shaking the dust off your feet in the best Jewish fashion. And it worked; they came back rejoicing, so thrilled, it seems, by having cast out demons, that there is no mention of people accepting their message or that they prayed over people and healed illnesses.  

Turning to today’s task of proclaiming the gospel, there is this difference, of course: the seventy went out to proclaim the coming of God’s reign before the death and resurrection of Christ; but they were given basic training that could apply to the church’s mission today; don’t be distracted – stay on message; don’t do it for gain – hospitality can be tempting.

Today, the Church cannot shake off the dust of an unbelieving world, but must stay on message by proclaiming everywhere the resurrection of Christ. That was of course what the first generation did. Both Peter and Paul explained to the Jews of their day that Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophecies, and Paul went on to bring the same message to the Gentile world. That world was not irreligious, it had its gods; to proclaim the risen Jesus was to challenge a religion that worshipped divinised Roman emperors. Hence the fate of both Peter and Paul, whose feast was a week ago.

But the church was given its freedom by the fourth century emperor, Constantine, and the Christian era began. It had its ups and downs, but it is only in recent times that what was the heartland of Christianity, Europe, began to be considered no longer rightly described as Christian, and the need to evangelise Europe became one of the preoccupations of the late Pope Benedict XVI. 

So the time was ripe for the appearance of the unique Pope Francis, and the joy of his evangelising vision, now shared by the missionary Pope Leo, whose first public words echoed the risen Lord: ‘Peace be with you.’ We look now to Pope Leo for guidance in order to recognise what we as church need to be convinced about and aspire to – here in Ireland we are quite European. For example, can the days of Ireland’s great contribution to the missions through the work of clergy and religious return? 

Vocations will come only if the church is healthy, by which I mean there is need for leaders to emerge from the body of believers as a result of the synodal process, a need for centres of church life that excel  – even if that has consequences for parish structures – and for monasteries too. Be a centre of excellence or perish.  

In that scenario, some features of church life today need not reflect what is described in the gospel: reliance on that early charismatic healing, for example, because over the centuries Christianity gave rise to the medical marvels we take for granted. Yet miracles should not be excluded because the church can draw on the treasury of the saints’ lives. Today, many mental health issues, which sufferers themselves describe as demons, are got rid of through advances in psychiatric medicine.  

But it has been believed since the time of the earliest philosophers that there is something of the demonic in all human institutions, which theology today calls, perhaps inadequately, ‘social sin’. This demonic factor leads to corruption and rivalry and aggression of one nation against another. At a lesser level it gives rise to social upheavals, racism, intolerance and disturbances which governments struggle to cope with by legislation. How this demonic factor is related to the devil, which the church teaches is real, is not quite clear, but it’s worth remembering what Pope Francis wrote in his 2013 autobiographical dialogue with his Rabbi friend: ‘With the prince of this world you can’t have dialogue. Let this be clear’. 

What is certainly clear is that there is need for the spiritual power of a renewed church to overcome the evils of today’s world. 

Such renewal is possible, but it requires that each of us be part of it, by firm belief and daily awareness that the Lord is truly risen – not just a verbal acclamation at Easter – and by living in accordance with that belief, in season and out of season, thereby uniting ourselves with the original witnesses, Peter and Paul. 

 

Luke Macnamara: Today we interrupt the rhythm of Ordinary Time to celebrate a great feast—the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. Though every Sunday is a celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection, this solemnity takes precedence, reminding us of the two great pillars of the Church, whose lives and witness shaped our faith from the beginning.

Peter and Paul are remembered together from the earliest days of Christianity, even though they were never a missionary pair. In fact, the New Testament records only two meetings between them—both in Jerusalem, and over a span of 14 years. So why do we celebrate them together?

On the surface, they couldn’t be more different.

Peter—originally Simon—is a fisherman from the village of Bethsaida on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. He’s impetuous, passionate, often the first to speak and act, and just as often the first to stumble. He tries to walk on water, only to sink. He vows to stay by Jesus’ side, only to deny him three times. Yet Jesus calls him anyway.

Paul—originally Saul—is from Tarsus, a cultured and significant city in the Roman Empire. He’s educated, well-off, a Roman citizen, and a devout Pharisee. He zealously persecutes the early Christians, even overseeing the stoning of Stephen. And yet, Jesus calls him too.

Two men, so different in background and temperament, are united by one thing: their encounter with the risen Christ.

Peter meets Jesus while casting his nets. Paul meets him on the road to Damascus, blinded by a light from heaven. Both undergo deep transformation. Both continue to encounter Jesus in their lives—in their mission, their suffering, and their witness.

Peter’s journey is marked by Jesus’ relentless love and mercy. When Peter fails, Jesus reaches out. After the Resurrection, Jesus doesn’t reject Peter but shares a meal, offers peace, and asks three times: “Do you love me?”—allowing Peter to affirm the love he once denied. Even Peter’s imprisonment becomes a sign of Easter, as an angel rescues him during Passover, echoing the Exodus and pointing to new life.

Paul’s journey, too, is shaped by the power of the Resurrection. Temporarily blinded, he comes to see more clearly than ever. His entire ministry echoes the life of Jesus: preaching, healing, suffering, rising again. Time after time, Paul is delivered—from prison, shipwreck, stoning. His life becomes a living testimony to the risen Christ at work in him.

So why do we celebrate Peter and Paul together?

Because despite their differences, they are united in what matters most: they have seen the Lord. They have experienced his mercy. They have been transformed by his love. And they have dedicated their lives to proclaiming that love, even to the point of death.

Today, we are invited to reflect on that same encounter.

Jesus once asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered from his heart. So did Paul. Now the question is ours.

Who do you say that Jesus is?

Look at your life. Reflect on where Christ has met you—in your weakness, in your strength, in your failures, in your growth. Only then can we, like Peter and Paul, give an answer not from a textbook, but from experience—an answer born of grace.

 

Abbot Christopher Dillon: We have received three very different scenes from Holy Scripture to celebrate this extraordinary feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Melchizedeck, that mysterious figure, blessing Abraham, “brought bread and wine”, we are told.

St Paul describes the scene at the Last Supper, where Jesus identifies the bread and the wine as his body and his blood in an action which we are to re-enact in his memory. And St Luke presents us with the miraculous multiplication of loaves to feed the thousands who were hanging on his words, reflecting, perhaps, the miracle of the sacrament and the generosity of its availability to all comers. 

But, “Why” you might ask, “do we need a special feast to celebrate the Eucharist, when we can celebrate it almost every day of the year?” We have just completed our celebration of Easter with Pentecost. And we followed that with the meditation on the mystery of God as the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit. Today we review the wonder of Jesus Christ’s gift to us of himself under the appearance of bread and wine. And, at the end of this week, the Church will celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a kind of summing up of the whole reality of God’s unlimited love for us and for all creation. 

Love is what it is all about; God’s love for us, so vast in its implications that it needs to be expressed from various different angles, for us to begin to understand it and to appreciate its gracious generosity. This annual review of these feasts offers us the opportunity of gaining an ever better and deeper insight into the mystery and its marvels. 

Today’s feast expresses the totality of God’s gift of self to us, his creatures, but also his beloved adopted children. Jesus gives us his very life as expressed in his body and blood, so that in this sharing of himself, we may become one with him and so be loved by the Father as the Father loves him as the Son. This is an absoluteness of intimacy which is peculiar to this sacrament and it both invites and evokes a response of astonished gratitude on our part. At the same time, it hints at the mysterious future reality which beckons at the end of this life, when we are promised, like the Good Thief, that we shall be with Jesus in Paradise, sharing God’s life, living God’s joy for all eternity. 

 More words will add nothing; we need only to reflect in silent and wondering gratitude and behave ourselves accordingly. In so doing, we will make our essential contribution to spreading God’s peace in our troubled world.

Fr. Jarek Kurek OSB: This year feels so much under the shadow of the 2025 Jubilee Year, with all our travelling to Rome, going through the Holy Door and so on.

But it should not escape our notice that it is also 1700 years after a very important council which took place in Nicaea. This was a very significant moment in the history of the Church, and so it is not by chance that this place has been chosen by our new Pope, Leo XIV, as the destination of his first papal visit.

What was the Nicaea about? 318 bishops from all around gathered to discuss the most fundamental issues of the Christian doctrine. The most lasting legacy of the assembly is what we commonly know as the Nicene Creed, the foundational statement of our faith in God as Trinity, which, with some additions, we proclaim so often in our churches.

In 325 Nicaea, which is situated in what is now the north-western part of Turkey, was a part of the Christian empire. But when Pope Leo goes there in November, he will visit a Muslim country. 

I do think it’s becoming more and more essential that we grasp the dynamics of the Christian-Muslim interreligious context. So this morning I would like us to look at the Most Holy Trinity, this key element of our belief that we are celebrating today within this frame, through the lens of a certain Benedictine abbot, called Peter the Venerable.

Why him? Because this French abbot realised, and we are talking about the 12th century, that there was an urgent need to reach out to the Muslim world, to get to know about their beliefs. So he commissioned the first translation of the Quran into Latin and also composed very important works about Islam, which includes addressing the Muslim believers themselves. 

In his dialogue with the world of Islam, he was rather outspoken, to put it mildly. And the idea that mattered to him most was precisely the concept of God as Trinity, distinctively missing in the doctrine of the Muslim faith. 

That was the first thing he dwelt upon, clearly very important to his penetrating mind. 

 

Now the question: do we ever reflect upon this great mystery, the mystery of the Trinity in God?

Sadly, as one contemporary theologian noted, there is nowadays a tendency to regard all the mysteries as mysterious, obscure, beyond our comprehension. So also the Trinitarian mystery has been relegated to the list of objects and concepts considered virtually useless for a practical dimension of our Christian life. This doesn’t help at all.

But how about the idea that the Trinity shouldn’t be considered only as the theoretical foundation stone of Christianity, a relic of the dim and distant past, but become the practical, concrete, and existential basis of our Christian life today? 

It is up to us, each of us attending this liturgy to make a choice. Am I interested in getting to know the deeper meaning of this mystery? Do I want to learn the truth about Trinity, as much as I can? Do I want learn more about God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit?

If you say yes to it, why not pay a special attention to it today while pronouncing the Creed, while it is sung by our congregation in a few minutes’ time? Why not take it up again at home, trying to penetrate the meaning of the words and their significance? 

In doing so, we will be well advised to take the powerful suggestion of Peter the Venerable given at the time to the Muslim brothers? To him the true knowledge of God should never be neglected. It must be investigated, debated and examined until the one who does not grasp it understands it.

Blessed Peter the Venerable was full of holy audacity in his attempt to penetrate the essence of God who is Trinity. May it become so also with us, may we strive to deepen our understanding of this mystery in the belief that the more we try to get it, the more it will be revealed to us, by God. 

Believe in the message of today’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit will declare those things to you.

 

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman: Today is red letter day. The Holy Spirit is moving through the airwaves. You could be the person needed for a next move in plans for the universe. Each of us has been fitted with a connecting link inside our identikit. It is important to take time to look around inside yourself and find the switch; Especially if you are making life-changing decisions or sitting important exams; The help-line is there if you are humble enough to use it.

There are two ways of living in this world: on your own or in the company of those who made us. The word ‘company’ comes from the Latin ‘cum pane’ meaning ‘with bread’ – Panis Angelicus – we who eat the bread of life together are companions. Companions with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Companions with all those who have left us and who make up the company of the saints in heaven. They are all around us here this morning, we only have to reach out and touch them with our love.

The Holy Spirit is our Sat-Nav on this journey through life. The signals are often silent and always discrete. We have to listen carefully and stay awake. There is no attempt to force us or to impose. The invitation is private, privy sealed and personal. There is total respect for your free will and mine. It is always your choice, my choice. So, my advice is this: plug in; turn on; and do what you’re told. That, for me, is the recipe for happy, exciting, and meaningful life. 

‘Today, if you should hear this voice – harden not your heart.’

Fr. Simon Sleeman: A friend gave me some advice when I told him I was preaching at the Parents Day Mass. ‘Good luck with that’ he said….’I know you have a great message, a message of peace, of freedom and living without fear but, but your congregation will  have other things on their minds… BBQ’s and bacon, sunshine and showers, music and sports, prizes and awards. Here’s what you do.’ Make your introduction concise, the ending abrupt with nothing in between.” So here goes…

We are here on assignment. The Christian assignment is not about getting more, it is not about doing more or even knowing more.It is about ‘becoming more’. Bearing fruit. Fruit that will last. Growing up into the full stature of Christ.

‘Becoming more’ is not getting bigger – Pliny the elder said that the Romans when they couldn’t make a building beautiful, made it bigger. ‘Becoming more’ is not bulking up with steroids or weights.  It is not even becoming nicer… ‘Becoming more’ is, ‘growth in the sense of the other’ – be that other my neighbour, or my God. Space for the other.

Before your mind takes you down the rabbit hole of ‘do-it-yourself becoming’, or asking yourself, ‘how can I get this done with ‘just one click’?  know that this growth is the work of the Holy Spirit of God, the Divine Artist who teaches you everything – an almost impossible proposition to hear, convinced as we are, that we can self-engineer anything we want or desire.

Our assignment is to cultivate that delicate instinct that responds to the slightest movement of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives leading us to life… and then hold onto your hats.

Fr. Anthony Keane: In today’s gospel, which gives us the farewell discourses of Jesus,  dearest brothers and sisters, we are confronted with the mysteries of Life and Death. There is the horror of betrayal  even by one who shared his table – Jesus was deeply disturbed and declared:  ‘one of you is going to betray me’, and there are the chilling words of the text: As soon as Judas had taken the piece of bread he went out.  It was night.

Lest we be too afraid, we also read:  and light shines in the darkness of that night, and the darkness could not overpower it.  And of divine Wisdom:  compared with light she takes first place for light must yield to night, but against Wisdom evil cannot prevail.Despite the murderous threat of the Jewish establishment and the weighty Roman Empire, to which is added the treachery from among one’s own,  despite all of this horror,  Jesus says:‘Now has the Son of man been glorified’                                          

– Glorified because the life of the Giver of Life has been confronted, existentially threatened and, thereby,  gloriously revealed in all its power of  love  which overcomes death itself.

And in this power, ever ancient and ever new, we receive a new commandment:  Love one another.  This comes naturally, supernaturally,  to us when we see the wonders that God works.   For,  Wisdom, unchanging,  renews the world, and generation after generation, passing into holy souls, makes them into God’s friends and prophets.                           

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman: It is interesting how the liturgy provides readings for special occasions. Next Wednesday the conclave begins to elect a new Pope. The Gospel this morning is about St Peter, the one chosen by Jesus to head up his team of disciples, to be the rock on which Christianity is founded. It would have been difficult to choose a less likely candidate. ‘I will never leave you, I am ready to die for you, you can definitely count on me!’ His oaths of loyalty are a penny a dozen: all blow and no go!

 Jesus is patiently realistic: ‘Before the cock crows tomorrow morning, he tells his over zealous disciple, ‘you will have denied me three times.’

There are only two scenes in the New Testament where a burning charcoal fire provides the setting. Here on the beach, after the miraculous catch of fish, where Jesus is waiting to meet both Peter and ourselves. The last time we sat warming ourselves beside a charcoal fire ‘A servant girl saw us, looked closely at us and said, “This person was a follower of Jesus.” And we all stood up with Peter and denied it. “Woman, we said, “I don’t know him; I know nothing about him.”  A little later someone said, “You must be one of them.”

And about an hour later another insisted, “This guy was certainly with him, his accent betrays him.” And Peter, like the rest of us, began to curse and swear saying “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”  And as he said it, a cock crowed. The charcoal fire kept burning and Jesus turned and looked at us straight in the eye. And Peter remembered the words he had spoken to him: “Before the cock crows, you will have disowned me three times.”  And Peter went outside and wept bitterly.

Here, today, in front of a similar charcoal fire, Jesus asks Peter three times ‘do you love me’ and Peter is offended by his asking him three times. But both Jesus and the charcoal fire are making a point. If you deny me three times, you must tell me three times that you love me. Not like Judas who hanged himself after his terrible betrayal, we are invited to say how sorry we are and that, in spite of everything, our weakness, our cowardice, our treachery, we really do love him. The charcoal fire is yet one more symbol of God’s burning love, it stands like the paschal candle here as a reminder that whatever we do, however we fail, we must never give up on God’s love for us. 

On Wednesday next, 133 cardinals will assemble in conclave to vote for the next pope, a new Peter. 108 of these electors [that is 80%) were appointed cardinals by Pope Francis. Was he shortening the odds or, maybe, increasing the oddballs? No one can say who will eventually be chosen. In Italy it is forbidden by law to place bets on the result. If you want to cash in, you have to access international aps such as Ladbrokes or Paddy Power. It would be foolish to predict. All we do know is that, by the end of next week, someone will have become a household name, an international celebrity and that person, whoever they may be, no matter how incompetent, how pathetic, how foolish they may have been in the past; that person will receive from that moment on, the guidance and the courage they need to do whatever the Holy Spirit has arranged for them to do. Such a process will have happened seven times during my lifetime and in each case I have to take my hat off to the Holy Spirit because, for the most part, they have been a credit to him or her, certainly in comparison with other internationally elected leaders during that time span. 

And why is this so? Because that fire of love is still burning on the beach by the waters of the Sea of Galilee.   Our God is a blazing fire; the Trinity is iron, coal and burning heat; the axis of the universe; what makes each of us and all of us complete. The three sang with one voice from the heart of the fire: blessed be God, alleluia.