|
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 8 August 2010
Faith. The very word has a kind of religious sound to it. Something which belongs to the world of devotion and not to the world of hard facts. But actually, faith is something shared by many people both inside and outside the Church. Without faith, life as we know it would be almost impossible. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 2 August 2010
The Texan millionaire had been very specific about his funeral service. He had asked that he be buried at the wheel in his favourite pink Cadillac convertible, wearing his Stetson hat and a cigar in his mouth. They did just that. An enormous hole was dug and a crane lowered the convertible into the hole with the Texan at the wheel just as he had stipulated. One of the grave diggers leaned on his shovel and looked down at the car and its deceased owner. He whistled in amazement. ‘Man’ he said, ‘I call that living.’ Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 25 July 2010
It’s an odd picture of God if we think of him as someone who has to be persuaded, rather like the wheedling tactics of Abraham in our first reading (Genesis 18.20-22). This picture of God as open to bargaining seems rather odd to us. Surely, we think, God saw through Abraham? Well, yes. That is part of the meaning of the passage. It is laced with humour. We are meant to understand that all the time Abraham was trying his salami tactics, God saw through him.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 18 July 2010
Hospitality is one of the great gifts of humankind. To be able to welcome others into our homes, to share in conviviality - these things speak volumes about what it means to be human. In the ancient world, hospitality was especially important. Your family and your clan owed you nurture and protection. Beyond that, you were at the mercy of others, and to venture beyond your social network meant a great deal of trust - and vulnerability. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 11 July 2010
When God wanted to reveal himself to the world, he began by calling a particular people to be those who would be the first to receive his revelation. This Chosen People, the Jews, were led from slavery and given the Law, the Torah, as a standard to live by. This underlies our first reading from Deuteronomy, in which Moses reminds the people that the Law should be in their hearts and on their lips (30.14). Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 4 July 2010
The gospel today (Luke 10.1-9) is full of details which tell us much about how Jesus saw his ministry. The same details are important for us and the church today. Note first of all that he sends his disciples out in pairs. All of us need support, companionship, encouragement. Moreover, two minds conferring and consulting can usually see more clearly and decide more effectively than one. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 27 June 2010
There are all kinds of expressions that we use to indicate a fundamental and irrevocable choice. We say of people that they burned their bridges (or their boats). They nailed their colours to the mast, or crossed the Rubicon. These and other expressions tell us that there are times in life when there will be no going back. There are times when life will ask of us a resolute commitment, even if it combines both courage and fear. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 20 June 2010
Jesus asks his disciples Who do the crowds say I am? (Luke 9.18). After the feeding of the five thousand his name must have been on everybody’s lips. His preaching and teaching were making an impact. It is a hinge moment. Jesus prays deeply as he seeks to know the Father’s will. Soon, he will take the inner group of disciples up the mount of transfiguration for a time of more intense prayer.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 13 June 2010
We take part in a lifetime struggle to find a balance between law and grace. Without law our lives would be shapeless. Unless there were regulations there would be utter selfishness. But if we live by the law alone then we become lifeless, unimaginative, hidebound. For a fulfilled life we also need God’s gift of grace. Grace inspires us to live generously and creatively and above all lovingly. I think of it as being like the strings on a musical instrument like a violin. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 6 June 2010
The feast of Corpus Christi combines two elements: thanksgiving for the Eucharist itself, and also for the real presence of Christ among us made possible through the Eucharist. I suppose to outsiders the care and attention that Catholics give to the Mass must sometimes seem extraordinary. But it doing so we are being completely faithful to Jesus himself.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 30 May 2010
I know the leader of a company with offices in a dozen different countries. They work together very effectively. I once asked him how they managed to co-ordinate their work so effectively. "It’s easy" he said. "Every week we have a teleconference. We can see and speak to each other. Because everybody knows what everybody else is thinking we come to a common mind and put into action what we have decided."
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 23 May 2010
We use the words spirit, spiritual, Spirit so easily and frequently. But what could they mean? What is this thing that we call the spirit? The German theologian Karl Rahner once set out to trace where we can find evidence of the spirit. His answer: it is all around us. But some of his examples might surprise you. One of them, believe it or not, is boredom.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 16 May 2010
Some countries have wonderful citizenship ceremonies when their new citizens are sworn in. I have always been impressed by pictures I have seen of these ceremonies in the USA. One of the remarkable features is the cross-section of people who become new Americans: some young, some old, people from many races and backgrounds.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 9 May 2010
Most of the time we would like more peace. Yet we live in a world of tension. Even the closest of families sometimes have to deal with eruptions of anger. The most loving spouses can be at loggerheads. Friends and neighbours can fall out. On a larger scale we know of conflict and war in the world. In the Church itself we find disagreements which can be painful at times, and the media love to portray us as divided between conservative and liberal. Does this mean that we are on the wrong track?
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 25 April 2010
Every so often you read some account of Christianity by an author who claims that the Church got everything wrong. The story will go something like this: Jesus was a good man who preached a simple message of God’s love. But somehow the Church grew into a great big institution and it lost sight of the real message of Jesus.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 18 April 2010
The gospel we hear today, (John 21.1-14), is a beautifully crafted story. There is definitely an element of humour here. In the half-light of dawn, a figure stands on the beach. We know it is Jesus, but the disciples cannot yet see him clearly. He teases them a little: "Have you caught anything, friends?" Wearily, they say No. He suggests trying something different.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 11 April 2010
The little band of disciples met in an upper room in Jerusalem. We read that the doors were locked for fear of the Jews. But they were Jews themselves, so we ought to read this as fear of public opinion, and also fear of the unknown. Jesus had died on the cross. They were trying to digest the news brought by Mary Magdalene, Read More ...
|
Easter Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard
When that stone was rolled in front of the tomb of Jesus, it must have seemed as if it was slamming shut on everything Jesus and the disciples had hoped for. It must have seemed, for example, as if it brought to a close his project of renewing the People of God. We think of the twelve disciples as representing the twelve tribes of Israel, and as the forerunners of a whole new expansion of the People of God.
Read More ...
|
Good Friday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard
In the first few centuries of the Church, as thinkers were trying to understand the meaning of the cross, often they summed up their conclusions in one short phrase: ‘The uncrucified is the unhealed.’ They linked Christ on the cross to the healing of humankind.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 28 March
We have several expressions in English to describe the point where things start to accelerate and there is no looking back. You burn your bridges, or you cross the Rubicon, for example. Palm Sunday always seems to me to recall one of those moments. Jesus enters Jerusalem to public acclaim. This, he must surely know, will trigger decisive action against him and the disciples.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 21 March
There are many subtleties in the story of the woman caught in adultery, and they are important. There is also one big, clear message: the compassion of Jesus. The compassion he shows is in contrast to the harshness of the way the woman is treated. We read that they made her stand there 'in full view of everybody'. Jesus will have no part in this public humiliation. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 14 March 2010
Did you ever own a kaleidoscope as a child? If you did then you will know the wonder and pleasure that this simple toy can bring. You look through the lens and you find a bright multi-coloured pattern in which the elements have arranged themselves. You turn the kaleidoscope slightly, look again, and behold, Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 7 March 2010
Recently I was watching a film about the life of Jesus with some parishioners. The temptations were done particularly cleverly. The tempter appeared to Jesus with the suggestion, ‘Turn these stones into bread.’ But that was not all the tempter said. He went on to depict all the starving people the world. Imagine, he said to Jesus, imagine what you could do to feed these if you follow my instructions.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 28 February 2010
The reading from Genesis (15.5-12, 17-18) is ancient and mysterious. It describes some ritual that took place at the dawn of human memory, perhaps three thousand years or more ago. Its original meaning is far from certain, but two things seem clear: it is about the gift of children, and the gift of land.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Father Terry Tastard - 14 February 2010
When Biblical scholars look at the Beatitudes (Luke 6.17, 20-26) they are struck by the similarity between Jesus and Moses. Moses assembled the Hebrew people and delivered the Law, summarised in what we now call the Ten Commandments. This became a way of life for the people. Jesus, too summons his flock around them, not twelve tribes this time but twelve Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 7 February 2010
What would it be like to have an overwhelming experience of the presence of God? Most Christians must have wondered about this. There are times when we long for God to show himself, for a dramatic revelation which would convince others and for that matter convince ourselves. Life, we think, would be so much easier. But would it?
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 24 January 2010
In our first reading (Nehemiah 8) what we see is nothing less than a ceremony of national repentance. The Hebrew people have gone through the terrible experience of the fall of Jerusalem and exile to Babylon. Now, around the year 538 BC they are back in the Holy Land, where they are literally and figuratively picking up the pieces. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 10 January 2010
The newspapers this week carried a photograph of Korean children doing physical exercises in the snow. They were shirtless, despite the freezing cold. The caption said that their parents paid for them to do this course in order to give them mental and physical stamina. I can’t see it catching on in suburban London.
Read More ...
|
Father Terry Tastard - Feast of the Epiphany
The gospel about the coming of the wise men tells us that after they had paid homage to the infant Christ, they returned to their own country by a different way (Matthew 2.1-12). As we all know, they did this to avoid Herod's duplicity and paranoia. Read More ...
|
Christmas meditation with Father Terry Tastard
Of all the literature about Christmas, perhaps the best-loved is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The story moves forward through the encounter of Scrooge with three ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. As he journeys through time, Scrooge’s legendary meanness is challenged, and he undergoes a profound change of heart. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 20 December 2009
In the final trimester of a woman's pregnancy, the life quickens within her. The baby kicks and makes its presence felt in many ways. Some mothers will tell you that near the time of birth, their baby seems to respond to external sounds. So it makes perfect sense to read in the gospel today that the infant John Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 6 December 2009
In the reading today from the gospel of St Luke (3.1-6), the writer is very keen to give us the place and time of his narrative. The events he tells us about are carefully located, especially through a stream of names. It was during their time that John the Baptist received his vocation to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 28 November 2009
What do stockbrokers and fortune-tellers have in common? The answer, of course, is that they both try to predict the future.
Stockbrokers, financial analysts and many economists all try to discern the future development of commerce, trade and industry. Yet these professionals still get taken by surprise.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 22 November 2009
If you live in Britain then you live in a kingdom, and the signs are discreet, but they are everywhere. The sign is a crown. It is there on the mailboxes and postage stamps. It is to be found in the courts of justice and on the uniforms of the armed services. There is a crowned head on the coins and notes that we carry in our purses and wallets.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 15 November 2009
I open my paper this morning and find an advert for another disaster film. It is called 2012 and the advert seems to show skyscrapers toppling into an earthquake chasm. Every few years seems to bring a new film, with the world ending by nuclear holocaust, or ice and snow, or earthquake, or some other terrible cataclysmic event.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 8 November 2009
With today’s Gospel (Mark 12.38-44) there is the option of omitting the first paragraph, and you can see why. This paragraph makes clergy embarrassed, because it might apply to them, with its description of self-important religious functionaries wearing special robes. Well, it does apply to them – but it applies to lawyers also, because the scribes mentioned by Jesus also functioned as lawyers and judges. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 8 November 2009
With today’s Gospel (Matt. 12.38-44) there is the option of omitting the first paragraph, and you can see why. This paragraph makes clergy embarrassed, because it might apply to them, with its description of self-important religious functionaries wearing special robes. Well, it does apply to them – but it applies to lawyers also, because the scribes mentioned by Jesus also functioned as lawyers and judges. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 25 October 2009
Most parishes have a few parishioners who are blind or deaf to some degree. I sometimes wonder how they feel about biblical references to such handicaps. Blindness is often used in scripture as an image for those who refuse to believe. Similarly, those who will not listen to the message of God are said to be deaf.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 18 October 2009
Isn't it funny how when we think about researching our family trees, there's often the sneaking hope that we will discover we are descended from royalty, a famous writer perhaps or a notorious pirate. We don't picture our ancestors as simple peasants walking behind a horse-drawn plough, or servants emptying bed-pans in a Victorian country house. Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 11 October 2009
There is something enormously moving about the young man who runs up to Jesus (Mk 10.17-30). In fact, let’s begin with that fact: he runs to seize this chance of meeting Christ. This is someone who is genuinely eager to learn. Second, this is a seeker: What must I do? he asks. You can almost sense the energy in him.
Read More ...
|
Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 4 October 2009
The readings this weekend are both challenging and beautiful at the same time, and it is important that we hold them together. In Genesis 2.18-24 we get one of the creation stories. The man beholds the woman and exclaims that she is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. The point of the story is not so much to explain how the two genders came to be. Read More ...
|
SUNDAY REFLECTION WITH FR TERRY TASTARD - 21 September 2009
The twentieth century is now behind us. What horrors it contained. The First World War. The Second World War. The Holocaust. Apartheid. The Siege of Sarajevo. The Rwanda massacres. It was a century of progress and also of callous inhumanity. We tend to focus on the good and on the progress. The horror side of it is too ghastly to contemplate. But I have been made to think again by the readings for this weekend and by the parish book club. Read More ...
|
SUNDAY REFLECTION WITH FR TERRY TASTARD - 13 September 2009
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor who died at the hands of the Nazis in 1945. He had been involved in a plot to kill Hitler. Before then, he had been part of a movement which sought to protect the Protestant Church from coming under the control of the state. He had to live with suspicion, hardship and criticism. Read More ...
|
26th July - Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard
This week we had the funeral of a well-known and respected member of the congregation who hailed from Dominica in the Caribbean. He had been a founder member of the Dominican Association in London. The Association was contacted from Dominica and its help was sought for a handicapped boy.
Read More ...
|
19 July 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
I remember seeing on TV a true story from World War II that moved me deeply. In 1940 a German soldier stationed in Normandy had fallen in love with a local French girl. He loved her dearly, and always behaved honourably towards her.
Read More ...
|
Sunday 12 July - Fr Terry Tastard
No one likes to be vulnerable. We have erected careful systems to make sure that we are not vulnerable. As individuals, we take out insurance policies. As nations, we devise social security schemes. Or to give a different type of example, we invest in security systems for our homes and offices; Read More ...
|
5 July 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
On the second reading: 2 Corinthians 12.7-10 There are two spiritual conditions which make it very difficult for the grace of God to help us. One is self-pity. The other is self-sufficiency. Self-pity (which is different from real suffering) blows everything out of proportion, Read More ...
|
28 June 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
Peter was an impulsive man. We know this well. This was the man who, when Jesus was being arrested, began swinging his sword around and cut off someone's ear. He would believe that he could walk on the sea like Jesus and then panic and sin Read More ...
|
21 June 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
Two of the readings today tell us how God limited the power of the sea (Job 38.1& 8-11; Mk 4.35-41). In ancient times mankind knew how powerful - and how unpredictable - the sea could be. The sea gives us life, and encourages travel and transport. But it is also a potential source of great destruction.
Read More ...
|
14 June 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
In the Solemnity of Corpus Christi we celebrate the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, under the forms of bread and wine. This means so much to us as Catholics, because it tells us that in a special way Christ is to be found among his people when they gather at the altar. Read More ...
|
7 June 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
In its earliest centuries, as the Church sought to understand God more fully, it came to understand that God is three persons in one. But let's remember that by 'the Church' we mean much more than an organisation or a hierarchy. We mean a living body of people. Read More ...
|
31 May 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
Increasingly these days I seem to meet people who tell me that they are spiritual, but not very religious. What do they mean? I take it that by ‘spiritual’ they mean that they have ideals that Read More ...
|
24 May 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
It is interesting how the ordinary English that we use, speaks the language of ascension. If we find ourselves encouraged by the words of another person, we might say that we have been uplifted. If we are going through a difficult patch we try to rise above our troubles, Read More ...
|
17 May 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
The word love resounds through the gospel today (John 15.9-17). And with it, Jesus focuses on a form of love that is often underestimated and not taken seriously enough: friendship. In John 15.15, we find Jesus saying to the disciples that from now on he will call them friends. They are his friends. And, since we are the disciples of Jesus today, we are his friends too. He is our divine Friend.
Read More ...
|
10 May 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard writes:
In this ecological age there is something about the image of the vine (John 15.1-8) that speaks powerfully to us. We are the branches, splaying out from the main trunk. But the same sap courses through the whole of the vine, bringing life and nourishment wherever it goes. Read More ...
|
3 May 2009 - Fr Terry Tastard
In today's Gospel reading (John 10.11-18) Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd. How appropriate, then, that the Church invites us today to think about vocation. Everybody is called to Christian living. Read More ...
|
|
|
